The Iowa Exorcism

The town of Earling, Iowa, population barely a few hundred souls, sits amid the rolling farmland of Shelby County in the western part of the state, a place so unremarkable in its quiet agricultural rhythms that nothing in its character would suggest it as the setting for one of the most documented and debated exorcisms in American history. Yet in the late summer and early autumn of 1928, a Franciscan convent in this small community became the stage for a twenty-three-day confrontation between a Capuchin exorcist and the entities that had tormented a woman for more than thirty years. The Iowa Exorcism, as the case came to be known, produced testimony from nuns, priests, and other witnesses that described phenomena stretching the limits of credibility: levitation, bodily distortion, inhuman vomiting, and voices speaking in languages the possessed woman had never learned. The case was subsequently published with Church approval and became one of the foundational texts in the modern understanding of Catholic exorcism.

Anna Ecklund

The woman at the center of the Iowa Exorcism was known publicly by the pseudonym Emma Schmidt, though her real name was Anna Ecklund. Born in the American Midwest to a family of German Catholic descent, Anna’s life had been shadowed by spiritual affliction from an early age. The roots of her torment, according to the account that emerged during the exorcism itself, lay in the darkest corner of family pathology: her own father had subjected her to incestuous abuse and had subsequently cursed her, wishing demonic affliction upon the daughter he had violated. His mistress, a woman named Mina who was reputed to practice folk magic, was said to have reinforced the curse through occult means.

Whether these claims accurately described Anna’s family history or represented a narrative constructed during the exorcism process itself is a question that cannot be definitively resolved. What is clear is that Anna began experiencing symptoms of severe spiritual disturbance around the age of fourteen. She developed an overwhelming aversion to sacred spaces, an inability to pray without being assailed by blasphemous thoughts and obscene imagery, and physical reactions to holy objects that included nausea, trembling, and violent revulsion. These symptoms were consistent with the classical presentation of demonic possession as understood within the Catholic tradition, and they persisted, with varying intensity, for decades.

An initial exorcism was performed while Anna was still relatively young, and it brought a period of relief during which her symptoms subsided and she was able to function more normally. But by the time she reached her mid-forties, the affliction had returned with greatly increased severity. The voices in her mind were louder and more insistent, the physical symptoms were more extreme, and new manifestations had appeared that convinced those around her that a more definitive intervention was necessary.

Anna’s condition by 1928 was desperate. She was physically weakened by years of intermittent crisis, psychologically exhausted by the relentless inner assault she endured, and spiritually isolated by an affliction that seemed to cut her off from the very faith that she clung to as her only hope of salvation. She was forty-six years old, and she had spent more of her life in the grip of this affliction than free of it.

The Setting

Father Theophilus Riesinger, the Capuchin friar who had performed the earlier exorcism and who now undertook the definitive attempt, chose the Franciscan convent in Earling with deliberate care. The location offered several advantages: it was remote enough to provide privacy, spiritual enough to provide the proper atmosphere, and staffed by religious women who could provide the practical and prayerful support that the ritual would require.

The convent was a modest establishment, home to a small community of Franciscan sisters led by Mother Superior Steigman. These women had dedicated their lives to prayer, community, and service, and their convent was a place of disciplined quiet, ordered routine, and deep faith. Nothing in their experience had prepared them for what they were about to witness, and the events of the following twenty-three days would test their faith as severely as anything they had ever encountered.

The room prepared for the exorcism was simple: a bed, a crucifix, holy water, and the ritual texts that Father Riesinger would use to conduct the rite. The simplicity of the setting stands in contrast to the extraordinary nature of the events that occurred within it, a contrast that has been noted by many commentators and that contributes to the case’s unsettling power. There was nothing theatrical about the arrangements, nothing designed to enhance or dramatize the proceedings. The drama, when it came, was supplied entirely by the phenomena themselves.

Father Riesinger was assisted by the local parish priest, Father Joseph Steiger, who served as a witness and support during the proceedings. The nuns of the convent rotated in their attendance, providing the physical care that Anna required and maintaining the continuous prayer that Riesinger considered essential to the success of the enterprise. The total number of direct witnesses was small but sufficient to establish a degree of corroboration for the events that were recorded.

