Today we talk about demons in France. But before that, we look into killer otters, how to break a Freemason’s curse, and how child beauty pageants can get even worse than they already are.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Today we talk about demons in France, but before that, we look into killer otters, how to break a Freemason’s curse, and how child beauty pageants can get even worse than they already are. This is your co-host, Chris.
This is Sheryl. And before we get into our main topic, we are going to calibrate the Lord-Carnarvon Curse-O-Meter, the AI-generated technological marvel we use to tell the cursedness of all things. Let me just start it up right now. And we will feed it three stories from recent news in order to calibrate the machine. I’ll read to it the first story. So the first story is titled, Jogger Mauled by otters.
This is written by Ben Cost on September 11th for the New York Post. A woman was left bloody and crying after getting attacked by a gang of otters in Malaysia. The woman had been jogging through Tenjung-Aru Recreation Park in Sabah when the pack of eight otters attacked her. She was transported to a hospital while a wildlife team was dispatched to the park to keep tabs on the otters. Investigations found that the otters, which reportedly live nearby, had entered the park to forge for food in the pond according to Sabah Wildlife Department Director Roland Oliver Niun.
They interviewed the otters, that’s how they figured it out.
I hope so. I hope so too. Just a bunch of growling and hissing. The otters had visited the park before without incident and that the attack was likely due to a change in behavior caused by visitors feeding them. Sheryl’s shaking her head.
People stop feeding wildlife, I don’t care how cute they are, do not feed wildlife.
Only feed your pets and your livestock. Wildlife officials plan to reinforce the fence around the park and monitor the area into attempt to prevent future attacks. Meanwhile, the public has been urged to avoid going near the fences or interacting with wildlife, stop feeding the otters, people are dying or getting mauled.
I think it’s too late to prevent interacting with wildlife.
It’s not the first time someone has been targeted by otters, which are in the same family as honey badgers and wolverines. Both also unfriendly animals. In 2021, a Singapore victim was hospitalized after a pack of otters reportedly bit him 26 times in 10 seconds.
They have very, very sharp teeth. Very sharp teeth.
They almost look like cat teeth. The victim said, I actually thought I was going to die, they were going to kill me.
If they thought they were going to get snacks, they probably would have.
Imagine how dumb you’d feel in that moment that you’re about to be killed by otters.
I think the one thing in that moment when there’s a whole bunch of otters crawling all over you is that people don’t think start fighting back. otters are small. I know you don’t want to harm them because they’re cute and cuddly, but quite frankly, if they’re trying to eat your face.
It’s true. You are allowed to hit an otter when they’re trying to eat you. Just don’t. This kind of reminds me, there’s a series of pulp paperback magazines from the 50s called Man’s Life. In almost every cover, it’s a man trying to rescue a woman while he’s being assaulted by animals of some type or another. One of them is a guy being covered in little biting turtles that are maybe the size of a coffee saucer. So he’s got nine or ten turtles crawling all over him and he’s yanking them off and he’s got little cuts in blood all over him. It’s hilarious.
Yeah, just if you ever find yourself attacked by an otter for otters, start fighting back best you can.
Stop, drop and roll on those otters. That is the first story entered into the Curse-O-Meter. Sheryl will enter the second new story.
Alright, second new story. Man claims he attacked strangers in Palyup to break freemason curse on his family. This is by A.J. Janaville on September 11th for Fox 13 Seattle. A man who investigators say was armed to the teeth with a hatchet. Machete and Hammer told the police he was looking for strangers to stab to break a freemason’s curse on his family.
Is that like you talk to a psychic and they’re like, how do I break the curse? And I’m like, you just got to stab someone. Doesn’t matter who.
Is this like, I mean, it’s either like that or it’s like Sydney’s whole thing where she thought you guys had a curse. Your family was cursed because of watching the movie whole. So it’s either way it’s bizarre.
If you want to learn that backstory, listen to our other podcast, the I went outside today podcast.
Or what was our other podcasts now? It still lives on the internet. Yeah, according to court documents, Dorano stalked the Riverwalk Trail in Palyup looking for someone to stab. Dorano told police the only way to break the freemason’s curse on his family was to point the sharp end of a blade at a person. Court documents say that Dorano threatened and lunged at two different people with a machete.
Sorry, I got to stab you to break the curse with my family.
Yeah, but if you’re, it probably has to do is point the sharp end of the blade at someone. You don’t have to stab anyone. It’s true. Anyway, semantics.
