Ep. 27 - The Loudun possessions

Kathryn (00:10) Alright, hello! Welcome to I Scream You Scream, your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. I'm Kathryn.

Gina (00:20) I'm Gina.

Kathryn (00:22) Every month we choose a new topic and a new ice cream flavor to go along with it. And this month's topic is demons and we're going to be eating apple cinnamon ice cream while we discuss. So grab a spoon and let's dig in.

Gina (00:38) Yum yum yum.

Kathryn (00:39) It's so good. But the texture is so weird. Oops.

Gina (00:41) It gets better every time. Yeah, is yours like a slushie?

Kathryn (00:46) It is like a slushie. Yeah, I need to stop making vegan ice cream. I think I'm going to propose, you can do whatever you want, but I would, I'm going to propose a flavor next month that I don't have to make. I think I need a little break from making ice cream.

Gina (00:48) Okay. I was thinking that, I just hadn't talked to you about it yet. I think we do need to take a break from making ice cream. I'm curious what your flavor proposal is though.

Kathryn (01:04) Mm-hmm. That's my only proposal. Just the one that I don't have to make. Yes, doable. So what's new with you?

Gina (01:09) Okay. We can do that. That's easy. Mm. Spring has officially sprung in the UK, so yesterday we went to a park and had some beers because you're allowed to drink outside here. And that's really all that's new with me.

Kathryn (01:22) Nice. Love it. Sorry, I just took a bite of the apple and my teeth are freezing. I am dying to tell you about my experience. Yesterday, I was, I forgot it was happening yesterday. It was like a pleasant surprise on my calendar. And I went to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo. I don't know, it's national, right? Not international. It's basically—

Gina (01:32) You. I'm dying to hear about it. I don't think it's international. Haven't seen it ever come here.

Kathryn (01:59) Not yet, I don't think. It feels like it's growing pretty significantly. So maybe someday. But basically, it is exactly as it sounds. It's like a traveling convention expo situation with vendors who sell oddities and curiosities. And that's it as described. They have like a stage where people do like weird things. I'm not so much into that. I enjoy it. I love that it exists.

Kathryn (02:20) Like, you know how people like swallow swords and stuff? I think that stuff is so cool and I love that it exists but I can't watch it. You know what I mean? I just feel so scared. If I'm watching it, it's gonna be the one time that a tragedy happens. You know what I mean? Like I'm just like, I don't trust—like I trust them to know what they're doing. I don't trust—like I'm scared of jinxing them or something so.

Gina (02:27) That kind of weird thing. I know. I always get like the sympathetic gag reflex when I see the sort—yeah, bleh.

Kathryn (02:53) Me too. Yes. Yeah. So there were no swords yesterday, but there was—Phil told me—every time we passed the stage, I straight up was like, none of my business. But I had gone to look at something else and Phil had the honor of witnessing a man nailing things into his face. I don't know. And again, not my business. But I did find a couple of fun things. We got a spooky little candle.

Gina (03:22) Mmm, what is it?

Kathryn (03:25) I guess I could go closer. It's a spooky woman with a veil on her face and I'm so excited. I've been looking high and low for some uranium glass and I found some. Isn't it so pretty? It's taped. This is like a sugar dish.

Gina (03:27) Mmm. That's very cool. Ooh, that's gorgeous. What are you going to put in there? Are you going to use it as a sugar dish?

Kathryn (03:49) I think she's just going to stay on display because she was far, far out of my budget and I had no business buying it. But it's justifiable because I've—

Gina (03:51) Nice. Yeah.

Kathryn (04:00) I've been wanting one for so long that it was—I kind of paused and was fully ready to be like, oh, nevermind. But Phil was the one who was like, none of these prices are outrageous. And I was like, quietly like, yes they are. But since you said that, then that's fine with me. Like okay. Then I was bracing myself. I'm like okay, why is he saying this? Like, what is he gonna want to like spend money on? But nothing. He did get something, but it is a—

Gina (04:12) You're right!

Kathryn (04:29) It's gonna be a gag gift for someone. So I don't wanna say it out loud. There's a 0% chance this person listens to this podcast, but I don't want it to get back to them.

Gina (04:33) Okay. Just in case.

Kathryn (04:38) Anyway, so that's that.

Gina (04:39) I'll never forget the one time, I think it was when, like right around the time you and Phil started dating, you went to a thrift shop together and you said you had a gift for me. And it was like, part of it was from you, part of it was from Phil. And so you gave it to me, it was like a little box, like a perfect little like small jewelry box for like rings and earrings and stuff.

Kathryn (04:40) So yeah. Yes!

Gina (04:58) It had this really pretty cover on it. And then I opened it up and there was a bunch of fake teeth covered in fake blood in there. And you were like, that's from Phil. I tell myself it was fake.

Kathryn (04:58) It was beautiful. I hope they were fake. The blood was fake. We got the—yeah, we got fake blood and we put it on the teeth. But I don't know, this came from an antique shop. So I'm like, cannot guarantee those teeth weren't—

Gina (05:17) You put the fake blood on the—I thought they came that way. Years I've been thinking this. That's funny. I still have that box. It's on my vanity.

Kathryn (05:25) Yeah, no, we added that. Yeah, we still have the fake blood somewhere. Because they were little capsules. They looked like little pills. And what you were supposed to do is they were like a prank gift where you're supposed to put them in your mouth and let it dissolve and then like blood drips out. But we just like pre-mixed it. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah.

Gina (05:35) Just in case you need it. Okay. And like, okay. Yeah, I like Phil's gifts. Did you want to talk about... Sorry, did you want to talk about the aura photography on the pod? Okay, sweet. I wasn't sure.