The Exorcism Unfolds

The ritual began in late August 1928, and its first moments announced that the battle ahead would be one of extraordinary ferocity. As Father Riesinger began the prescribed prayers of the Rituale Romanum, Anna’s demeanor changed instantly. Her face contorted, her body stiffened, and from her mouth came a voice that was not her own, a guttural, masculine snarl that expressed contempt for the priest, for the prayers, and for the God in whose name they were offered.

Within the first hours, the most dramatic physical phenomena began to manifest. Anna’s body levitated from the bed, rising into the air and positioning itself against the wall above the headboard with a force that the nuns who attempted to restrain her could not overcome. This levitation was not a momentary event but a sustained phenomenon that occurred repeatedly over the course of the twenty-three days, witnessed on different occasions by different combinations of observers. The consistency of the reports across multiple witnesses and multiple sessions has been cited by supporters of the case as evidence against the possibility of collective hallucination or misperception.

Anna’s body also underwent distortions that defied medical understanding. Her abdomen distended enormously, swelling until she appeared to be grotesquely bloated, before the pressure was released through episodes of vomiting that were remarkable for both their volume and the nature of the material expelled. The vomited matter was described as foul-smelling beyond any normal biological product, producing a stench that permeated the convent and that witnesses found almost physically unbearable. The quantity expelled far exceeded what Anna’s stomach could have contained, particularly given that she ate almost nothing during the twenty-three-day ordeal.

The voices that spoke through Anna multiplied as the exorcism progressed. What began as a single hostile presence divided into multiple entities, each with distinct characteristics, each identifying itself and each engaging with Father Riesinger in its own manner. Some voices were aggressive and threatening, promising harm to the exorcist and to anyone who participated in the ritual. Others were plaintive or anguished, particularly those that claimed to be the spirits of Anna’s father and his mistress Mina, expressing remorse for the harm they had caused while seeming trapped in their malevolent state.

The entity that claimed to be Beelzebub, prince of demons, manifested with particular authority and commanded the others. This voice spoke with what witnesses described as terrifying power, displaying knowledge of theology, of the personal lives of those present, and of events occurring far from the convent that it could not have known through any normal channel. It engaged Father Riesinger in extended exchanges about matters of doctrine, challenging the priest’s faith and attempting to demoralize him through a combination of intellectual argument and psychological intimidation.

The Toll on All Present

The physical and psychological toll of the exorcism on its participants was severe and well documented. Father Riesinger, a man of considerable physical stamina and iron will, was visibly drained by the daily confrontations. He ate little, slept poorly, and devoted virtually every waking hour to the ritual, sustaining himself through prayer and the conviction that he was engaged in a genuine battle against evil. The other clergy who assisted experienced similar exhaustion and reported spiritual disturbances of their own during the process.

Father Steiger, the local parish priest, was reportedly targeted by the entities during the exorcism period. He experienced an unusual automobile accident that he and others attributed to demonic interference, an event that, while impossible to verify as supernatural, contributed to the atmosphere of genuine danger that surrounded the proceedings. The entities speaking through Anna made specific threats against Steiger and appeared to take satisfaction in his distress.

The nuns suffered profoundly. They were confronted daily with phenomena that challenged their understanding of reality and that generated an atmosphere of malevolence within the sacred space of their convent. Some reported nightmares, others experienced a pervasive sense of being watched or threatened, and all were physically exhausted by the demands of caring for Anna and maintaining the prayer schedule that Riesinger required. The convent, which had been a place of peace and order, was transformed for twenty-three days into what the sisters experienced as a spiritual battlefield.

Anna herself endured physical suffering that would have been extraordinary even without the supernatural dimension. Her body was subjected to stresses that included sustained muscle contortion, violent vomiting, and the physical demands of the levitation episodes. She ate almost nothing throughout the ordeal, and her weight loss was significant. Yet she survived, and when the exorcism concluded, she showed no lasting physical damage from what she had endured.

The Final Battle

The climax of the Iowa Exorcism came on September 23, 1928, after twenty-three days of sustained ritual combat. The preceding days had seen a gradual shift in the dynamic of the confrontation. The entities, while still resisting with great violence, seemed to be weakening. Their voices lost some of their authority, their threats became more desperate than confident, and the periods between manifestations grew longer, as if the forces sustaining the possession were slowly being eroded.

