EPISODE 44 - The Exorcism of Roland Doe

So I thought I would put my story out there for you guys , just to kind of make you aware . Spread awareness really , it's breast cancer awareness month . So last year when I was diagnosed with cancer I was 31 . So at the age of 31 , I didn't check myself regularly . I didn't think it applied to me .

You know , you see these posts that come up and say about checking yourself it's on the telly , about checking yourself . And I just I didn't , because I just didn't think it applied to me . I didn't know what I was checking for , I didn't know how to check and I just , like you , say you don't think it's going to be . You do you ? I think ?

And I just you know gut instinct , I just knew that it wasn't right , I knew that it was going to be something bad , so I immediately called the doctor . I didn't wait for the next day , I didn't wait for anything . I found the lump .

I said to Josie , I found this lump , she checked it out and then we rang the doctors and then I was seen by the doctors . I think it was about two days later . She examined me and she sent me off to the breast clinic .

The breast clinic done an ultrasound and then a biopsy and they said , on a scale of one to five , one being non-cancerous and they said it was a cyst or something and they could tell that , and five being definitely cancer , they put me at three . So I just I didn't know . I came away from that appointment . I have an absolutely no idea .

And then I had to wait two weeks . That was awful that two weeks .

Will they call me up to say you've got cancer , we need to get it sorted , or will I have to wait two weeks ? And I was constantly googling , constantly researching everything , and it become almost like an obsession and you'd spiral into this Google of googling your symptoms and things .

And I did eventually get a phone call and the lady on the phone said oh , you know , we've got your results back . And I was wondering we can actually fit you in a little bit earlier . So I said oh , okay , when's that ? She said tomorrow at nine .

I was kind of already prepared to receive bad news , because it was something very completely different on my body and I just knew that something wasn't right .

So because I was 31 , I have an abundance of hormones and it was having an absolute buffet . Yeah , I was like this is great , this is great . So it grew incredibly fast and I then , because of that , I had to have quite an intense form of treatment . So the tumor itself was 3cm , which is quite large for a tumor .

So it was quite visible actually once I'd found it , and so I had to have 7 rounds of intense chemotherapy and then needed surgery and then radiotherapy . But what shocked me the most was , when you hear cancer , you think of chemotherapy and you think of radiotherapy . But what I didn't know was everything else that I would need .

So I needed daily medication to stop my hormones . So , because my cancer fed off of hormones , I needed something to stop them . So I needed daily medication to stop my hormones , which puts me into early menopause .

I needed injections in my tummy every month and it was a big needle , really super big needle , and that does something to the pituitary gland which stops my body from producing hormones . I needed injections in my tummy every day to boost my immune system because chemotherapy lowers it so much .

I needed to take copious amounts of steroids to prepare my body for the chemotherapy and I needed copious amounts of anti-sickness medication because the chemotherapy made me so sick . I finished the 7 rounds chemotherapy .

I had 6 cm of breast tissue removed , which is quite a lot , and I remember having a discussion about whether I would need a mastectomy or whether I would just need that taken out , and there were so many decisions that needed to be made . But they ended up taking out 6 cm of breast tissue and that was from just underneath the skin to the chest wall .

It kind of went in a line , because when they said 6 cm , I imagined like a tennis ball . I was like oh gosh that's going to leave a hole and so they took almost like a tube of boob out core that they took out . And then I had 3 weeks of radiotherapy , so every day travelling to an hour away to have the radiotherapy .

And then I was given at the All Clear . I am cancer free . I no longer have cancer , which is fantastic .

But my oncologist recommended that I have 14 more rounds of chemotherapy , which is a new trial form of chemotherapy and it dramatically lowers my risk of reoccurrence , so it wasn't mandatory that I had it but I thought well , you said , if you didn't have it and it came back , you'd never forgive yourself so this gives you a better chance of it not recurring .