Kathryn (05:57) So yeah, that's what we did yesterday. Yeah, yes. I'll share a picture of it on social. This will all be posted on social. Basically, Phil and I—I made him get an aura photograph. He was like not into it, but I—they had a special like discounted whatever convention pricing.

Kathryn (06:20) So I was like, we have to do it, because these are usually, in my opinion, unreasonably expensive. So we got it done, and we got it done separately, because I've been wanting to get mine done again for a very long time. And that's why I know how much it costs, because I've been looking it up, and I'm like, it's not quite worth it. So last time I got it done was several years ago, almost probably a decade ago.

Kathryn (07:05) My mind looks so different than it used to. And I'm like obsessed. Both of our auras look very similar, which I just love. Like I'm like so happy. It turned out like way better than I thought it was gonna be. Thought, is that it over there? Hold on.

Kathryn (07:23) Okay, I found them. I'm not gonna share his, because he will not enjoy that. All right, you can kind of see it. Yeah. So our pictures look very similar. The main difference is he's got some yellow over here and green over here. I have a lot more red than he does. And I love it because we both have a lot of like blue and purple and white, which like—

Gina (07:17) Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (07:35) I was very proud of because the more white you have in your thing, it's supposed to be like, basically I'm enlightened as fuck, which is great. Like it's supposed to be very like spiritual and all that kind of shit. So I'm very proud of this aura. I'll tell you more about why my other one I'm not a huge fan of when we do that episode a couple of months from now.

Gina (07:57) I will stay tuned. Can you get them done as like a couple? Because you mentioned you wanted them separate.

Kathryn (08:04) Yes, so, yep, they asked if we were doing it together and because I had been wanting to get mine done for a while anyway and he's never—well, I shouldn't say obviously, but obvious to you and me, he's never gotten it done. I was curious what we would be separately and I'm so happy we didn't get it done together because they're so similar. I wouldn't have known how similar they were, you know, so I love knowing that.

Gina (08:29) Yeah.

Kathryn (08:33) You know, they are so similar. And they probably—it would have looked exactly the same if we had gotten it done together because they look so similar. Yeah.

Gina (08:41) Yeah. After he sent that to me, I had to do a Google search to remember what all the colors mean. And it just—yeah, yeah, I loved it.

Kathryn (08:52) Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's so fun. The last time I got it done—I'll talk more about it a few episodes from now. But I just remember being like, oh, I kind of don't like this. There are no bad ones, like just, you know, for people who are unaware of how it works. It's not like—you're not going to get like a muddy gross brown.

Gina (08:59) Okay.

Kathryn (09:15) Or whatever. Just, each color is associated with a different chakra. And there were just parts of mine that I was just like, oh, this just does not feel like me. That was it. Like it just wasn't like what I was expecting. I was kind of like, eh, okay. This one, I'm like, yeah, this like feels accurate for me. So yeah, I'm really happy we got it done. Yeah. When was the last time you had yours done?

Gina (09:30) Mm. I want to get mine redone. Because I got—I was just trying to—it was when we worked at our first job together. So I must have been 22, 23.

Kathryn (09:44) God, that was so long ago at this point. Yeah, okay.

Gina (09:48) It was a long—and I feel like I have changed so much since then, so I wanna get it redone and see. I don't even remember what it looked like, because it's in my big box of Gina's stuff that's in my parent's storage unit back at home. I wish I had brought it with me, but I just didn't think I would want it, stupidly.

Kathryn (09:52) Mm-hmm. Yeah. I know I have mine here somewhere because I know that I would want it, but I just—I could not even begin to tell you where. It's in a box somewhere in this house. I just don't know which one or where.

Gina (10:19) Cool. Yeah, it was really cute when you sent me—because Kathryn texted me a picture of hers and a picture of Phil's and they really are so similar. It's really cute.

Kathryn (10:26) They are, yeah, they're the same.

Gina (10:30) So I have a story for you. I have a story that I want to tell. This story is fucking wild to me...

Gina (10:30) So I have a story for you. I have a story that I want to tell. This story is fucking wild to me. I don't want to say it was like the same experience as finding out the Boy Jones story, which if anyone's been listening for a while, you know I was like going fucking crazy over that one. But it was a similar first two-parter. Yeah. But this one is just like, like same.

Kathryn (10:32) Do you maybe have a story for me? Excellent. You. That was our first two-parter. Yeah.

Gina (10:58) What the fuck? It's like just weird. It's like a weird historical thing that happened that involves demons and I'm very excited to tell you about it. Okay, so.

Kathryn (11:07) So wait, I'm so excited that I've never even heard of this. So I'm buckling up here.

Gina (11:11) I will say right at the top, there's gonna be lot of French name pronunciations, so I'm going to do my best. I did look up how to pronounce these, but if I fuck up, leave me alone, I'm trying really hard. So, France, 1632, we're in a sleepy little town called Ludon, cobbled streets, churches all around, a whole ton of Catholic guilt.

Kathryn (11:16) Love it. Yeah.

Gina (11:38) The kind of place where everyone knows everyone and everyone judges everyone. Enter Father Urbain Grandier, a local priest and a hot local priest at that. He was tall, educated, charismatic. He had great facial hair. His sermons were incredible. His Latin was phenomenal. But his celibacy left something to be desired and desire he—

Kathryn (11:52) My.

Gina (12:07) Did, and in a deeply Catholic town, this was equal parts dangerous and irresistible. Which is perhaps why, when local nuns started convulsing, barking like dogs and accusing him of bewitching them with demonic sex magic, everyone was a little too ready to believe them. Yeah man, what ultimately followed was part exorcism marathon, part kangaroo court,

Kathryn (12:28) My God.

