The Earling Possession

In the late summer of 1928, in the small farming community of Earling, Iowa, a woman known publicly by the pseudonym Anna Ecklund was carried into a Franciscan convent to undergo what would become the longest and most thoroughly documented exorcism in American history. For twenty-three days, the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church were pitted against forces that the participants believed to be genuinely demonic, producing phenomena so extreme that they strained the boundaries of what witnesses thought possible. The woman levitated. Her body swelled grotesquely. She spoke in languages she had never learned. She vomited quantities of foul material that seemed impossible for a human body to contain. The case was witnessed by multiple nuns, priests, and medical observers, documented in extraordinary detail, and later published in a pamphlet that brought the story to international attention. The Earling possession remains one of the most compelling and disturbing cases in the history of American demonology, a confrontation between faith and darkness that unfolded in the most unlikely of settings.

The Woman Called Anna Ecklund

The true identity of the woman at the centre of the Earling case was carefully guarded during her lifetime, and she was referred to in all published accounts by the pseudonym Anna Ecklund. Her real name was Emma Schmidt, though even this identification has been the subject of some scholarly debate. What is known with certainty is that she was born around 1882 in the upper Midwest, raised in a devoutly Catholic family, and that her troubles began at an early age.

According to the accounts compiled by Father Theophilus Riesinger, the priest who performed the exorcism, Emma first exhibited signs of what the Church would classify as possession at the age of fourteen. The nature of these early manifestations was not described in great detail, but they were sufficiently alarming to prompt her family to seek the help of the Church. An initial exorcism was performed, apparently with some success, as the girl’s symptoms subsided and she was able to resume something approaching a normal life.

However, the relief was temporary. Over the following decades, Emma’s condition deteriorated. She developed an intense aversion to sacred objects, churches, and religious practices—all classic indicators of possession according to Catholic demonology. She could not bear to be in the presence of blessed items. The sound of prayers caused her physical distress. She reportedly possessed knowledge of events and facts that she could not have acquired through normal means, including awareness of the hidden sins of people around her. She also displayed episodes of extraordinary physical strength and violent behaviour that were wildly inconsistent with her usual mild and retiring disposition.

By 1928, when Emma was forty-six years old, her condition had become unmanageable. The demons—for that is how the Church understood her affliction—had reasserted themselves with a vengeance that eclipsed anything she had experienced before. She was tormented, unable to function, and desperate for the definitive help that decades of prayer and minor rituals had failed to provide. It was at this point that Father Theophilus Riesinger determined that a formal, full-scale exorcism was necessary, and he began making arrangements for the ritual that would become the most famous in American Catholic history.

Father Theophilus Riesinger

The priest who took on the formidable task of confronting the demons within Emma Schmidt was no ordinary clergyman. Father Theophilus Riesinger was a Capuchin monk of German descent who had devoted much of his priestly career to the study and practice of exorcism. He was regarded as one of the most experienced exorcists in the American Catholic Church, having performed the rite on numerous occasions before the Earling case brought him to wider attention.

Riesinger was a man of absolute conviction. He had no doubt about the reality of demonic possession, viewing it as a spiritual fact documented throughout the history of the Church and supported by centuries of theological scholarship. At the same time, he was not credulous. He understood the importance of ruling out natural explanations—mental illness, epilepsy, fraud—before concluding that a case was genuinely supernatural. He had examined Emma Schmidt on multiple occasions over the years and was satisfied that her condition could not be accounted for by any medical diagnosis available at the time.

The decision to conduct the exorcism in Earling was driven by practical considerations. Riesinger wanted a location that was isolated from public attention, where the ritual could be performed without interference from the curious or the hostile. He also wanted a community of religious women who could assist with the physical care of the possessed woman during what he anticipated would be a prolonged ordeal. The Franciscan convent in Earling, a small and remote community in rural Iowa, met both requirements. The convent’s Mother Superior, known in accounts as Mother Steigman, agreed to host the exorcism despite her natural apprehensions about what it might entail.

The Preparation

Before the exorcism could begin, considerable preparation was required, both spiritual and practical. The room in the convent that was designated for the ritual was blessed and furnished with crucifixes, holy water, and other sacred objects. Restraints were prepared for Emma, as the physical violence of possession could pose a danger to both the possessed and those around her. The nuns who would assist were briefed on what to expect—though nothing could truly have prepared them for the reality.

Emma herself was brought to the convent in a state of considerable distress. Her journey to Earling was itself marked by strange occurrences. According to witnesses, the car in which she was being transported experienced mechanical difficulties for which no cause could be found, as if some force were attempting to prevent her from reaching the place where the exorcism would occur. Upon her arrival at the convent, Emma became increasingly agitated, and her behaviour deteriorated rapidly, as though the demons within her sensed what was about to happen and were preparing their resistance.