How deep does it have to be to be called a stab? Like, could you call a friend over and just push it? Yeah. So you get a little bit of blood. Yeah. But it’s like a machete. Is that counted as a stab?
Yeah, I, I don’t know. I think so.
If I did that to my sister as a kid, they would have told my mom that I stabbed them. Oh, we had 100%. Even if it’s just a little dot. Yeah.
I mean, you, if someone stabs you with a pencil, you call that being stabbed with a pencil, even if it only goes in just the length of the lead. Yeah. So I think it’s fine. Given the lack of familiarity with these individuals, the location and the weapon utilized, the state is highly concerned about the community safety risk that he poses, prosecuting attorney said, and requests a high bail amount set.
Mm hmm. Cameras captured Durango using sign language to spell out the word hostage. Despite Durano’s seemingly delusional statements at the time of his arrest, investigators reported that he had enough knowledge to know how to run and hide from the police. But this was not Durano’s first time trying to escape law enforcement this summer. Really? Wow. What is he doing with his life?
He’s having a hot Durano summer.
I guess. And late Jay and Durano tried to run away from police while still in handcuffs after he was arrested breaking into an auto shop trying to steal a car. So he went from trying to steal a car to trying to break a Freemason’s curse.
Maybe the car stealing was the curse making him do it, compelling him to.
Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know enough about Freemason curses. I didn’t think they cursed anyone.
Mm hmm. I didn’t think so either. Like our Ford Edmonton here, they have a Freemason Hall there. And when I went, there was an actual Freemason who guided me and a friend Ivan around and told us all about it. And he’s like, we’re kind of like the stone cutters from The Simpsons. It’s like we don’t have any spooky rituals, we just go around and do things. Yeah.
They seem like generally nice people. Yup.
Durano must have did something pretty bad to get them to curse him.
Although maybe the Freemasons want us to believe they’re nice people.
Oh yeah. How deep does this go? Mm hmm. Alright, I will enter the final story into the Curse-O-Meter here for calibration. Girl performs routine about Jon-Benet Ramsey murder on Dance Moms Reboot. This is an article from August 23rd by Danette Wilford for canoe.com. Is it still on TLC? You know, it didn’t say. I bet it is.
I think that’s the only channel that shows this sort of thing. A reality competition show sparked outrage after one of the performers did a routine inspired by the 1996 slaying of Jon-Benet Ramsey.
Ramsey was a six year old beauty pageant contestant who was found strangled to death in her home, whose murder has gone unsolved for 27 years. Now the TV show Dance Moms, a new era, is facing backlash after one dancer was forced to learn about the tragic tale, then perform a routine in which she pretends to be strangled.
This is why I hate reality TV so much, because they’re just trying to get people to watch, regardless of the content of their show. They just want people to watch. Yeah. It’s terrible.
They just want to submit people through terrible experiences for the enjoyment of others. Yeah. It’s kind of like the Hunger Games. That’s true. You’re going to be a glitz pageant girl, the mother of the 11 year old dancer told her daughter on the episode. That’s who John-Benet was, but then she got kidnapped and murdered. In the episode, the girl is seen going over the routine with her dance teacher, who reminds the dancer that it’s a really sad tragic story, adding, So you’re playing this young child who’s put on display at all these pageants and your parents want this fame and stardom for you. Or is that what you really want? Despite the traumatic story, the young girl fully commits to the piece saying, This is really not for me, but I’ll do anything for the win. In the end, her performance earned her a fourth place finish in the competition.
This kid probably was just like, this is the story of my life. I’m going to die in the exact same way.
Pretty much. She told her mother after getting slammed by her coach, I kind of know how Jon-Benet felt. I’m never good enough.
Wow. Poor kid. Yep.
All like, what is this even for? Yeah. All three new stories have been loaded into the Curse-O-Meter for calibration. I will get it to spit out the results for the new stories now. Please stand by. Okay. And the results for the Otter maulings of Malaysia. The Curse-O-Meter says the real curse is people.
Guys, don’t feel wildlife. I don’t know how many times it needs to be said. Every national park, every park in the city, everywhere says don’t feel wildlife. Stop doing it. Yep.
The one of the other podcasts I listened to when they said, if someone ever gets hurt by a zoo animal, the host said it 100%. It’s always the person’s fault. It’s usually the person’s fault when wildlife are involved.
And like this woman may have never fed an Otter in her life. The fact that everyone else in the park is feeding those Otters is the problem.
Do you think they chased her down for their snack?