Gina (12:36) And whole lot of drama. It's very messy, it's very sexy, it's very French. Today I'm talking about the Ludon possessions. And I'm so excited.

Gina (12:42) So let's zoom out a little bit. Back in the early to mid 1600s, Leudon and France in general was an area in flux. Heads up, all of this is gonna sound kind of dry and historical, but it's all very relevant, so just stick with me and then we'll get to the good stuff. So back then, Catholicism reigned supreme, but Protestantism, specifically in France's Huguenot form, was still hanging on, and there was a cardinal named Cardinal Richelieu,

Gina (13:10) Who was cracking down on any city that looked like it might be a Protestant stronghold. Richelieu was kind of the church's bulldog, but he was also kind of the power behind the throne as well. The monarch at the time was Louis XIII, and if France was a game of chess, Richelieu was the one playing the board and trying to keep the king from learning the rules. That's kind of the dynamic here. Side note—

Gina (13:32) This Richelieu guy is also the same one that's the villain in like every adaptation of The Three Musketeers. So he's just like generally not a super nice guy. Now at this point in time, Richelieu's main goal was to centralize the power under the monarchy. He hated people who didn't do what he said. He hated Protestants, AKA Huguenots, and he really hated towns that were at risk of rebelling like Ludon, which had something of a history with Protestantism.

Kathryn (13:49) Okay. Yeah.

Gina (14:12) Okay, so now I'm gonna talk about walls for a little bit. I know it's gonna sound weird, but it plays into the story in a really big way. Ludon was one of those places where Catholics and Huguenots kind of technically coexisted, but they also judged the fuck out of each other. There was a lot of religious tension in Ludon. And because Ludon had kind of these old medieval walls that had been around for a long time,

Kathryn (14:21) Okay. Mm-hmm.

Gina (14:39) And those make for great fortifications in the event of a Huguenot uprising, Leudon was officially on Richelieu's shit list. He was like real afraid that the Huguenots were gonna rebel against the crown and that they were gonna use those walls to protect the town while they did this. So he wanted those walls torn down. I know that that does not sound thrilling and exciting, but in 17th century France, it was as good as political warfare because it would leave Leudon completely defenseless and vulnerable.

Gina (15:10) So Huguenots, understandably, were very pissed about this. Catholics kind of went along with it because they were Team Jesus, but the whole town was just like really mad. There was a lot of tension. Paranoia was rampant. And it's in the beginning of all of this drama that Urbain Grandier comes to town. He arrived in Ludon around 1617 and he was appointed to the parish as its new priest.

Gina (15:39) And when he started giving sermons, no one could deny he was fucking great at it. He wasn't just hot, he was smart. Like Jesuit school smart, which at the time meant a lot. He was fluent in Latin, he knew his philosophy, he was a great orator, kind of guy who could win a theological debate and steal your girlfriend in the same breath. Which, for a priest, was a little bit of a problem. Because you see,

Gina (16:27) Grandier had decided to serve his new congregation in more ways than one. Wink wink. He had this little issue where he didn't so much believe in priestly celibacy as he did ignore it entirely. In not an "oh he just fooled around every now and then" kind of thing—he literally wrote a pamphlet making fun of celibate priests. According to him, yeah.

Kathryn (16:47) My God.

Gina (16:59) According to him, a vow of celibacy was literally impossible to uphold, so priests shouldn't be held to it. Which means he slept with tons and tons of women in Loudon, including some who were married. Naturally. Yeah man. Yeah. So naturally, the church did not love this. And specifically, Cardinal Richelieu hated this. Loudon's male population wasn't too happy about it either. So Grandier started accumulating enemies in town really, really quickly. Some people even started picking fights with him. But because he's hot, Grandier was not afraid to throw down when he needed to. Just like the OG sexy guy. Yeah.

Gina (17:25) So at one point, about a decade, give or take after Grandier moves to Ludon, he got into it with the Tricant family, which was a really big local name. And specifically, rumors started flying around that he had had an affair with a woman named Philippa Tricot. Some sources even say that they had a child out of wedlock together. We don't know for sure, but we do know that her father was fucking pissed at whatever was going on between them. Her father also just so happened to be the king's prosecutor in Luton.

Gina (17:50) He's making enemies in high places and he doesn't really seem to give a shit. Yeah. And when one of Philippa's family members, or at least like someone who we think might have been like a cousin or something, this guy started talking shit about Grandier around town and Grandier was not gonna let it stand. So Grandier confronts this guy and this guy winds up beating the shit out of him outside the church. So in this instance, Grandier was not very good at throwing down.

Kathryn (17:53) Yeah. Goodness gracious.

Gina (18:21) But he wasn't afraid to do it when the occasion called for it.

Kathryn (18:24) Mm-hmm.

Gina (18:25) So you would think that this little altercation might cause Grandier to calm down a little bit, or at least try to like save face, lay low for a while, something like that. But no, instead, he decided to side with the Huguenots on the whole wall drama situation. He argued very publicly and very loudly that Loudon's walls should stay up for the town's safety. And he wasn't wrong, but doing that when he was already on Cardinal Richelieu's radar was a really bad move.

Gina (18:53) So the marks against Grandier from the church's perspective are growing and growing and growing. Meanwhile, a short walk across town, a convent had recently opened in Ludon, and at the head of this convent was a woman named Jean de Ange.

Kathryn (19:17) Great. Love it. No notes.