Yeah , of it never coming back and all throughout my treatment , my oncologist has been incredibly honest and they've said that it's a curative measure of treatment that I had . So it's to get rid of the cancer and to stop it coming back . So that which is the best that you can hope for . So yeah , the 14 rounds of chemotherapy .

So in total it would be 21 rounds of chemotherapy . It's such a lot , but I've only got one on Thursday , in a few days , and then I've only got 2 left . So it's over a year on now and I am still receiving treatment . I will be on medication for the next 10 years to keep my body from producing hormones again to lower the risk of it coming back .

And I just wanted to share my story with you so you can kind of understand the importance of regularly checking , because if you can find a lump before it grows and before it spreads , the journey isn't half as bad , because if my lump hadn't been so big , I wouldn't have needed the chemotherapy to shrink it .

You can just have surgery to remove it and it's the chemotherapies that's that does the damage . That wasn't nice it wasn't enjoyable , wasn't ? no , I wouldn't , wouldn't recommend it . But if you follow us on Facebook and on Instagram , you can see that I've shared a post about how to check yourself and how regularly you need to check yourself .

If I can help anybody , then by all means get in touch . You can email us or you can just go on Facebook , go on Instagram . You can message us .

can discuss hot flushes so it turns out that once my 10 years is up , I'll be 41 , and then I'll probably come out of my medically induced menopause and then I'll be at the right page to go back into it yeah , and by then I'll be well old and crispy , so I'll be like I don't remember .

She went it's like Kate's random Blam and I followed it up with .

Take that , oh really . When we came out there was a halt because it was recorded on like a house that was next to a lock . On the other side of the lock was about 10,000 screaming teenage girls and I was like not bother .

are . I love to do puzzles .

Oh , I have got something actually , and I meant to say this a few weeks ago and every time we go on air I forget but my one of my friends in America it was so cool she sent and she said hi , kate , I heard you mentioned that you love Stephen King on the podcast .

I went and saw his house recently when I was in Maine and she sent me some pictures which are Stephen . King's house , stephen King's actual house , oh , okay , and look at his gates of his house . Yeah , I see them . Isn't that cool ? Yeah , so , yeah . So she's very kindly sent me some pictures . Spooky , is that Mothman Mothman ? Yeah , it is .

It is a bit like that , isn't it ? Yes , so I will absolutely treasure these pictures because I love Stephen King . And thank you very much , ruth , and thank you for continuing to listen , and I'm sorry about my language . I'll try and not swear . Try and be better . Oh , I'm having a hot flush now . Put my fan on . Morning , morning , morning everyone .

I hope you are all well .

So the film it tells the story of a young girl who is possessed by a demonic force and it's one of the highest grossing horror films of all time and critics praised it as a truly terrifying film experience . But many people don't realize that this particular horror film was actually inspired by a true story . So today I am going to tell you of that story .

Cool . So Roland Doe is an alias given to the boy by one of the priests that performed the exorcism . The priest , raymond Bishop , decided to keep a daily journey of the exorcism so that it could be studied at a later date .

This was in 1990 , when the ballot on the diary had found its way to Thomas and he was actually researching cases for a book that he was writing called possessed . So what he managed to do on reading through this journal was to actually cooperate the story so he could fractally put it together based on the amount of witnesses that were in this journal .

There was 40 , over 40 witnesses to this exorcism and what Thomas did was to go around and find these people and cooperate the story . So after a long time of searching the vaults of the internet , I managed to find the diary . Yes , yes , I did so .

Roland was born into a German Lutheran family during the 1940s and the family lived in Cottage City in Maryland and according to the diary left by the priest , roland was an only child and so therefore decided he depended upon the adults around him , so the adults in the household , including his aunt . He was very , very fond of his aunt Harriet .

She had actually been a spiritualist , so she had shown Roland how to use a Ouija board , and so when she suddenly died and left Roland completely heartbroken , it wasn't really a surprise that he actually tried to use the Ouija board in order to make contact with her .