Probably. They just learned to associate people with food and if they’re hungry, they’re going to go find someone.
They’re going to go after the next tall two-legged thing they see because all humans look alike when you’re an Otter.
Yeah. And I mean, remember when we were in Kingston and those seagulls were just like screaming at us and getting closer and closer? If you’re afraid of a bird and then you throw a fry at it to make it go away, it’s just going to learn. It comes up to you and it screams at you and it makes a lot of commotion and you give it fries.
Also, seagull related when we’re in Whitby and they had to sign the lookout for seagulls.
I found that on my photos the other day. It’s a good time.
And the results for our second story about the man attacking people in a park due to Freemason’s curse? The results say probably cursed.
Yeah. We can’t know for sure if he was actually cursed by the Freemasons, but it does sound like there’s…
I think it’s likely this man was the cursed.
Yes. He’s his own curse. Because he’s, I don’t know, wandering around stabbing and trying to stab people.
Yeah. I mean, you’re supposed to put out like a Craigslist post or advertisement looking for someone to stab to break my family curse.
Or just tell everyone you’re a vampire. Somebody’s got vampire kinks out there. They’ll let you stab them. It doesn’t need to be violent and crazy in a park. Listen to Sheryl, people. Yeah, I have ideas.
Great. And the results for the third story about little kids being forced to reenact Jon-Benet Ramsey’s death?
The results say the curse is people.
The curse are people. Cursed am people is people. Is people. Just because you can do this doesn’t mean you should.
It’s 100% just for ratings and to get controversy so that people watch the show. There’s no other reason for doing something so ridiculous over the top. Yeah.
I mean, it’s not illegal, but it should be against the law. And I think everything that is against the law now wasn’t at some point and then people, and this should be one of those things that get added to the laws.
It’s also very insensitive. Like her family members are still alive. Her brother is still suffering because people think that he’s the one who did it to her. Like just, I don’t know, let the poor family be.
Alright, that completes the calibration phase of our episode. Before we move on to the main topic, we’re going to take a little side quest over to the probably cursed museum and gift shop. Okay, so Sheryl and I are building a collection of likely cursed items.
We gather these curious items from state sales, small towns, thrift shops, antique stores, and online sellers. In every episode, we release one for you to buy from our online shop to help fund this podcast and our future dream of opening a probably cursed museum. And today, in honor of our 13th episode, we are releasing artifact number 13, which I am calling the Devil Horn. It is not a horn cleaved from the devil himself, although that would be really, really cool. But carved from some sort of animal horn and mounted on a wooden stand. I think it’s like maybe a cow horn or goat horn?
I don’t even know if it’s a horn. It might just be a hollowed out bone. Like a femur or something? It’s hard to tell.
The carving depicts a chubby, pointy-eared demon doing battle with something he is clutching in two hands while he stands on the legs of some kind. I tried many methods to determine who the characters are on the horn, and I can’t come up with 100% sure determination of what it depicts. The closest thing online that I could find in mythology is it may depict Krishna’s victory over a demonic horse was sent by an evil king to murder Krishna before Krishna could murder him, according to some prophecy that King heard. But the figure depicted on here looks a little bit more evil than the usual depictions of Krishna with a bald head, pointy ears, and angry expression and bared teeth.
There’s a name carved on here, and it looks like it says VLAGRAHN. And you can see the tool markings in the actual bone, which is kind of cool.
If you’d like to take a good look at it, or better yet, get it for yourself. Head on to our online store at probablycursed.com to view it.
And for our weird activity in the house update, a few weeks ago, I had just finished off a bottle of peach whiskey, and the empty bottle was on the counter. Krishna and I were in the living room watching TV, and all of a sudden we heard this noise, like the top of the bottle popping, and it shot off and it fell on the floor. It caused quite the noise, we both jumped.
This is not your normal cork either. Think of a bottle of Disaronno where the cork on top is this large heavy rectangle, plugging up the bottle.
And again, the bottle was empty, there’s nothing in there. I don’t remember it being a particularly hot day, although we have been having some hot weather, but there wasn’t really anything in there that I think could have pushed it out that much.
Yeah, so it likely means we still have something haunted in our collection, we haven’t sold the haunted item yet, so.
Likely an alcoholic ghost, it was opening a bottle.
True, true.
So we need to take a second look at our cursed museum there, see what looks like it would have belonged to an alcoholic.
We’ll get back to you, maybe that’ll be next month’s item, whatever we think would have belonged to a drunk person.