On that final day, Riesinger pressed his advantage with sustained intensity. The prayers of the Rituale Romanum were recited with renewed force, the sacred objects were presented with unwavering conviction, and the commands for the spirits to depart were issued with the authority of a man who sensed that victory was finally within reach.

The entities responded with a final eruption of violence that exceeded anything that had preceded it. Anna’s body was convulsed with extraordinary force, the voices rose to a pitch of intensity that witnesses described as barely endurable, and the atmosphere in the room reached a crescendo of spiritual tension that those present later struggled to put into words.

Then it ended. The voices uttered a final collective shriek, a sound that witnesses described as unlike anything produced by a human throat, and fell silent. Anna’s body collapsed onto the bed. The oppressive atmosphere lifted as suddenly as a window opening in a sealed room. The nuns who were present looked at one another in disbelief, uncertain whether to trust the sudden peace that had descended.

Anna opened her eyes. She looked around the room with the bewildered expression of someone returning from a long absence. She had no memory of where she was, what had happened, or how long she had been there. She was confused, exhausted, and disoriented, but she was also, for the first time in decades, free. The voices were silent. The revulsion at sacred things was gone. The long nightmare was over.

The Record

The account of the Iowa Exorcism was compiled by Father Riesinger and published with the approval of ecclesiastical authorities under the title “Begone Satan!” This publication represented the Catholic Church’s institutional endorsement of the case as a genuine instance of demonic possession and successful exorcism. The booklet was widely distributed, translated into multiple languages, and became one of the most influential documents in the modern literature of exorcism.

The publication included testimony from multiple witnesses, descriptions of the phenomena observed during the twenty-three days, and Father Riesinger’s own reflections on the nature of the battle he had fought. The account was written in a straightforward, almost clinical style that avoided sensationalism while not shying away from the disturbing details of what had been observed. This tonal restraint has been cited by both supporters and critics of the case: supporters argue that it reflects the honesty of an accurate account, while critics suggest that even a restrained narrative may embellish or selectively present events to support a predetermined conclusion.

The documentation of the Iowa Exorcism, while extensive for a case of its era, does not meet the standards of modern scientific investigation. There were no independent observers present who had no stake in the outcome. There was no audio or video recording. There were no medical professionals monitoring Anna’s vital signs or documenting her physical state with clinical precision. The account relies entirely on the testimony of individuals who believed in the reality of demonic possession and who were participants in the very events they later described.

These limitations do not invalidate the testimony, but they do require that it be evaluated with appropriate caution. Eyewitness accounts, even those given in good faith by multiple observers, are subject to the distortions of memory, expectation, and the unconscious desire to construct a coherent narrative from chaotic experience. The witnesses at Earling were honest people reporting what they believed they had seen, but what they believed they had seen was filtered through the lens of intense religious conviction and extraordinary emotional stress.

Assessment

The Iowa Exorcism stands as one of the most important cases in the history of American religion and one of the most debated episodes in the ongoing conversation between faith and skepticism about the nature of evil, the reality of the supernatural, and the limits of human understanding.

For believers, the case provides compelling evidence that the ancient spiritual realities described in Scripture, the existence of demons, their capacity to afflict human beings, and the power of faith to overcome them, are not relics of a primitive past but living realities that persist into the modern world. The multiple witnesses, the extreme physical phenomena, the success and permanence of the exorcism, and the Church’s institutional endorsement all support this interpretation.

For skeptics, the case illustrates the power of religious belief to shape perception and to transform psychological illness into spiritual drama. Anna’s symptoms are consistent with severe dissociative disorder, possibly rooted in childhood trauma. The exorcism may have functioned as an intensive, if unconventional, therapeutic intervention that allowed her to externalize and then symbolically expel the demons of her past. The physical phenomena, however dramatic in the telling, were witnessed under conditions that cannot rule out misperception, exaggeration, or the distorting effects of shared expectation.

Between these positions lies the irreducible mystery of the case itself, the stubborn fact that something extraordinary happened in a small Iowa convent in 1928, something that defied the ordinary categories of understanding available to those who experienced it and that continues to resist easy explanation nearly a century later. Whether that something was the genuine intervention of supernatural forces in human affairs or the dramatic expression of a troubled psyche through the symbolism of its religious culture, the Iowa Exorcism remains a case that demands attention, challenges assumptions, and refuses to be comfortably filed away under any single heading.

Sources

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