Oh , roland's family said they were shortly after this that strange things started happening in their house . On January , the 15th 1949 , 13 year old Roland and his grandmother were alone in the house when they started hearing dripping noises coming from the grandmother's bedroom . The pair went to investigate and decided that there must be a leaky piper somewhere .

The noise continued for a short time and then the picture of Christ on the wall shook , as if the wall had been the kind of like banged from the other side , as if someone had bumped into it , and it kind of like jogged the picture of Christ . And they didn't really know what to make of it . It never happened before .

They just decided that it was nothing and they carried on with their evening . But by the time Roland's parents returned home from their evening out , there was a very definite scratching sound under the floorboards near the grandmother's bed .

Nope , roland's father assumed that there was possibly an infestation of rats or mice in the house and he would call an exterminator . The exterminator was called in and he found no evidence or no sign of rats or mice , but he continued to place poison under the floorboards just in case .

From that night on the scratching was heard every night about seven o'clock in the evening and would continue until midnight . The scratching continued for 10 days and then all of a sudden stopped . So the family believed that the poison had worked and that the rats had died , but Roland could still hear it .

The rest of the family had nothing for a period of three days and when the noise started up again it was different . It was no longer in the grandmother's bedroom upstairs , but it had moved downstairs into Roland's bedroom .

The noise it kind of sounded like squeaking shoes walking along the bedroom and it was heard only at night and only when Roland went to bed . The squeaking shoe walking sound continued for six nights and then on the sixth night the scratching started up again .

On that night Roland's mother and grandmother decided to stay in the bedroom with him and while lying on his bed they all heard a noise , kind of as though it was coming closer to them . They described it as similar to the rhythm of marching feet and the beat of drums , and this sound .

It would travel from the bottom of the bed up the length of the mattress towards the three of them and back down again . And it happened over and over and over until Roland's mother decided to say is that you aren't Harriet ? The sound stopped , so the mother continued to ask questions and she said if you are , aunt Harriet , knock three times .

By knocking four times , Four distinct knocks were heard on the floorboards , followed by the sound of scratching on the bottom of the mattress that all three of them were sitting on . Oh , no , oh , my goodness , from that day on , From that day on the boy's bedroom became a hub of activity .

While Roland was trying to sleep in his bed , the clawing sound on the mattress would start and when no attention was paid to it the mattress would begin to shake .

The family said that at times the activity could be quite violent and on one occasion the cover of the bed was swiftly pulled up and it hovered over the bed in like a curved shape and the mother said it was almost as if it had been held up by starch and when she kind of went to touch it to find out what was going on it just fell softly back onto the

bed . In the diary there is a small section that just says other manifestations and it gives an overview of kind of what the family were going through at the time and it says that when Roland entered the kitchen an orange and a pear flew across the room to where the boy was standing .

The kitchen table would shudder and vibrate , milk and other food items were thrown off the stove and the table and the breadboard was thrown onto the floor Outside the kitchen . A coat flew off its hanger towards Roland and a comb flew very violently across the living room and towards a blessed candle , where it was then extinguished .

A Bible was thrown directly at Roland and while at school Roland's desk would kind of shudder and vibrate and it would kind of move across the floor and at first teachers would reprimand Roland , but it kept happening . So it got to the point where actually he stopped going to school .

At one point the family decided to leave the house and stay with friends in a different town . They suspected that if it was in fact Roland doing all of these things , then he wouldn't be able to carry on in an unfamiliar house .

However , shortly upon their arrival , roland took a seat in a rocking chair and it immediately began to vibrate and spin so out of control that Roland was thrown out of it . The family tested the chair and found that it was incredibly heavy . It was made of solid wood .

It was like a solid wood rocking chair and there was no way Roland could have moved it in such a way . The family eventually sought the help and advice of two Lutheran ministers .

One of the ministers wanted to observe the phenomena himself , so he invited Roland over to his house again , away from his familiar surroundings , and during the night the same clawing sounds could be heard in the bedroom of the minister . The minister prayed , but it seemed to make things worse .