That’s true, you know we should figure out something Christmas-ey, the next month is a December episode.
Oh, we’ll start thinking.
Off to come up with a Christmas-ey topic.
Alright, well.
Alright, so that is it for the probably cursed museum and gift shop portion of our episode. We now move on to our main topic.
Today I’m going to talk to you about famous demon and devil encounters in France. We will discuss three cases of demons in France, two of which are demon possession cases. There will be the Ludon possessed nuns Estelle Faguette and her visions at Pellvoise and the exorcism of Nicole Obery.
You keep saying Demons of France and I keep thinking ‘Genius in France’ by Weird Al in my head. And I’m Weird Al-ing it into ‘Demons in France’.
Well done. I hate, you know what, power to you because this is a wild ride. Now Chris, do you remember a few months back when I was trying to do a listener suggested story?
Yes, we had gotten our very first, actually our very second request for an episode.
Well, I looked into the suggestion from our listener, Georges, who is from France and there wasn’t a lot of information on the story that he requested. But I still want to do the story, so that’s why we have three demon possession cases in this one.
Sometimes we come up with a topic that is a little bit thin that we still want to do, but we got to pad it a little.
So I’m going to start the episode with a bit of a disclaimer. So disclaimer one. Oui, je peux parler en français un petit peu. I did spend most of my childhood speaking French in school, but we live in a part of Canada where most people speak English. And it’s hard to find people to practice my French with, so pronunciation of French words and names might be a bit off.
That’s true. The most French we have in this area, people have learned from looney tunes, which I always remember. Avec, avec, le wild cat, escape vous.
Which is not completely French. Also, France, French and Canadian French are two different dialects of the same language. So they sound a bit different, so my pronunciation may be different than what they would actually use as pronunciation in French or in France.
It’s like the difference between Texas English and Scottish English. Yes.
And additionally, there’s old French, which just like old English can sometimes use words or names that I’m not familiar with. Just because when would I use old French ever? Alors, si vous plaît, soyez passionn avec nous. We are trying our best. And for our English speakers, all I said is please be patient with us. Well done. Thank you. I’m going to do these stories in reverse chronological order because the stories get wilder as we go. As mentioned before, this is the first episode we’ve had as a result of listener suggestion.
Georges sent us two suggestions and I hope to look at the other suggestion for a later episode. But today’s, I want to tell you the story of Estelle Faguette. And yes, that is how you pronounce her name I checked, which brings me to disclaimer two. Yes, Faguette may sound like an offensive word to some people, but it is her last name and I am using the correct pronunciation.
You’re allowed to call people that if it’s their name.
If it’s their name. Faguette is a French word for bundle of sticks. Faguette is military saying for a small bundle. At least that’s what I found when I looked on the long French website. It can be used as a derogatory term and I will acknowledge that, but it wasn’t used that way until 1914. Estelle lived in the 1800s, which to be honest would be a terrible thing to have happen. Like imagine waking up one day and suddenly your last name is an offensive term. Yeah.
I bet every Karen can relate. Yes.
Every good Karen. It’s just, it’s a terrible thing to happen.
Every bad Karen, you knew this was coming.
Now onto our story. So Estelle was born on the 12th of September 1843 in Saint-Mémy France. As a child, Estelle was quite religious. She wanted to devote herself to God. She came from a religious family and when she was hospitalized at the age of 15, she decided she wanted to become a nun. During her stay at the hospital, she was sick several times and it was apparently also poisoned. The article I found mentioned that she was poisoned as like a bit of a passing remark so I don’t have more details.
Oh, so it didn’t say if it was malpractice or what do they call it when a nurse or doctor is killing their patients like an angel of death.
Yeah. Assisted suicide? I’m not sure.
No, like involuntary suicide or something. Like when they want you to die. I can’t remember.
Please comment if you remember what the term is for when an evil doctor tries to murder you. Either way, there’s no detail so I can’t really tell you what she was poisoned with or how she was poisoned or how she knew she was poisoned.
I think all they had was arsenic back then.
I was gonna say, yeah, arsenic or maybe too much opium. But after her hospitalization, she did decide to move back home. Other than one other instance of her having to be hospitalized for a stomach infection in her 20s, she seemed to live fine until 1875. When she ended up being so sick, she was referred to a homeopathic doctor in Paris. Uh-oh. I don’t know if homeopathic meant the same back then, but it’s 1800s medicine wasn’t that good then anyway, so.
Oh yeah, I guess you had like a 50-50 chance with either.
