Posted by In 1906 Clara Germana Cele, a 16-year-old South African orphan studying at St. Michael’s Mission in Natal, was believed to be possessed after saying she had made a pact with Satan. According to the nuns she spoke unknown languages, levitated and was extremely violent. After a two-day exorcism she lived another six years without symptoms and died in 1912.
When discussing real cases of demonic possession, the first name that comes to mind is Anneliese Michel’s. However, there are other cases, less well-know yet equally disturbing. This is the case of the exorcism of Clara Germana Cele, a South African girl who had been possessed when she was 16 years old, after making a pact with Satan.
The Possession of Clara Germana Cele
Clara, a South African orphan, was baptised as a child. She attended school at St. Michael’s Mission, in Natal, South Africa, but in 1906, when Clara was 16 years old, something terrible happened.
Clara wanted to make a pact with the Devil and this is said to be the reason of her demonic possession. The girl talked about it to her confessor, Father Erasmus Hörner, but she never explained what she wanted to obtain in exchange from this pact.
From an account left by one of the nuns at St. Michael’s Mission, we know that Clara started to show symptoms of her possession very early on.
She was able to speak languages of which she had no previous knowledge: the nun explained that Clara could understand Polish, German, French, Norwegian, and all other languages.
Apparently, Clara also started to demonstrate clairvoyance skills, as she could reveal the most personal secrets of people close to her, but also of people that she had never met before.
Another clear sign of Clara’s possession was her intolerance to blessed holy objects, as in the cases of Anneliese Michel and Roland Doe.
Clara’s behaviour changed as well, as she became more aggressive and showed an extraordinary physical strength: she often hurled the nuns from one side of the convent rooms to the other and beat them.
She then started to produce frightening animal-like sounds. This is how one of the nuns working at St. Michael’s Mission described them:
No animal had ever made such sounds. Neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls. At times, it sounded like a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated by Satan had formed a hellish choir.
The Exorcism of Clara Germana Cele
An exorcism was then organised, entrusted to two Catholic priests, Father Mansueti, director of the mission, and Father Erasmus. First Clara knocked the Bible out of the priest’s hands, then she grabbed his stole and tried to strangle him with it.
Clara was then said to levitate a metre and a half in the air, both vertically and horizontally.
When the priest sprinkled her face with holy water, the girl came out of the state of possession, leading thus to believe that she was really possessed and not suffering with mental illness.
The ritual of exorcism lasted two days, after which Clara was freed from Satan and was finally able to live her life again. For six years Clara lived with no more signs of possession. She was ashamed of her behaviour, asked for forgiveness and led a humble life. She died in 1912, aged 22, of heart failure.
It must be said that everything we know about this case is based on the accounts of the nuns and priests of the mission, and there is no other evidence of the phenomena described.
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