At one point the minister tied Roland to a chair to see if the noise had stopped . He believed that Roland was the source of all of this , but the chair that Roland was tied to tipped over , with Roland still in it , still completely tired . The family were advised to call a psychiatrist and have the boy examined .

The psychiatrist did not believe in spirits and he reported that Roland was a very normal 13-year-old boy . A spiritualist was called to rid the house and the boy of the spirit , but he said that he was completely out of his depth and so a priest was called . Father Hughes , catholic priest of St James's parish , was asked for his advice .

So he suggested setting up blessed candles around the home , sprinkling holy water in all of the bedroom and praying , all of which Roland's mother tried . The blessed candles were lit all around Roland's bed , as that's where the majority of the activity happened , but as soon as they were lit they were being extinguished .

Holy water was sprinkled in all of the rooms , and when she was finished with the holy water , she placed it on a shelf and the bottle was sent flying across the room . Father Hughes decided that the boy needed an exorcism , and so asked his superiors at the church , and in late February Father Hughes was granted permission to perform an exorcism on Roland .

He screamed in anger and he thrashed around and before anyone could do anything , roland had broken an arm free of its restraints and he'd managed to break off a piece of a metal spring from his mattress and he slashed the priest across the arm , and it was from shoulder to hand , all the way down .

The exorcism was immediately halted and Father Hughes was taken to the hospital where he received over a hundred stitches and lost the full use of his hand . What for good ? Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , like done damage to the nerves and stuff , oh bleh , flushed all the way down .

On February 26th 1949 , the scratching chlorine sounds in Roland's bedroom took on a new , more shocking form . Scratches started to appear all over Roland's body and this continued for four nights in a row .

And on the fourth night the scratches turned into letters , and in Father Bishop's diary it says that these letters were clear and seemed to have been scratched on the body by claws . So , with the spirits kind of now taking on a violent physical form , roland's mother started to think about taking her son and her family to St Louis where she had grown up .

Her whole family still lived there . She'd grown up there and she was kind of surrounded by more familiar people . So she'd been thinking about moving her family there . And one evening before she made her decision a word appeared on Roland in deep red scratches right across his ribs , with the word Louis , louis .

So it was decided that evening that the boy would be taken to St Louis , and over the next few days , while the family were preparing for their trip , more words began to appear on Roland . The word Saturday was scratched into his hip .

So the family took that to mean that they would have to leave on the Saturday and the next evening another message appeared On the boy's chest . The numbers three and then one slash two had been painfully carved in , and the family took that as a message that they should stay for three and a half weeks .

These weren't light scratches , they were deep claw marks and the family was sure that he was not doing that himself , Not only because the family generally watched Roland closely , but the letters and scratch it would also be found on his back , the backs of his arms and legs , and there were just places that he just wouldn't be able to reach .

So the family were now staying at relatives houses in St Louis . The family were now staying at a relatives house in St Louis and the different phenomena that were happening was now being witnessed by more people . So two aunts of the boy , four uncles and four cousins Fine me . The writing being carved into Roland's body didn't stop the words no school .

And then again , while I was writing this episode , you know , when Netflix it was just on , nothing was playing , but the home screen of Netflix was on , it come up the exorcist , like to watch .

After witnessing these distressing events , one of Rowland's cousins decided to speak to her professor about it . Her professor was Father Bishop , so he listened to everything that the girl told him about Rowland and he said that it sounded like a diabolical possession , which is the possession of the body by the spirit of a devil or demon .

Father Bishop was a very well educated man , he was an academic and was rightly very sceptic , and so he wanted to see first hand these events . So Bishop went to Rowland and he was there for eight days and he kept a detailed diary of the events of every night that he was there . So this is where Bishop enters .

So everything in his diary beforehand is just accounts from his family . From here on is what Bishop actually witnessed . So the first night , monday , the 7th of March 1949 , he observed Rowland as being a very normal teenage boy .