Gina (19:18) So like her name spelled out, you might pronounce it as like Gianne D'Anges, but I'm really trying to maintain my pronunciation here. So we're just going to call her Mother Jean. Exactly. Yes. That's what my mouth wants to do, but we're just going to call her Mother Jean. Now, Mother Jean is a really interesting one. Depending on who you ask,

Kathryn (19:26) Dran D Andries

Gina (19:41) She was either a very spiritual woman tormented by her inner demons or she was an insanely good method actor. What we do know is that she came from minor nobility, so she kind of knew her way around society's rules and she had joined the convent pretty young. But more than that, she really seemed to enjoy pain as a form of worship. As part of her religious practice, she did things like wear shirts that were made out of animal hair,

Kathryn (19:55) Mm-hmm.

Gina (20:10) That were intentionally designed to be really itchy and uncomfortable. She also wore chains around her wrists that chafed at her skin. And she was known to sometimes wear a literal crown of thorns to remind her of Christ's suffering. So a lot of intensity with Mother Jean. And despite her very scary habits, no pun intended, things at the convent were pretty much normal up to this point.

Gina (20:38) But when Mother Jean started hearing rumors about Grandier, this hot local priest guy, she was interested. And when she saw him from afar, she allegedly became very interested in him. She began having dreams about him. And at first it was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just kind of like the steamy dreams you would have about a crush. But then she started dreaming that he was not only seducing her, but he was saying blasphemous things to her. And according to Mother Jean, Grandier was tormenting her with lust and she became convinced that he worked with demons in order to do it.

Gina (21:23) This is when the weird shit starts happening. One of the other nuns at the convent said that she had seen a vision of someone who had recently died. It was their confessor. And then another nun at the convent started convulsing during prayers. And within days, the entire convent devolved into this weird, screaming, flailing mosh pit of demonic possession. That's the best way I can describe it. It was just fucking bananas. The phrase that kept bouncing around in my head—I think if you've used it before—is nutso butso. That's exactly what this is. It's a great fucking saying.

Kathryn (21:57) I've used that on the pod. It was drawn to my attention recently. A friend was listening to the podcast. She literally texted me and was like, nutso butso. It was the Tylenol episode, which like I stand by that. That fucking was nutso butso. Yes. Yeah.

Gina (22:13) Was it that one? Okay. Yeah, I stand by that too. But yeah, this was also nutso butso.

Gina (22:21) And like this whole situation is weird anyway, but it was made even weirder by the fact that these were what's known as Ursuline nuns. And Ursuline nuns—it's not like an overly mystical practice. Their whole thing was that they taught young girls about things like literacy, spiritual guidance, piety, that kind of thing. It was a convent built on knowledge and virtue. So when they started acting possessed, it was really concerning. It wasn't like these were oddballs who were being even odder. It was like, no, this is like—it’s like a bunch of professors getting together and acting possessed. It’s just strange.

Gina (22:59) So naturally, the convent's male chaplain decided that they were all in need of a good old-fashioned exorcism, of course.

Kathryn (23:10) Hmm. Okay. Classic.

Gina (23:10) Fun fact, this chaplain was the nephew of the guy who beat up Grandier earlier. So Grandier has enemies everywhere. Just keep that in mind. And these exorcisms weren't like the exorcisms that we think of today. They weren't like backroom rituals with like some mumbled prayers and holy water or whatever. Back then, exorcisms were very improvisational and physical, and they were also done in public in front of a crowd.

Kathryn (23:17) Okay.

Gina (23:39) So they would do the normal stuff, like they would pray, invoke Jesus and Mary and all that. They would force the possessed to recite scripture, that kind of thing. But the people performing the exorcisms would ad lib a lot to ramp up the tension and the theatricality. And they would also use physical force to stop the nuns from resisting.

Gina (23:55) Which sounds absolutely fucked up to us today, but back then it was pretty widely accepted that you could literally beat the demons out of someone. Like you could do it spiritually as well, but physical harm was not really out of the question. So before they knew it, the nuns started saying that Asmodeus, the demon of lust, was sent to commit evil and disrespectful acts with them.

Kathryn (24:14) Mm-hmm.

Gina (24:28) And when they asked the nuns, okay, well then, like, who sent this Asmodeus guy to possess you? At first, the nuns couldn't really get their story straight. Some of them said it was just like a priest. Some said it was Peter and that it was just so vague. It was like it could be a blasphemous reference to Saint Peter or it could have just been a guy in Loudon named Peter. We don't really know. Just like the royal Peter, General Peter. But a week after these questions, Grandier was finally named responsible—

Kathryn (24:45) Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Gina (24:57) To the point where the nuns started screaming his name during the exorcisms. Note that none of these nuns had ever met Grandier, but they all agreed that he was the culprit. So perhaps there's some behind-the-scenes stuff going on here. Hmm, I don't know. And the nuns' behavior just got weirder and weirder as time went on.

Gina (25:22) One of the nuns claimed that she had been violated by Satan who was in the form of Grandier. Another one started barking like a dog. Some of them foamed at the mouth, tore off their clothing in public, made sexual gestures—all that kind of thing. So the public exorcisms continued and word of this started to spread really, really fast. Some of the townspeople believed it, some called bullshit on it, but the church saw this as an opportunity. Because remember, Richelieu, the big cheese, the big power in play here, hated Grandier. So he had just been waiting for him to slip up. And the perfect excuse to eliminate him had just fallen right into Richelieu's lap.

Gina (26:00) So it's at this point that a guy named Jean Le Bardemont gets involved—I'm just gonna call him Jean. So, Jean was a magistrate, a legal official who was sent to Ludon by Richelieu himself. And it was one of those things where like on paper, Jean's job was to go to Ludon to oversee the destruction of one of the towers—because going back to the whole wall drama situation, the tower was part of the wall.

