The Gasp Menagerie: Watch the First Televised Exorcism
Before I introduce the video, a couple clarifications are needed. First of all, this doesn’t represent any exorcism ritual I’ve ever seen, and I’ve studied all of them in the world of Judeo-Christianity and many others outside it.
I’ve never heard of this particular spiritualism church, especially one existing in the early 1970’s. Spiritualism was very popular in the early 20th century, but by the time the 70’s rolled around, there were few organized pockets of believers left.
What’s more, the ritual would be amazingly dangerous and foolish according to ANY variety of demonology. If you believe you are dealing with something that requires a ritual defined as an exorcism, the last thing you’d want to do is become a medium for the entity and invite it to speak through you. It’d be like having a sick person sneeze on you to find out what kind of illness they have.
Second, I get a massive amount of “these guys are hoaxing douchebags” vibe off the two “ministers” in the video. I think the news crew and family got trolled.
That said, as far as I can tell, this is an authentic video from 1971, as claimed. In it we see a story shot for a local Chicago station about a family who had reported paranormal activity in their home. They contacted the pair seen in the video, who do their “exorcism” and supposedly cleanse the home, all on camera.
The story is surprisingly straightforward and not tongue-in-cheek as one might expect from news people. Like it or not, it appears this is the first time anything purporting to be an actual exorcism appeared on US television so that makes it relevant no matter the authenticity of the ritual.
Check out the video below! What do you think?
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Categorized:News