But then 11pm came and it was time for Rowland to go to bed , the same as every night beforehand , the noises started and from downstairs Bishop could hear the banging and the clawing and the scratching , and he rushed upstairs towards the bedroom . Rowland was laid motionless on the bed , the mattress and bed shaking beneath him .

Father Bishop sprinkled the boy and the bed with holy water and the shaking immediately stopped . But within seconds Rowland began to scream in agony . He lifted up his pajama top and before their very eyes , large red scratches and welts began to form on his torso .

According to Father Bishop's diary , he said that it looked like something was clawing from the inside trying to get out .

But this one word for word is what's written in the diary and it says at the home of ours Catholic aunt , so R being Rowland , two cousins and non-Catholic uncle , shaking of mattress , scratching stool upset several feet away from the bed , phenomena observed by cousin who spent the night with R .

Members continued to move in the direction of the uprights of the bed , even when the cousins lay alongside of R . All other members of the family observed the violent shaking of the mattress and heard the scratching sounds . So Wednesday the 9th is much of the same .

Father Bishop blessed Rowland's bedroom and mattress , but the bed continued to shake and he states that this went on for 15 minutes and during that time there were six other occupants in the room observing the events . The next night a sacred relic had been placed over Rowland's bed and this was thrown to the floor and the sound of scratching continued .

On the Friday , it says , shortly after Rowland had gone to bed at 11 o'clock , he called downstairs that he'd been frightened by a strong force that had thrown some objects against the mirror in his bedroom . The relic of St Margaret Mary had been thrown against the mirror and the sound was like a pallet striking glass .

Another occurrence was a cross mark scratched on Rowland's left outer forearm . The cross remained evident for approximately 45 minutes . A bookcase was moved from alongside the bed and it was turned completely around facing the entrance to the room . The stool at the dressing table moved from the table to the bed , which was about two feet in distance .

The stool was moved back to its position by one of the family members and within a few moments it had turned itself over . The next few nights continued with the very same pattern the bed shaking , the rhythmic scratching , as sometimes it would last for 15 minutes and other times it would continue for two hours .

The bedroom furniture was moved around , the stool was flung across the room . Any relics that they tried to place in Rowland's bedroom was always flung across the room . So having seen the events first hand , father Bishop decided that he was completely out of his depth , so he listed the help of Father William S Bowden .

William Bowden told Father Bishop that there were three stages of possession . The first stage is something known as infestation , and this is where the spirit infiltrates the life of the victim in various ways .

The victim will start hearing footsteps and doors opening , furniture moving , scratching on surfaces , and it said that interacting with the spirit at this stage can lead to possession . If you interact with the spirit , you're inviting it in and this immediately leads to stage two .

So stage two is something called oppression , and oppression is the mental effects of the demonic influence . So the victim will begin to feel depressed . People can become sick and tired , like exhausted , physically and mentally worn out . Sometimes they will have severe nightmares and it's almost as if , like a dark cloud , descends upon the person .

And then the third and final stage is possession , and this is where the victim is acting in a way that is quite obviously isn't . Them Both of Bishop and Bowden believed that the boy was in the second stage of possession , with precursors to the third stage

. So they wanted to act fast before the demon spirit could fully take hold and possess Rowland . So they contacted the local archdiocese to gain permission to perform an exorcism . They agreed , but with two conditions they had to keep their work completely confidential and also Father Bowden had to do the exorcism . Those were the two conditions .

But Father Bowden outright refused . He did not want to confront the demon , he did not want to be part of it , he didn't think that he was experienced enough and he did not want to be in charge of what happened to Rowland . However the exorcism could only be performed by someone of Bowden's experience . So he was told it's you or no one .

So on Wednesday 16th March , the exorcism began Shortly after 10pm . Rowland was sent to bed . Father Bishop , father Bowden , rowland's mother , his uncle and an aunt were called into the bedroom to prepare for the exorcism . All those present knelt beside Rowland's bed and acts of faith , hope , love and contrition were recited together in prayer .