Yeah, it didn’t really seem to make much of a difference. The doctor stated that not only did she have a stomach infection now, she also had a tumor the size of an orange on the left side of her abdomen. Well, no. He told Estelle that she would no longer be able to work, but she didn’t like that idea and she returned to work anyway.
I know people like that. That’s true.
In January of 1876, in
January of 1876, the Estelle’s employers brought Estelle back to her parents’ place in Palvozé because she was so sick she was no longer able to work. So she had been caring for children, for a family for a while and they were just like, nope, you can’t do this anymore. And on February 10th, Estelle couldn’t keep any food down any longer and her doctors told her family that Estelle would not survive the night. She was in immense pain and extreme suffering. She then asked for the curate of Palvozé to write a letter to her employer requesting that a candle be lit for her at Notre Dame de Victoire, so our Lady of Victory, and our Lady of Lourdes Church. February 14th is our first encounter with the supernatural. Valentine’s Day.
Yep. Estelle saw a demon at the foot of her bed that evening. Valentine’s Demon. Valentine’s Demon. It woke her up hoping to harass her in her final moments of life. But the Virgin Mary showed up by her bedside and it scared the demon off.
Get on, Scoot, get out of here.
Mary then apparently told Estelle, fear nothing, you are my daughter, have courage, you are to suffer five days more in honor of the five wounds of Christ. By Saturday you will either be cured or dead.
That is not helpful. I mean, other than that, you know that the mother of Jesus is like, gave you a personal visit. None of what she said is particularly
comforting or yeah, it just, it feels like, I don’t know, why even bother? Estelle, of course, told her doctors this news, which being the homeopathic doctors is probably not the craziest thing they’ve heard.
It’s true. And they’re like, oh, this is because of my treatment.
The demon returned every night between February 15th and February 17th, each time getting closer and closer, but each time being scared away by the Virgin Mary.
Just imagining her chasing it away with a broom. You know what?
Honestly, that’s probably what happened. Finally, on February 18th, the Virgin Mary showed up and this time she was on her own. Mary told Estelle to give all her pain over to God and when Estelle did, she was magically cured. During her lifetime, Estelle had 10 more visions of the Virgin Mary and lived 50 more years dying at the age of 86. Nice.
Yeah. There are some people that think that she was visited by both a demon and the devil. Well, others say that it was Esmodius Lucifer Beelzebub who visited Estelle, although again, regardless of what occurred, which demonic creatures visited her. She was cured and she actually went on to write her own biography.
Depending on the time of year, the devil might have been in Estelle. Flashback to our last episode.
It’s true. Once again, thank you, Georges, for the suggestion. It sent me on a wild trip to discover all the other demon and devil encounters in France, which makes you partially responsible for the stories that we’re about to follow.
Enjoy, Georges. The best known possession case in Europe happened in France in the town of Loudin. It started again in September, September 22nd, 1632, when Sister Jean Desanges and Sister Marte de Saint Monique were visited in the night by Father Mousseau. So Sister Marte, recently deceased confessor, was asking for help. Suddenly, Father Mousseau transformed himself into an erotic version of Orden Grandier, a priest who was known as a womanizer and an anti-royalist.
Ooh, saucy. And who was, at this time, banned from being able to perform his priestly duties because of his poor behavior. Lustful dreams of Grandier spread through the 19 nuns of the convent, but it appeared that Sister Jean was the most affected by the visions and possession.
There was a rumor that Sister Jean housed several demons within her body, and the church would not stand for this, and they decided the best way to handle the whole situation was to have a public exorcism. Public. Public. And these public exorcisms drew spectators from all over Europe.
I mean, it would. Yeah.
I mean, people still watch that sort of thing on TV now, so. Yep. The young nuns barked like dogs. They swore. They flashed people. They spoke in garbled Latin, and they even twisted their bodies into weird positions. The exorcism revealed that the demons went by the popular demon names, including Asmodeus, Behemoth, Leviathan, and Asteroth.
All awesome band names.
And after months’ worth of exorcisms, the church exorcists were finally able to determine who the man was behind all of this, and it was the man who appeared as a naked apparition, Urbain Grandier. Now Grandier was technically still alive at this time, but not for long. Because if we have learned anything from history from the 1600s, there was a witch hunt going on and due to his involvement, and yes, involvement is in air quotes, Grandier was put on trial for witchcraft. He’s like, who? Where? It’s like, what was I even doing? You can’t.