Gina (26:20) They didn’t want the Huguenots using it. So that's what Jean was "officially" there for. Unofficially, he was sent there to deal with the problem of Grandier. As a side note, Jean did actually try to destroy that tower and the local militia was like, "You can fuck all the way off," and so Jean just kind of left it alone. So Jean scoped out the situation with Grandier and then he went back to Paris to tell Richelieu what he saw.

Gina (26:50) He said that Grandier was being accused of black magic by a convent full of young and apparently innocent nuns. Another side note: the average age of these nuns was 25—so they were very young.

Kathryn (27:21) Okay, that's not what I was envisioning at all. I was envisioning like little old nuns. Interesting. Okay. Okay.

Gina (27:27) No, they're young. He also told Richelieu that the town was chomping at the bit with religious tension between the Huguenots and the Catholics and that all of those enemies that Grandier had made earlier were lobbying for his head. Which—all of this was exactly what Richelieu needed to move against Grandier. So Jean gets sent back to Ludon, but this time he had a document declaring that he had full judicial authority over what happens to Grandier. And with that, the investigation officially began.

Gina (28:00) Under Jean's orders, Grandier was arrested and tortured for a confession, but he just would not break. So instead, Jean began collecting statements from witnesses who said that they had seen Grandier at the convent at all hours of the night.

Gina (28:15) And wouldn't you know it, most of those witnesses were the enemies that Grandier had made earlier. Jealous husbands, other jealous priests—the list goes on. Just like anyone who didn't like Grandier was coming forward to give a statement. It was like over 70 people were basically going on record talking shit. Meanwhile, the public exorcisms kept on going. Jean and his team were doing this pretty much daily. And Grandier's name had become a permanent fixture in this event, with nuns rolling around on the ground screaming his name over and over again.

Gina (28:55) But even that was not good enough for Jean. He wanted proof. So he had the nuns interrogated again, but this time he cranked the pressure up to 11 by getting the Bishop of Poitiers involved. And the bishop sent a team of doctors of theology to evaluate the case. And when they were done, they basically told the bishop, "Yep, there's a fucking demon here. Like you might want to get involved."

Gina (29:25) So the bishop personally rocks up to Ludon. And this is like a big deal. The Bishop of Poitiers wasn't as important of a guy as like Richelieu, for example, but he wasn't far behind. He was kind of like the regional manager of Catholicism. So it's still like a guy you don't want to fuck with. So him personally visiting Ludon was basically a public announcement that the church was taking this really fucking seriously. Like it legitimized all of the allegations that Grandier was the one behind this.

Gina (29:55) And to really put a cherry on top of this little demon sundae, the bishop decided to start personally conducting the exorcisms and had Grandier removed from his prison cell to make him watch. And remember, part of this exorcism probably involved beating the nuns.

Kathryn (30:13) I have a question. So they're still just exorcising the nuns, not this Grandier guy?

Gina (30:20) Only exorcising the nuns.

Kathryn (30:23) Okay.

Gina (30:23) Because they don't think that Grandier is possessed. They think that he invoked a demon to possess the nuns.

Kathryn (30:24) My— Okay, I am annoyed by that kind of. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought the one nun said that Satan was having sex with her through Grandier. Did I misunderstand saying that like, okay.

Gina (30:40) Mm-hmm. That was an allegation. Yep. Nope, didn't misunderstand anything. I didn't find any record—yeah, I didn’t find any record of Grandier being exorcised. He might have been at some point, but the focus was definitely on the nuns.

Kathryn (30:47) Okay, that's where I was kind of lost, yeah. Okay. The nuns. Okay. Okay. All right, okay. I was hoping I was misunderstanding something. That's why, like, I haven't been asking. But then when you just said that, that he, like, was forced to watch or whatever, I'm like, well, why isn't he also being exorcised? I don't know. Well, yeah, well, I have thoughts and comments, but I want you to continue. I'll save it for the end.

Gina (31:05) That's fucking weird, isn't it? It just wasn’t. It just wasn’t. So I feel like I’m getting through this story pretty fast, to be honest. So if you do have comments—

Kathryn (31:31) You are. I have nothing to say because I'm just like listening. Like there's not—like that was my only clarifying question and then turns out I wasn't—unfortunately I wasn't wrong. So like yeah. Yeah. This is wild. This is like absolutely captivating.

Gina (31:41) Nope, you were not wrong. So it’s so fucking crazy. Yeah, and for some reason, like this next bit I do kind of want to talk about a little bit because it fucked me up and I haven't fully unpacked why.

Gina (32:00) So on June 23rd, 1634, they brought Grandier back to his old church—back where he used to preach—to watch the nuns be exorcised once again. And Grandier, obviously horrified by this, starts loudly protesting, basically saying the whole thing is bullshit, that he's never even spoken to these women before, let alone caused them to be possessed, blah blah blah. And in response, the bishop says, "Cool, you do it," and hands him his little exorcism tools and forces Grandier to exorcise the nuns. Which just seems like it would fucking suck.

Kathryn (32:33) What year did this take place?

Gina (32:35) So this is the 1630s.

Kathryn (32:38) Okay. It's all very sketch no matter what year it takes place in, but—

Gina (32:43) Seems sadistic.

Kathryn (32:43) I will say the one thing I will say, maybe you cover this, sorry if I'm steamrolling, but the reason I'm interested in the year was—at this point there were regulations on how to do Catholic exorcisms and we're just not following the rules right now. Yeah, yeah, that’s—I didn’t know if you were gonna bring that up at all, but it's very—the Rite of Exorcism in the Catholic Church was written in, I believe, 1614 and there was protocol for how to do it.