Rowland was awake and the bedroom light was on . He had his hands outside the bed covers . As soon as Father Bowden started reading the precipio which is part of the exorcism , where the priest demands that the spirit identify himself , three large parallel bars were scratched onto Rowland's stomach .

From then on , more scratches appeared and Rowland screamed in agony as angry red welts started to appear on his legs , his thighs , his stomach , back , chest , face and throat .

Father Bowden again demanded that the spirit identify itself and in large , bloody , red letters the word hell was slashed across Rowland's chest and a picture of the devil appeared in red on his right leg .

Father Bishop's diary says that the picture of the devil his arms were held above his head and his hands seemed to be webbed , giving the appearance almost like of a bat , and he said that everyone in the room agreed that this image could not be mistaken for another . They were dealing with a malevolent spirit from the depths of hell . Oh , mothman , mothman .

During the course of the evening the word go was branded on Rowland and the letter X , and Father Bowden and Bishop took this to mean that the exorcism would have to take place over 10 days .

They assumed that the spirit was saying that it would go and that the X wasn't just an X , it had the bars on the top of the , so it was like a Roman numeral 10, . The exorcism was going to take place over 10 days , but they just they didn't know if they could put Rowland through that for 10 days . It was like a torture for him .

Yeah , throughout that evening of the first , the first evening of the exorcism , rowland received as many as 25 different wounds . During the next phase of the exorcism , that night , rowland fell into a deep sleep . He was quiet and peaceful , no more scratches appeared and everything seemed to be going well until Father Bowden started reciting prayers to St Michael .

Rowland's eyes immediately shut open and , with a strength that was not his own , he lashed out and he hit the backboard of the bed and his arms and his legs were like violently throwing about , and he was just trying to hit anything within reach .

He was pinned down to the bed by two men and he began shouting insults and threats of violence at them , spitting at them , and with his unnatural strength he was able to free himself on multiple occasions . The last phase of the night , which happened at around four or five am , rowland had fallen limp and weak from his struggles and was in an apparent sleep .

He began to sing in a high pitched voice the songs Old man River and Swanee , which is a song I've not heard of . The diary said that the songs weren't complete but almost like garbled versions . But in this day Rowland did not have to be subdued and he was very calm and he was very relaxed .

The next night similar events happened , although this time there were no scratches or clorings appearing on Rowland's body . He had to be restrained .

Each time Father Bishop blessed him with holy water he would fling his arms and legs out of the bed , he would shout abuse at those around him and he spat directly into the face of his mother , his father and his uncle . But each time he would be completely exhausted and he would fall asleep at around one thirty .

The priests left the home that morning with their heads hung low . They knew now that the boy was indeed in the third stage of possession . The evil spirit had fully taken hold of Rowland . On the third day the prayers of the exorcism were continued and Roland was once again taken over by the spirit . He began to struggle with his pillow and the bed quilt .

His arms , legs and head had to be held by three men , the contortions that word is used a lot in the diary his body contorted , and it said that it revealed physical strength beyond the natural power of Roland . He again spat at the priest .

He spat at the relics that were being shown to him and he writhed in agony under the sprinkling of holy water and he fought and screamed in a diabolical , high pitched voice .

He screamed violence at those around him and he managed to set himself free from the three men that were holding him down and he jumped up onto the bed and would swing his fists at the priest , and Father Bishop said that his face was devilish and he snapped his teeth in fury .

He snapped at the priest's hands in the blessing and he bit anybody that tried to hold him down . By 12 midnight that night there were signs of change . Roland stood up in his bed and then he dropped to his knees and quietly went through the prayers with Father Bowden .

While he went through these prayers , all of a sudden Roland rose up and Father Bishop said it looked like he began a strong fight for the eviction of the devil . He gyrated in all directions , he pulled off the upper part of his underwear and he held his arms high above his head . Then he made as though he was trying to vomit from his stomach .