Sounds like something I do, but I was very drunk.
During the trial, the prosecution claimed that they had found a pact which Grandier had made with the devil, in which he was promised the love of women, wealth, and worldly honor, and the document was even endorsed with a diabolical signature. I wonder what that is.
I wonder if they’ve got it in a museum in France somewhere, because I want to see that. And I mean, how do you even argue that in court? Like back then, how do you prove that you didn’t sign it? So Grandier was convicted and burned at the stake in 1634 in front of… Seems harsh.
Yes, very harsh. Keep in mind, he didn’t like the church or the royal family. But he worked for the church. Oh, right. Sorry. Keep in mind, he didn’t like the royal family. Okay. It may have had something to do with how the soul went down.
Maybe he got a little bit mouthy in court, and they’re like, Yeah, I see the devil in him now.
Yeah. Wait, what? So he was burned at the stake in 1634 in front of 6,000 people. Wow. The population of Luda at the time was 20,000 people. So just under half the town showed up for the spectacle.
People at the back of the crowd probably couldn’t see anything.
No, I don’t even know why you would show up at that point. You want to know the sat irony of the whole thing? What’s that? It didn’t even stop the possession of the nuns. Wow. It actually got worse.
I mean, isn’t that how it worked with Freddie Kruger?
I think so. He just came back from the dead to make things worse. Sassy Freddie Kruger. It took a guy named Fráils Vurín and his prayers to finally exercise the demon.
This naked dancing erotic demon.
And this story was actually turned into a movie that was produced in 1971 titled The Devils. So another movie to add to our watch list.
Oh, The Devils. Is it an English movie? It is an English movie. Nice. I also need to get you the translate for me.
Mm-hmm. Now remember how I said these stories get wilder? Yeah. Well, our third and final story today should maybe have been its own episode, but once I started researching it, I couldn’t stop. So here’s the story of Nicole Obrí.
Sometimes these rabbit holes turn into black holes. You just can’t escape.
So on November 3rd, 1565, Nicole or Nicole, I may switch back and forth because the names are spelled the exact same way. A 16-year-old recently married woman encountered a spirit or demon in Picardie, France. Nicole was described as a pretty pious girl who wasn’t that intelligent.
She’s religious, but not that bright. But luckily she got married by the time she was 16 before she was too old at 17.
And she was pretty. Keep in mind she was pretty. Nicole stated that she had stopped at the church that was adjacent to the cemetery where her grandfather had been buried. And that evening while praying, the ghost of her grandfather showed up and told her that he was stuck in purgatory because he had died before confessing his sins. So his family needed to help him.
I gotta say that back when I went to church as a little kid, this bothered me because they’re like, you can’t go in the heaven unless you’ve confessed your sins. You gotta go to confession. But what if you commit a sin and then die immediately?
Yes. This is what happens.
This is why I stopped going to church. And then I felt immediately better about everything in my life.
Well, she may have been able to do the same thing had she not believed in this as well. So the family had to go on a series of pilgrimages for him, including visiting churches in France and one in Spain so that they could pray for his trapped soul. Now, keep in mind this is all coming from Nicole. So it kind of sounds like she just wanted to travel around Europe for a bit. She’s 16, she just got married.
It’s like, oh, now he needs to be in Hawaii.
Like, I don’t know. I have no complaints. And for the first little while, Nicole’s family visited each of the churches in France. No issue. But they refused for whatever reason to visit Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It does not say why. Because it was in Spain? I guess. Maybe they couldn’t afford to go.
I think this is back when white people were racist against other white people.
Well, because they failed to meet the request of Nicole’s grandfather, Nicole started suffering from seizures. She told her family that her grandfather’s spirit had threatened to make her mute, deaf, and blind unless his request for prayers were fulfilled.
Geez, grandpa. Now, as most Pais families would have done in the 1500s with this type of information, the Obri family consulted with their local priest. The priest told them he was certain it wasn’t actually the spirit of Nicole’s deceased grandfather, but actually an angel or a devil. Could be either one. 50-50.
At the very least, it didn’t sound like he was going to blow her whole story about we need to go to all these places right away.
So the priest decided to interrogate the angel demon, which he now believed was inhabiting Nicole’s body, and eventually determined it couldn’t be an angel because angels weren’t in the habit of tormenting people.
We can get into Bible stories, but I can think of a couple where angels made a lot of people’s lives suddenly worse.
Yes. This led the priest to one conclusion, however. Nicole herself must have been possessed by the devil. He then requested the diocese, which is kind of like the state or provincial office for the Catholic Church. That’s what the diocese is.