Gina (33:01) Really interesting. No.

Kathryn (33:11) Now I will say that came from the Vatican and I mean that was several hundred years ago so like news didn't spread as fast maybe, like there’s something with like it was still kind of a new not fully adopted thing, but—

Gina (33:37) Do you mind if I ask like what rules are they breaking? Like what's the deal?

Kathryn (33:42) Well, mostly just the fact that there wasn't—like you weren't really supposed to ad lib at all and there wasn't supposed—like there's like a script you're supposed to follow and you're supposed to... Sorry, I don't have my notes in front of me. So like, I myself—I myself know—it's okay. I myself will be ad libbing. I will correct any mistakes I make next week. So stay tuned. But—

Gina (33:58) No, I'm sorry. I'm putting you on the spot.

Kathryn (34:08) You have to go through very specific exorcism training. Like not any old priest can perform an exorcism. There is protocol and there is specific training that you have to go through. I don't know if he went through it. I don't know if he was a designated exorcist. Okay, okay.

Gina (34:25) I think he might've. I think he might've because right before—a little tiny bit that I left out—is right before they handed him the exorcism tools or whatever, he did go through some kind of like "you are allowed to exorcise people now" kind of thing, I think, I wanna say. That’s not detailed at all, but—

Kathryn (34:40) Okay. Okay, I'm just curious. Well, that's okay. I'm just curious what that looked like. Because again, I mean, we're talking about 16-whatever-the-hell—like rules are like quote-unquote rules. You know what I mean? How regulated was it really? You know, this is all very sketch, no matter what the rules were, I don't know.

Gina (34:58) Super. I don't know how that—if you're the one who's supposedly possessing people and then you're exorcising them, that seems like a conflict of interest,

Kathryn (35:04) That's another layer that I wasn't even like—yes, that's like a whole other part of it that like—

Gina (35:07) Like just like, just mispronounce some of the Latin and "oh no, the exorcism didn't work."

Kathryn (35:14) Like, I feel like he should be like part of those being exorcised based on what's being said. Like, why are we handing him the rite? Like, I don't know. It's all very—this is all very fucking weird. I don't know. I am by no means an exorcism expert or anything. But just based on what I do know—this, this is fucking weird. This is not—a lot of liberties being taken here.

Gina (35:20) It's so fucking weird. It's so weird. And it all starts with some fucking walls. That's what all this is about. Walls. Like, it's so bonkers.

Kathryn (35:43) Dude, I completely forgot about that. I completely forgot about that. Isn’t that just how it goes though? I feel like all of these stories from a long time ago—and also not even from a long time ago—it’s like the catalyst is always so stupid. It's just like, it's bewildering. I don't know.

Gina (36:04) Yep. It's just like a bunch of bricks and a priest that like wants a girlfriend. That's it. That's literally it.

Kathryn (36:14) Which also like, how can you allow someone to perform an exorcism when they are very clearly like so not—yes—like he's not respecting any—and this is—I am not like defending anything or whatever like grain of salt—but just like purely for the purposes of this story. He's not respecting any of the rules whatsoever from start to finish. So like, why are we like—this is very clearly just a punishment and very clearly fucked up. I don't know. This makes no sense. These poor nuns.

Gina (36:44) 100%. And at one point—it was after he—dude, I know. And they're all so young. It's just bad. At one point actually, back to your point about how Grandier shouldn't have been doing this—at one point, he did lose the right to—not going to say this right—but essentially the right to be a priest in Ludon for five years.

Kathryn (36:50) What is that called? There's a word for that. I'm gonna—

Gina (37:08) He wasn't excommunicated. It was something else. It was just like he wasn't allowed to preach or something. Maybe, I don't know. I mean, he was disrobed many times by many women, but I don’t know. Yeah, not sure. Ha-ha. Sorry, I need to—that’s the third time I’ve done that. Sacrebleu. Yeah.

Kathryn (37:11) That’s the word I was thinking of. That’s not—that’s not correct. Disrobed? I don’t know. I have no idea. Yes, ooh la la, okay. Sacrilegious.

Gina (37:30) Two months after this whole thing with Grandier being forced to exorcise the nuns, he was finally brought to trial in August 1634, roughly two years after the possessions had first started. So this has been going on for kind of a while at this point. And this trial was not an innocent until proven guilty thing. The church, and more importantly Richelieu, was again pulling the strings behind all of this. So it became kind of a performance.

Gina (38:00) According to the prosecution, Grandier had made a pact with the devil. And to support this, they brought the supposed contract to court. It was written in backwards, and includes a list of Grandier's supposed powers, which were apparently to make women lustful and men impotent. Seems like a projection. And this document is signed by not only Grandier, but quite a few other demons, including Satan, Leviathan, Behemoth, and Barbaroth. And there are doodles on it, little tiny demonic doodles, and some say that one of them looks like it has a tiny little demon penis on it. I don't really see it, some do, and this is a legit 100%, like this exists, it is a historical document, it is still in the French National Library to this day. It's wild.

Kathryn (39:00) I'm thrown off by the word doodle. Like imagining someone in 1630-whatever doodling is not a phenomenon I'm personally familiar with.

Gina (39:10) It's so weird. Just like little nonsensical little doodles.

Kathryn (39:18) My god, that's—what that is? That's a doodle. Wait, so where's the—

Gina (39:22) Yeah. So do you see the one in the upper right-hand corner? It kind of looks like it's holding a pitchfork.

Kathryn (39:28) Yes.

Gina (39:29) Some say it has a penis, I don't see it.

