Introducing The Fountain Road Files, a new horror fiction podcast from Unexplained creator Richard McClean smith. In March twenty twenty, twenty seven year old cafe worker Ben Williams began recording an audio diary of the coronavirus pandemic. Two months later, he was found dead in the South London flat where he was spending lockdown alone, or so he thought. Search the Fountain Road Files wherever you get your podcasts, and for more information go to the Fountain Road Files dot com.
Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show. In the last episode you in there, we got a little eerie in Indiana with the story of LaToya Ammons and her beleagued young family. Back in twenty twelve, LaToya became convinced that she and her children were being tormented by demonic entities at their
home in Gary, Indiana. After an assessment by the Department of Child Services, it was decided that it wasn't demons at all that were plaguing the family. But Latoya's overactive imagination.
As a result, the young mother of three was separated from her children until she could essentially demonstrate that she no longer considered demons to be real, or rather that demons may be real, but they couldn't have any tangible effect on her reality, because to accept demons and evil entities weren't real would effectively mean LaToya having to accept her faith and the God she believed in was not real either, because all these things are in many ways
contingent on each other's existence. This, of course, was not how her case was written up, but in practical terms, this is what the assessment amounted to. Yet this is something that would most likely never be asked or expected of her by the State department of virtually any nation,
no matter how secular its society. And here is a strange conflict that often pervades this kind of story that even in the most secular societies, where medical institutions will have no problem in referring to a belief in demonic entities or the thought that you might be possessed, or that your hearing voices as being reflective of a delusion, rarely, if ever, will an individual's belief in a god or higher power in the traditional sense be undermined in the
same way. Which isn't to say that I think people should therefore be encouraged to believe in demonic entities, but rather just to draw attention to how thin the line is between those potential fictions we are more willing to indulge and those which we are not. Stories about things that may or may not be true. Aren't, of course
restricted to the supernatural. So much of our world and how we comprehend it is based on fictions that can become so ingrained we can often take for granted just how mutable and arbitrary they really are, such as the rules of our favorite sport or the borders of a country, for example. Such seemingly solid and fixed things have always changed and shifted over time and will continue to do so, which doesn't mean fictions are bad things necessarily, or that
we must always be looking to deconstruct them. Though there are undoubtedly fictions that don't serve as well, many are useful to us. One stark way in which we can see this in operation is validation therapy, a controversial technique first developed by US academic Naomi Fell in the nineteen sixties.
The therapy encourage relatives and careers of people suffering from cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer's disease to engage with the suffer's experience rather than deny it or try to coax them out of it, no matter how unreal we might
consider it to be. If an individual with Alzheimer's wants to tell you about the lavish wedding they went to that morning, for example, rather than try to remind them that they haven't left the house or day, you might instead ask them to tell you more about the dress
they wore or how good the food was. Though many have questioned the merits of this technique, others have found it invaluable in reducing the stress of the condition for both sufferers and those closest to them, all of which put me in mind of the time Vanity Fair magazine sent William Friedkin to Rome to spend some time with the Vatican's chief exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, and posed the question, might exorcism, too have a useful function even if there
are no such thing as demons? On December twenty sixth, nineteen seventy three, Warner Brothers released the film The Exorcist, widely regarded as a cinematic masterpiece and one of the most iconic films of all time. Viewers might not think it today, but it's hard to underestimate the impact of the film when it first screamed. Many cinemas reported audience members fainting, crying, and vomiting in the aisles, with ambulances and paramedics regularly dispatched to attend to the hapless viewers.
It was even effectively banned on video in the UK until nineteen ninety nine, after Warner Brothers decided against submitting the film for classification due to the likelihood that it wouldn't have been accepted anyway. Incredibly, such a band was not anticipated because of any misrepresentation of possession or exorcism, but rather because Friedkin's rendering of the process was considered so realistic there were fears that it would lead to
an outbreak of mass hysteria. It may be surprising, therefore, to learn that Freakin had never actually witnessed an exorcism before making the film. All that changed, however, when in May twenty sixteen, he was invited to attend the Exorcism of a young woman given the name Rosa, conducted by exorcist Father Gabriel Amorth. Friedkin's account of the event, later published in Vanity Fair, is every inch as terrifying and
dramatic as that depicted in his film. Rosa, a woman in her late thirties, had been visiting Father Amorth for nine months and was having her ninth exorcism when Friedkin joined to watch. Over the next hour or so, as Amorth conducted the ritual, Rosa appeared to fall in and out of consciousness, sometimes into trances, and would scream and
thrash her body wildly. In the moments between Father Amorth compelled the apparent legion of demons that possessed her to leave her body, she would scream no in reply, or implore the priest in a deep and unfamiliar voice to leave her alone. At other times, the voice would proclaim violently that it was satan. Throughout the session, Friedkin claimed that while the room was cold, everyone inside was sweating,
with the exception of Rosa. Finally, with the exorcism over, Rosa appeared to return to her normal self, but claimed to have no recollection of what had taken place. Friedkin an avowed agnostic, was unnerved by what he had seen and showed the footage to a number of leading psychiatrists, including doctor Roberto Lewis Fernandez, President Elect of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry, and doctor Jeffrey Lieberman, director of
New York State Psychiatric Institute. Lewis Fernandez had worked to add the word possession to the description of dissociative identity disorder found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the industry standard classification manual. Although neither would claim Rosa's
condition to be the result of supernatural forces. Liebermann did, however, note that treating her symptoms as demonic possession may not be the worst thing, implying that if she believed in it so strongly, practicing an exorcism on her might be sufficient to convince her that she'd been cured. In this sense, the question of the existence of Satan and demons could be considered irrelevant in relation to the well being of
the patient. If the patient has come to believe in a world where Satan is real, an exorcist operating with sincerity in that world, too, may bring a comfort to the inflicted individual. Much in the way that validation therapy might help the sufferer of Altzheimon's. It is an example, perhaps of where what somebody feels may be more important what is rational or logical, where something feeling true can
be more powerful than the truth itself. Unexplained, the book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com forward Slash Unexplained Podcast