So this is like the state trooper of Catholicism.
Yeah, kind of. They requested they send over a friar pier de la moat to examine Nicole immediately. Friar pier was able to confirm that Nicole was clearly possessed by the devil after conversing with the spirit in Latin, which caused the devil to reveal himself.
That’s how you always get the devil. That’s right.
I’m just going to speak Latin all the time and then just wait to see people’s reactions. However, it meant it was time to call in the bishop. The bishop of Lanon began his first exorcism on November 27th, 1565 in Vervin. They quickly had to move from Vervin Cathedral to Lyon because more than 10,000 people showed up to watch this exorcism. Even though at the time, Church manuals noted that exorcisms should not be a public event.
Yeah, because wouldn’t you be worried that when you flush out the demon, it’s going to go into the next available warm, cozy human?
Yeah. You want to know why they made it a public event? Why is that? Because the devil himself forbid the exorcism to be a private event.
So they’re just going to do whatever the devil forbids them?
I guess so. The devil threatened that he would never leave Nicole’s body if the exorcism was not public so that all the people could witness God’s benevolence.
This sounds like the devil lying.
It sounds like church propaganda.
The other devil.
I also put in my notes that it kind of starts to sound like the beginning of Televangelism. Nicole was put on stage so that people could witness the event and she was carried on procession through the city streets twice a day. For two months, Nicole’s convulsions and paralysis only went away when she was fed the Eucharist.
So this is like a marketing guy in the church. It’s like, no wait, we can parade her through town twice a week. People will be tithing even more.
Yep, they’re going to come to church. Everyone’s afraid of the demon all of a sudden. From her bed at the altar at the Cathedral of Lyon, Nicole spoke in Flemish, German, French, and Latin, but always answered the bishop’s questions in French or Flemish. She spoke in a rough frightening voice and revealed people’s secrets and sins, calling them to confess for their wrongdoings.
This poor child sounds like she was like a puppet for the church. For this demonic battle, the weapon of choice against the devil was the Eucharist. So for those of you who don’t know, the tiny little wafer that the church… That little cracker. Yeah, the little cracker was supposed to be the symbol of the body of Christ, etc.
So as a weapon, they cut off the sides so it would turn into a little Death Star and they throw it at her.
I wish that would be epic. The exorcists had already tried Holy Water Crosses, Saint Raleigh’s, but they found all these items had little effect on the devil.
And I guess they weren’t ready to try a silver bullet.
No. I mean, she was a 16-year-old married woman who had to have children yet. Church can’t have her dying just yet.
It’s true, especially if you’re transporting her around town twice a week.
That’s right. The people gathered for Nicole’s exorcism to witness her body attempting to resist the consumption of the Eucharist, and even heard the devil proclaim that he feared its power.
Oh no, it’s so scary. Please don’t.
I can’t enter the body of anyone who hasn’t had a Eucharist from Mass. The devil also admitted that his name was Bezelbub. For weeks, Nicole fed more and more on holy wafers, which led the devil to call in his army of over 30 additional demons to possess Nicole’s body. The exorcism continued and finally came to an end on February 8th, 1566, when the final demon was exercised from Nicole’s body at the Cathedral of Leon.
Nicole was finally free and King Charles IX even visited Nicole and gave her 10 Ecrue for being a living witness of the Catholic base. So Ecrue is like golden dollars. Yeah, which is like… Sounds like she got paid. She got paid. Again. Our demon just played. Our demon just played.
This is totally a slip. It must be a demon.
Yeah. For those of you who are looking for proof that this randomly plays noise, here’s your proof.
Artifact number… 12.
12. Again, it’s sounding more and more like Nicole was paid by the church to maybe put on a bit of a show.
Maybe she was like, all right guys, I made it up. And they’re like, you were making it up this whole time? She’s like, yeah, look, brah,
contorting like amazingly because she has like contortion abilities. Yeah. And I’m like, how would you like to make a few dollars? How would you like to make a few Ecrutes? The Catholic Church has been losing popularity. We would love for you to come and help us bring more people in.
If you could spider walk in front of a crowd of 10,000 people like you did in front of all these priests.
We can give you 10 gold coins. Nicole’s public exorcism paved the way for all other public exorcisms in France, including the exorcism of a 13 year old boy named Laurent, who was possessed by a demon named Bonnoir. There was also a 50 year old man who ended up being possessed twice by a, and no other detail than that, and a woman named Magarit Obrie, who is not related to Nicole. But she claimed to be possessed by the exact same demons as Nicole.