He gestured almost from his stomach , as if he was trying to get the spirit up out , like into his throat . He asked that the window be open and then , in a happy , victorious mood , he said sweetly , he's going . And then finally he said there he goes . And his body fell limp upon the bed in a perfectly relaxed condition .

In a moment he was normal and he seemed relieved and he seemed like he was kind of back to himself . The whole family knelt beside the bed and said prayers of thanks , thinking that their job was done . Now Father's Bishop and Bowden set off out of the house . They were quite happy that Roland was free of the spirits and at 1.30am they left the house .

But about 2am or a little after Roland felt strange , he said . He felt a strange sensation in his stomach and in a few moments he began to call out fearfully he's coming back , he's coming back . The priests were called back to the home and the exorcism continued until 7am the next morning when exhausted Roland finally fell asleep .

It was now Saturday and the exorcists arrived at Roland's home at 7pm , after only leaving the house at 7am that morning , and at 8pm the exorcism began again . Father's Bishop's diary states that Roland shouted violently with fiendish laughter . The shouting resembled the barking of a dog and Roland snapped his teeth , and he says it was truly diabolical .

Roland had also started deliberately urinating on himself and used many profanities towards the fathers . I will tell you some of the profanities .

And during the stages when Roland was kind of a bit quieter , not shouting these profanities , he would still sing to himself different songs that he had like no business knowing . He was a 13 year old boy . He didn't enjoy singing , he couldn't sing .

However , the voice that came out of him was incredibly soulful and Father Bishop remarked in his diary on the professionalism of his voice . And when Roland was actually lucid , when he was himself , one of the fathers hummed one of these songs . But Roland was unable to carry on the melody and he said I don't know what you're doing .

I don't know what that is , I don't know what's happening here , but I'm not going to be a part of it . What are you doing ? He didn't know this song . He had no idea what the song was . On the 10th night , roland was taken to the college church rectory . Father Bowden thought it best to perform the exorcism at a sacred place .

He'd had obviously nine nights of not really any success , so he thought he'd do things a little bit differently , but it turned out to be the worst of the nights by far . They began the exorcism , the un-night .

And it's a little bit vulgar and shocking , but I'm going to quote it directly from the diary from that night , and it says the vile and filthy talk which followed makes anyone shudder . Roland spoke of his penis as a beautiful pecker , a willy-dilly , pilly , so round , so firmer , with a red top and a hole in the middle .

He pulled the towel from his loins and shook his body in a suggestive and shimmy fashion . His expressions were lowly and smacked of the abuse of sex . Roland spoke of kissing his pecker and using the stick for pleasure . Then he would say Isn't it pretty ?

He turned upon the priests at his bedside you have big pricks too , and you like to rub them up and down . You have big teats , you big ox . Then followed a sucking sound . He called to the exorcist to cut out the damn Latin and get away from me , you goddamn bastards .

However , on Thursday , the 31st of March , at 11.30pm , roland went downstairs and complained to his mother that he was feeling ill and that his feet were cold and then hot . When the family went up to the bedroom with him , the disturbances began .

First the shaking of the bed and then Roland began to write on his bed sheet just with his finger , and he was kind of lucid . So sometimes he would be himself and then other times he would go like into a trance and in between these trances , when he was himself , he explained that it was almost like he was reading from a blackboard .

They were unable to make out what he was writing on the sheet .

But then he began to talk and his cousin took notes of what he was saying and he said I will stay 10 days but will return in 4 . If you stay and become a Catholic , I will stay away . God will take it away 4 days after it has gone 10 days . God is getting powerful . The last day when it quits , I will leave a sign on my front .

Father Bishop , all people that mingle with me will die a terrible death . So the priests were called again and it was decided that Roland would be baptized as a Christian . They assumed that the spirit had been talking through Roland and he said that if you stay and become a Catholic , I will stay away .

So they took that to mean a sign that they should baptize Roland . So the family packed up the car and read it themselves for the trip to the rectory where they performed the previous exorcism .

