Posted by “Julia” is the pseudonym of an American woman, a former member of a satanic group, whose case was described by psychiatrist Richard E. Gallagher in 2008 and later in his book “Demonic Foes” (2020). According to him, during exorcisms the woman spoke in different voices and in languages she didn’t know, knew things she couldn’t have known and even levitated. Everything we know, however, comes from Gallagher and the exorcists, and skeptics remain highly critical.
The case I’m about to tell you about is that of a woman known by the pseudonym “Julia”. It was described in 2008 by Dr. Richard E. Gallagher, a psychiatrist who works in New York and teaches at New York Medical College, in an article in the Catholic magazine New Oxford Review.
Who is Julia?
Dr. Gallagher describes Julia as a middle-aged white woman living in the United States. She herself turned to the Church, which referred her to the psychiatrist: Gallagher has worked with priests for years to distinguish cases of mental illness from what, in his view, are real possessions.
She was convinced she was being “attacked” by a demon or by Satan himself. She said she had long been part of a satanic group, in which she called herself a kind of “queen” or priestess, even though she had been raised Catholic.
Although she was no longer practicing, she nevertheless decided to ask the Church for an exorcism. After meeting her, the psychiatrist noted that the woman was not at all psychotic: she was logical and very intelligent.
Despite this, Julia often went into trances which, according to Gallagher, did not match the classic dissociative states known to psychiatry.
The trances were accompanied by strange phenomena
- while in a trance she insulted and taunted those helping her
- she used foul, scatological language
- the voice during the trance was not Julia’s
When she came out of the trance she remembered nothing of what had happened.
Precisely because of this detail some suggested it might be a dissociative identity disorder.
Gallagher, however, ruled this out because of other symptoms I’ll tell you about later.
Given the complexity of the case, Dr. Gallagher decided to expand his team. It included:
- some highly qualified psychologists
- at least four priests
- a deacon and his wife
- two nuns, one of them a psychiatric nurse
- various volunteers
Meetings were often organized to help Julia. According to Gallagher, during the phone calls to arrange them a voice sometimes broke in: it was the voice Julia had during her trances, even though she was thousands of miles away and could not have known everyone’s numbers. The voice, sometimes very deep and sometimes very high, said things like:
“Leave her alone, you idiots! She’s ours!”
or
“Stop interfering, you fool!”
When asked, Julia always claimed to know nothing about it, but many people on different occasions said they had heard that voice.
What was strange about Julia’s behavior?
As I said, Julia showed other peculiarities too. When she wasn’t in a trance, according to Gallagher, she displayed psychic abilities and her presence was often associated with paranormal phenomena.
Sometimes objects around her seemed to fall or fly off the shelves. Another peculiarity was that Julia knew things she could not possibly have known:
she could give information about relatives, families, deaths and illnesses in the families of the team members. Once she described in detail the death of a relative of one of them, naming the exact type of cancer he had died of. Another time she said to Gallagher:
“So, did you like those cats going crazy last night?”
The night before, the psychiatrist’s cats, usually very calm, had started fighting furiously at 2 a.m. Or again, one day she managed to describe where one of the priests was, the room, his clothes and his state of mind, all later confirmed by the priest. After all these studies, the time came for the exorcism she herself had requested.
The exorcism
The exorcism began on a hot day in June. Despite the heat, the room where the rite took place was strangely cold, but when the voice inside Julia began to speak it became extremely hot.
At first Julia had gone into a calm trance. After several prayers, however, she began to speak, and not with just one voice: many voices came out of her mouth, along with sounds and grunts that, according to those present, no human being could imitate.
At one point one of the voices began speaking in several languages, including Spanish and Latin, although Julia spoke only English.
Needless to say, the voices were angry, insolent and blasphemous. Julia also showed enormous strength, so much so that the two nuns and some volunteers could barely hold her down. Then, Gallagher says, she began to levitate above the bed for about half an hour, an episode he says was witnessed by several people, including the two exorcists.
The entities inside Julia could tell holy water from ordinary water.
It is not unusual for exorcists to sprinkle ordinary water while saying it is blessed: in this way many fakes are exposed. According to more recent accounts Julia underwent several exorcism sessions without a definitive deliverance, until she herself, exhausted, decided to stop them.
Possession or not?
Gallagher also told Julia’s story in a well-known 2016 Washington Post article and in his book “Demonic Foes” (2020), in which he calls it the most disturbing case of his career, a possession “that happens once in a century”. The case was also featured on the “Unsolved Mysteries” podcast.
Skeptics, however, are highly critical. Julia has never been identified, and everything we know about her comes from Gallagher and the exorcists, that is, from people who already believed in possession. There are no videos, recordings or independent checks of the levitation or the other phenomena.
Neurologist Steven Novella, for example, has pointed out that Gallagher’s accounts are anecdotes and that phenomena such as voices, trances and sudden strength can be explained by psychiatric disorders or suggestion. Demonic possession or mental illness? You decide.
🦋 Emadion lives through its readers. If this story kept you up at night, buy me a coffee: it helps me bring you the next nightmare.
☕ Support Emadion on Ko-fi