Kathryn (39:32) Okay, I don't either, but—

Gina (39:37) Doesn't mean it's not there.

Kathryn (39:38) I mean, it doesn't really look like anything. It kind of looks like a chili pepper to me.

Gina (39:41) It does. Like a little hairy chili pepper.

Kathryn (39:44) I'm wondering if it's that little arrow-looking thing. You know what? I bet it's that little shading area, that little triangle-looking thing.

Gina (39:48) That's what I was wondering. Or the little curly Q at the top? What? I mean, that doesn't really look—

Kathryn (39:57) Like in the center. If I use my imagination, that would be the spot that it would be in. But I also—this is a stretch. Like, I don't know if that's what that's intended to be.

Gina (40:03) Yeah. I mean, if I had to pick one thing on this whole piece of paper that looks like a dick doodle, it'd probably be that. Anyway, yeah. Fucking bonkers. And the jury saw this and was like, yes, of course, this is rock solid evidence. They just believed it. And on the defense side of things, like there wasn't really much Grandier could do. Like he tried to say the whole thing was a fake. He tried to say his enemies in the church were just setting him up, but nobody really cared even if they did believe him.

Kathryn (40:20) Anyway, wow, this is wild. These truly are doodles. That's wild. Sure, why not.

Gina (40:48) So he wound up being found guilty of sorcery, heresy, and evil spell work. So this was technically a witch trial. And he was held responsible for the possession of the nuns. He was ultimately condemned to be tortured before being burned at the stake and all of his property was to be conveniently given to the crown. In response to this, Grandier—

Gina (41:13) Begged them to reduce the sentence, or at least not make it so fucking violent and painful. And in response, Jean said that he would, but only if Grandier gave up his accomplices. And Grandier did no such fucking thing, mainly because he didn't have any accomplices, but also he wasn't willing to throw anybody else under the bus and condemn them with a lie. Which I think is pretty cool. Good for Grandier.

Kathryn (41:38) Sure, yeah.

Gina (41:38) Jean did concede a little bit though. He said that Grandier would be allowed to address the crowd before his execution. And he also said that Grandier would be hung before he was burned so he wouldn't actually feel the flames, which makes it a little bit better if I had to pick, you know.

Kathryn (41:56) If I had to pick, yes. Yeah. Still not great, but like, yeah. Yeah.

Gina (41:59) Still not great on either side, but still not great. So when the time came, Grandier was brought to the scaffold on August 18th, 1634. And the townspeople had gathered to watch what happened. This was back when executions were going to the movies. It was a big fucking deal. And Grandier opened his mouth to address the crowd as he was promised he could. But right when he was about to speak—

Kathryn (42:17) Mm-hmm.

Gina (42:24) A bunch of monks started throwing holy water in his face to drown out the words and so it came out like—nobody could hear anything. So ultimately, yeah, his last words were lost to time. Sadly, some say he was saying a prayer. Some say that he was reiterating his innocence, but we'll never know. And then this is the part that this just really fucking sucks. Just as Grandier was about to be hung, someone lit the scaffold on fire too early before Grandier could be dropped.

Kathryn (42:33) Holy shit.

Gina (42:54) We don't know who did this. Some accounts say it was one of the priests who helped exorcise the nuns. Some say it was an angry or jealous local. Either way, Grandier wound up being burned alive in front of the crowd.

Gina (43:10) Yeah, and that should have been the end of it, but of course it wasn't, because the possessions didn't stop—if anything they got worse. And the public exorcisms continued for another three years, until finally, in 1637, Mother Jean was declared cured. Not by exorcism, but by pilgrimage. Apparently, she left Ludon, went to a holy site in Brittany, and returned healed.

Gina (43:38) So what the fuck happened here? It depends on who you ask. So some historians think that this whole thing was just a political take down. Like, Richelieu saw the chance to remove a critic. Mother Jean got in on it, and they took the opportunity. Some say it was a case of mass hysteria, and that the nuns were just repressed young women trapped in a convent who snapped—because at one point there was a plague, and they were kind of shut up in the nunnery for a while, which would make you go nuts. We all remember COVID. We all went a little nutso-butso, you know what I mean?

Gina (44:17) Others think that Mother Jean really believed that Grandier cursed her and the other nuns. And one interesting take on this comes from Aldous Huxley of high school English class fame. He wrote a book about the whole situation called The Devils of Loudun, which goes into—sidebar—a spectacular level of detail on the whole thing. Like, very good read, highly recommend. And he argues that Mother Jean had fallen in love with Grandier, and that when Grandier declined a position at the convent, she took her revenge through these possession accusations.

Gina (44:37) Ultimately, we don't know whether or not this was true. We do know that Mother Jean confessed to having, quote, impure thoughts about Grandier, and she did write about seeing him in her dreams, but none of those mean that she intentionally got him tortured and burned to death or anything like that.

Gina (44:59) But I can also see a world where all of these things are true at once. It really does seem to me like kind of the perfect storm situation where pretty much everyone involved stood to gain from Grandier's death, whether it was politically, morally, emotionally. Like you have a bishop who got his moment in the spotlight. You got Jean who got to play the powerful little magistrate. You got Richelieu who got to cross a name off of his list. And you got the people of Ludon who had somewhere to finally channel all of their religious angst. So it kind of just—everything boom—happened all at once.

Gina (45:34) Now, if you are like me, you might be thinking, holy shit, this needs to be made into a movie. And the good news is that it was. The bad news is that the movie was either banned or heavily edited in multiple countries, including the US and the UK.

Kathryn (45:42) Mm-hmm. Why?