But as soon as Roland was in the car , he entered into one of these trances and he began to say so you're going to baptize me and you think that will drive me out with Holy Communion . Roland became enraged and he grabbed the steering wheel of the car and his uncle was forced to pull up to the curb in order to subdue the violence .

Roland stiffened and again that they said that he fought with an unnatural strength and it was a massive task to remove him from the front sea where he'd climbed over and to force him into the back of the car Roland's father and uncle . They held him in the back seat while his aunt drove .

And even while restrained Roland managed to break free of his uncle and his father and he seized his aunt around the front and began to strangle her . Another interesting note that the family said in the diaries was that the radio in the car would not operate while Roland was in one of these trances .

It worked the rest of the time , but as soon as Roland went into this trance the radio would stop working . When the family finally arrived at the College Church rectory , roland entered into another trance and made it virtually impossible to get him out of the car and he took three men to carry Roland inside the rectory .

Once inside he spat and he shouted obscenities and he threw himself onto the floor and his father and his uncle were absolutely exhausted from the struggle just from the car to the inside of the rectory . The baptism itself was just as difficult and it took four tries between Roland to go into these trances and coming out .

It took four tries for him to go through the baptism and to do his holy communion that evening . The exorcism continued and it did every night for the next two weeks . Each night brought about the same occurrences as before the violence , screaming , the vulgar language , the taunting and the singing . Father Bowden didn't think he could take much more .

He didn't think that the boy could stand the nightly routine any longer . He was exhausted and Roland had started to become fearful that he was going mad . He thought that he was going insane and he just didn't see an end to it . He thought that the spirit would just never leave him .

But on April 17th , which happened to be Easter Sunday , father Bowden had a new resolve he would read this boy of the evil that was inside of him . Father Bowden read the rites of the exorcism quietly . He decided that instead of reading the words in Latin , he would read them in English . Instead of shouting and demanding things , he would do it , gentler .

He said that Roland also seemed to have a new fight in him . Whenever he wasn't in a trance with the spirit coming out , he would pray with all of his might . It seemed that every time now that he went into a trance , it wasn't quite as violent .

He would still throw things across the room , like a crucifix had been placed into his hand and he would just throw it , or the Bible that they were reading from would be thrown across the room . And for the first time throughout the exorcism , father Bowden said he felt like he was actually winning .

At 10.45 that night , amongst the prayers being read by the priests and amongst the screams of Roland , a voice came out of the boy that was neither his own nor the demons . It spoke in a clear , demanding tone and said Satan , satan .

I am Saint Michael and I command you , satan and the other evil spirits , to leave the body in the name of Dominus , immediately now . And with that , roland contorted in the most horrific way since the exorcism began on the 16th of March . He screamed in agony and his body bent in a way that was completely unnatural .

He's back arched off the bed and contorted so much that his shoulder blades almost touched the soles of his feet . Oh my God , that's hideous . Eventually , the screaming subsided and Roland fell back onto the bed , exhausted and in a quiet voice that was his own , he just said he's gone , and he fell into a deep sleep . This spirit had finally left Roland's body .

Rowland went on to live out the rest of his life completely normally . He was a NASA engineer and he lived until he was 86 . Goodness , and as mentioned at the beginning of the episode . Rowland's experience was the inspiration behind the Exorcist book and film .

William Peter Blatty , who was the writer , came across the story of Rowland while at a university in Georgetown where one of the fathers that had attended the Exorcism was giving a lecture on it . So despite the promise to keep the Exorcism secret , he just couldn't . What he'd witnessed was too much .

He decided to give a lecture on it and that is how William Peter Blatty came upon the story . So although the scratching and the shouting and spitting and cursing in the movie mimicked what Rowland had experienced , the boys had never turned 360 degrees like Regans did in the film .

Similarly , rowland never vomited green , nor did he use the crucifix in such a manner .

But when that diary was given to Thomas B Allen , who was the writer that was doing the research for his book , Possessed he like , so he went round to these witnesses and he he co-operated their story . So nobody really knows what happened to Little Rowland .