Father Riesinger began the exorcism using the Rituale Romanum, the official rite of the Catholic Church for the expulsion of demons. The ritual is a formidable liturgical text, combining prayers, commands, invocations of divine authority, and the repeated use of sacred names and objects to confront and ultimately compel demonic entities to depart from the possessed. In its full form, the rite can take hours to perform, and in cases of severe possession, it may need to be repeated over the course of days or even weeks. No one involved in the Earling case anticipated that it would take twenty-three days.

The Twenty-Three Days

What unfolded in the convent room over the following three weeks defied everything that the witnesses thought they understood about the limits of the human body and the nature of physical reality. The phenomena were documented in detail by multiple observers, including Father Riesinger, Mother Steigman, the attending nuns, and at least one physician who was called in to examine Emma during the proceedings.

The most frequently cited phenomenon was levitation. According to the witnesses, Emma rose from the bed upon which she had been placed and hung suspended near the ceiling of the room, her body rigid and her face contorted into expressions of rage and terror. The levitation was not a gentle floating but a violent upward propulsion, as if some force had seized her and hurled her toward the ceiling. The nuns who were holding her were unable to prevent the ascent, despite using all their strength. On several occasions, Emma had to be physically pulled down from the ceiling and restrained on the bed, only to rise again when the grip of her attendants weakened.

Her body underwent grotesque physical transformations during the exorcism. Witnesses reported that Emma’s abdomen swelled enormously, distending to a size that seemed impossible for a human body to achieve, as if something inside her were inflating her flesh from within. Her face changed shape and colour, cycling through expressions and appearances that the witnesses found inhuman. Her eyes bulged, her features twisted, and at times her countenance took on aspects that the nuns described, with evident horror, as resembling those of animals rather than a human being.

The vomiting was perhaps the most physically disturbing aspect of the case. Emma expelled enormous quantities of foul-smelling material throughout the exorcism—substances that the witnesses described as exceeding in volume anything that her body could plausibly have contained. The material was variously described as resembling partially digested food, dark liquid, and unidentifiable organic matter. Its stench was so overpowering that windows had to be opened despite the autumn chill, and some of the attending nuns became physically ill themselves. The vomiting seemed to intensify during the most forceful passages of the exorcism rite, as if the demons were being physically expelled along with the material.

Emma spoke throughout the ordeal, but in voices that were not her own. Multiple distinct voices emerged from her mouth, speaking in languages she had never studied, including Latin and German dialects with which she had no familiarity. The voices identified themselves as various demonic entities, and under the pressure of the exorcism rite, they provided information about themselves and their relationship to Emma that formed a central element of the case’s theological narrative.

The Demons Named

Father Riesinger, following the protocols of the exorcism rite, demanded that the possessing entities identify themselves. Over the course of the twenty-three days, several demons were named and interrogated. The process was not smooth—the entities resisted identification with fury and cunning, lying, misdirecting, and threatening in an effort to avoid the compulsion of the ritual. Riesinger, drawing on his years of experience, persisted with a patience and determination that the witnesses described as extraordinary.

The principal demon identified was Beelzebub, one of the great princes of Hell in Christian demonology. According to the account, Beelzebub served as a kind of commander of the lesser demons that had taken up residence in Emma, directing their resistance to the exorcism and speaking with an authority that distinguished his voice from the others. His pronouncements were characterized by a terrifying intelligence and a contemptuous hostility toward the proceedings.

More disturbing than Beelzebub, in the eyes of those present, were the human spirits that were identified among the possessing entities. The voice of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, was reportedly heard, though the theological implications of a human soul serving as a demon troubled some of the witnesses. Most disturbing of all was the identification of Emma’s own father among the possessing spirits.

The revelation about Emma’s father cast the entire case in a new and horrifying light. According to the testimony extracted during the exorcism, Emma’s father had subjected her to sexual abuse during her childhood and had, together with a woman described as his mistress, placed a deliberate curse upon his daughter. The curse was the mechanism by which the demons had gained entry into Emma, exploiting the spiritual damage caused by the abuse to establish their presence within her. If this account is accurate—and it must be treated with considerable caution, since it comes from entities that the Church itself teaches are incapable of truth—it suggests that Emma’s decades of torment had their origin in a human crime of terrible intimacy.

The Crisis and Resolution

As the exorcism entered its third week, both Emma and Father Riesinger were approaching the limits of their endurance. The priest had barely slept, sustaining himself through prayer, fasting, and the spiritual disciplines of his order. Emma’s body showed the devastating effects of the ordeal—she was emaciated, exhausted, and marked by the physical violence of the phenomena she had undergone. The nuns who attended her were themselves worn down by the relentless intensity of the experience, several having fallen ill from the combination of physical exertion, emotional trauma, and exposure to the foul substances expelled during the vomiting episodes.