You know, if the demons are real and they’re like, we’re going to possess the entire bloodline, but then they got the last name mixed up. Yeah. I mean, why not ruin this whole lady’s life?
Also in 1598, another series of public exorcisms were held in France, in which the woman, Maute Procier, apparently became possessed after reading about Nicole Obrie. So I apologize if any of you become possessed. I have not managed to become possessed myself yet, and I wrote this a few weeks ago.
I know, like you, like for like really heavy topics, you’re supposed to put a trigger alert trigger alert for people with PTSD. But what about demon possession alert?
I mean, I’ve kind of figured if nothing happened to me, and is anything weird happening to you? Is anything weird happening to you? Not yet. Okay. Well then, I think we’re good. Our listeners are safe.
I think our dog is having a very intense dream right now.
Yes. He’s, he’s definitely hearing my demon stories and he is not okay. And that concludes our tales of demons and devils in France. Fantastic. I loved it. Have you ever wondered where television, tell evangelism came from? You can blame Nicole. You can blame the French. Or the devil who wants all exorcisms to be public. Uh-huh.
Just so God can see how great God is. And not just for a big show and dance. Yep. Well, that was fantastic. We will take Sheryl’s topic of the three different demonic possession stories of France and load into the Curse-O-Meter now and get it to tell us the results of how cursed they are. Please stand by.
So for the story of Estelle, the Curse-O-Meter says probably blessed. Probably blessed. Yeah. I mean, she got cured of all of her diseases. Yeah. And the demon devil, whatever was coming to visit her, really didn’t do anything. It just showed up and Mary scared it off.
Yep. Came closer and closer to her bed. She was protected. Yeah. Just fine. So she was blessed. She was definitely fine. And for the second demonic instance.
For the nuns of Luda, the Curse-O-Meter says probably cursed.
Yeah. It sounds like the nuns felt like they’re being possessed either by a demon or just through mass hysteria. But if it was mass hysteria, still that one guy got singled out and killed.
And basically for no reason because it didn’t even stop the possession.
Yeah. Just because he was just the most erotic priest ever. Yeah.
Just because he wanted the ladies and there was no proof that he had signed a contract with the devil. I mean, yeah, they had a contract. Really. Come on.
Why would the devil leave that lying around? You think he would have like a filing cabinet of hell? Yeah. All right. And for the third demonic story that you had brought up.
So for the story of Nicole Ubrey, the Curse-O-Meter says the curse is people.
It sounds a little too theatrical to not just be some exploitive method by priests. Yeah.
I agree. It seems like something that like they’re like, oh, you know what made a whole bunch of people come to the church? The last calamity. Let’s make a new calamity.
I mean, how many other people who went through an exorcism got a payday? Yeah. Very suspicious.
It’s very, very interesting. I don’t know enough about King Charles to know whether or not he was a staunch Catholic, but I assume so considering he’s like, oh, look, you’re a living witness to the Catholic faith. Here’s some money. Plus all these other people that became possessed in France. Like it just and even the one person after reading the story come up. Yeah. Pure theatrics.
We apologize to anyone who suddenly became possessed through this broadcast. Yes. Yeah. Those are some stories I’ve never heard of before. Thank you, George, for sending Sheryl on this rabbit hole of demon possessions.
Feel free. Any of our other listeners, if you have episode suggestions, send them in.
Email us at probablycursedpodcast@gmail.com or you can DM us on Facebook, Instagram. We also have a TikTok, but I haven’t received any DMs on there yet. I don’t know if you can. You can write in the comments of our videos. And again, if you would like to take a look at our haunted artifacts, our online store, at probablycursed.etsy.com, hopefully you’ll take a look at the most recent artifact, artifact number 13, the Devil Horn. Or you can also take a look at artifact number 12, the jack-in-the-box that seems to activate it completely random times, even during this episode.
Yeah. And take some home for yourself. Or if you have a cursed artifact, get in touch with us. If you would like to be rid of it, you can send it to us and we will gladly take it into our home.
Just send us an email and we’ll give you a post office box address you can send it to.
We know that this is how most horror movies start, but I figure if we put all the haunted objects in a big circle, we can just make them fight each other for dominance. I don’t know if they will. I don’t think demons work together. I think they will fight, actually.
They might, yeah. And until next month, this is your host, Chris. And this is Sheryl.
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