Strange events occurred outside the exorcism room as well. Father Riesinger’s automobile was involved in a near-fatal accident during the period of the exorcism, which he interpreted as a demonic attack designed to prevent him from completing the ritual. Mother Steigman reported unusual occurrences throughout the convent—objects moving, doors slamming, an atmosphere of oppression that permeated the building and affected the emotional states of all who lived there. It was as if the spiritual warfare being waged in the exorcism room had spilled out to contaminate its surroundings.

On the twenty-third day, the climax arrived. Father Riesinger pressed the rite with renewed intensity, invoking the full authority of the Church and demanding the departure of the demons in the name of Christ. According to the witnesses, Emma’s body rose from the bed one final time, suspended in the air with her back arched and her limbs rigid. The voices of the demons screamed and howled, filling the room with a cacophony that the nuns described as the most terrifying sound they had ever heard. Then, with a final, terrible cry that seemed to shake the walls of the convent, the voices ceased. Emma’s body relaxed and settled back onto the bed. She opened her eyes, looked around the room with an expression of bewildered calm, and spoke her own name.

The demons were gone. Emma had no memory of the twenty-three days. She was physically weak but mentally clear, and those who had known her before the exorcism reported that she seemed profoundly different—lighter, freer, as if a burden that she had carried for decades had finally been lifted. She lived for many more years, apparently without any recurrence of the phenomena that had tormented her since childhood.

The Aftermath and Documentation

Father Riesinger subsequently documented the case in a pamphlet titled “Begone, Satan!” which was widely distributed and became one of the most influential texts on exorcism in the English-speaking world. The pamphlet, originally written in German and translated into English, provided a detailed account of the phenomena, the demons identified, and the theological framework within which the exorcism was understood. It became a foundational text for those interested in demonic possession and influenced both popular culture and ecclesiastical practice for decades.

The pamphlet’s impact was amplified by its status as an officially sanctioned account. Unlike many possession narratives, which rely on folklore or unverified testimony, the Earling case was documented by a priest acting in his official capacity, witnessed by members of a recognized religious order, and acknowledged by Church authorities as a genuine case of possession. This institutional backing lent the account a credibility that more sensational stories lacked and ensured its preservation in the historical record.

Medical and psychological perspectives on the case have, predictably, differed from the theological interpretation. Some researchers have suggested that Emma’s symptoms—the distorted voice, the physical contortions, the aversion to religious objects—could be explained by severe psychiatric conditions such as dissociative identity disorder or psychosis. The physical phenomena, including the reported levitation and bodily swelling, have been attributed to the heightened emotional states and suggestibility of the witnesses, who were already primed by their religious beliefs to interpret what they saw through a supernatural lens.

These explanations, while rational, struggle to account for all the reported phenomena. The volume of vomited material, the sustained levitation witnessed by multiple observers, and the knowledge of languages that Emma had never studied are difficult to fit neatly into any known psychiatric framework. The case resists easy categorization, occupying an uncomfortable space between the certitudes of faith and the explanatory frameworks of science.

Legacy

The Earling possession occupies a unique place in American religious and paranormal history. It is one of the very few cases of exorcism on American soil to have been documented with the level of detail and institutional authority that the Earling account provides. It predates the more famous case that inspired “The Exorcist” by several decades, yet shares many of its essential features—the prolonged ritual, the physical phenomena, the ultimate triumph of the exorcist over demonic resistance.

The case also raises profound questions about the nature of evil and suffering that transcend the specifics of its particular circumstances. If the demons’ account of Emma’s childhood abuse is accurate, then her possession was the consequence of human wickedness as much as supernatural malice—the exploitation of a child creating a spiritual wound that dark forces exploited for decades. This intersection of human and supernatural evil gives the case a psychological depth that purely supernatural accounts often lack, grounding the cosmic conflict between good and evil in the intimate and all-too-real horror of child abuse.

Earling, Iowa, has largely moved on from the events of 1928. The convent where the exorcism took place no longer serves its original purpose, and few residents of the modern town have personal connections to the case. But the story endures, carried forward by the pamphlet that Father Riesinger published and by the ongoing fascination with demonic possession that shows no sign of diminishing. The twenty-three days that Emma Schmidt spent in that convent room, suspended between worlds, remain one of the most extraordinary episodes in the long and troubled history of the human encounter with the demonic.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “The Earling Possession”
• JSTOR — Religious studies — Peer-reviewed research on possession and exorcism
• Chronicling America — Historic US newspapers (1690–1963)