Gina (45:58) Yeah, I'll tell you. So the movie came out in 1971. It's called The Devils. It was directed by Ken Russell. It stars Oliver Reed as Grandier—he was Proximo in the first Gladiator movie. That's the only reason I know of him. And it's basically just a very stylized political retelling of what happened in Ludon. But it features some really intense scenes like exorcisms devolving into orgies, naked nuns running around screaming. At one point, the crucifix is used as a sex toy.

Gina (46:25) So the Catholic Church was not a big fan. Considered it blasphemous. Protest groups called it porn. Warner Bros wound up pretty much burying it. So it got banned in a lot of places. And the uncut version of this film was kind of like a cinematic myth for a very long time. But parts of it were rediscovered and restored in the 2000s. I have not seen it because I am scared to, but it does exist and you can find it online. Like I found it while I was researching this, so.

Kathryn (47:00) I'll watch it. Okay, I've never heard of this. That's interesting. What's this movie called again?

Gina (47:09) It's called The Devils.

Kathryn (47:12) I'll have to ask Phil, I'm sure he's probably seen it.

Gina (47:14) Yeah, The Devils directed by Ken Russell. And because it's now the end of my episode, that means it's time for me to get on my soapbox a little bit. I think this movie is the perfect companion story to the events that happened in Ludon, because society has always been insanely sensitive about morality. But more than that, we've always been willing to silence something that doesn't fit inside our version of righteousness.

Gina (47:44) Whether it's a priest who doesn't play by the rules, a movie showing the church in an unflattering light—the reaction has always been the same. Shut it up, shut it down, burn it if you have to. And that's all I got.

Kathryn (47:58) Yeah, I think you and I talk about this—not directly, but I think indirectly more than I think we realize, because that's one of those things that I think people think that that's new with the internet because it happens so often and we're all in our own little bubbles, you know, and things get—you know, if you accidentally stumble upon something that doesn't belong in your bubble, you get mad, you say no way, this can't exist, like blah blah blah. It's like, it's always happened. This has always been a thing. It's just a matter of previously, it was only people in certain positions with a certain amount of power that kind of had the power to do it.

Gina (48:31) Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's not as tied to geography anymore. Like somebody in Florida can cancel someone in Bangladesh. You know what I mean? Like it's so—like Ludon was, it's like a tiny little town. And so yeah, people know about it now, but they probably never would have if this hadn’t happened. And it’s just one of my—I think it’s—yeah, go ahead.

Kathryn (48:50) Right. Right. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and people—no, I was just gonna say, and even just with that example, people like a few towns over probably had no idea what was going on because like, you know, how could you?

Gina (49:06) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just—I think it's interesting when people—because I'm guilty of this too, I think everyone is—sometimes when you think about stories that take place in like the 17th century, 16th century, the default reaction is like, "Well people were different back then," like it's just—they're a completely different breed. And they're not. They were still fucking humans. Like humans doing the same shit that humans have always done, just in a different font.

Kathryn (49:36) Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s the thing—like society does change in terms of like how things happen, but what is happening is the fucking same, you know? There's just different vehicles for it happening now, you know? Mm-hmm.

Gina (50:00) Mm-hmm. Yeah. And the motivations for—like one of the most predictable things is like human motivation.

Kathryn (50:12) Yeah. Dude, humans are so fucking weird. What are we doing? Like, what is going on? I have no clue.

Gina (50:15) I know. Have you ever read the Wikipedia page for humans? It's really weird. It makes us sound like aliens.

Kathryn (50:22) No, I don't know if I want to. That's gonna be too much for me. I'm—not even gonna get me started on aliens. We'll do a month on aliens someday. I don't know if I'm ready for that. Just like—no, I'm gonna fall down this rabbit hole. Every single time I see an alien movie where it's like the aliens are coming down and they're doing all these things, blah blah blah, I'm like—every single thing you see in an alien movie is what we do to other species.

Kathryn (50:45) Like we come into the jungle and fuck shit up for bugs that don't even know we exist. Like, we're the aliens, man. Like that's like my like—like truly I’ve like—I cannot handle humans. We’re so unaware of how fucking stupid we are. I’m sorry, we just are. Like, even me saying that—I have no idea to the extent that I fully mean that because like of how stupid I am as a human. We think we're the smartest species and we're not. We're so dumb. Anyway.

Gina (51:23) I think there's so much freedom in being stupid.

Kathryn (51:25) Well, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that. Like, ignorance truly is bliss. I can tell you that much. Yeah.

Gina (51:30) Yeah. But yeah, that's my story. That's what I was so excited to tell you about. I'm glad I got it off my chest.

Kathryn (51:39) Wild. This is such a wild story.

Gina (51:41) Yeah, that's it. But yeah, watch that movie. Tell me how it is.

Kathryn (51:43) Yeah, I will. I'll ask Phil if he has seen it. And I'll see if I can find it. I'd like to watch it.

Gina (51:51) Okay, cool. I looked at some pictures from it and it looks very surreal. And if anyone listening to this has seen the movie, please use the link in our show notes to tell me about it. Let me live vicariously through you because I’m scared.

Kathryn (51:55) Yeah, I'll take a look. I'll let you know. Yes. Oh yeah, I know I started my homework and looking for a horror movie for you and then I forgot. So I’ll still... Oh, tell me.

Gina (52:13) I actually have an update on that. So I Googled what a psychological horror movie is. I don't fucking like those. I thought I was so brave. No, no, psychological horror is fucked. The ones I was seeing, I was like, "No, no, I can't watch that. No, that’s too scary." So I accidentally lied.

Kathryn (52:20) Okay, that makes more sense to me. Yeah. We, yeah, we were gonna watch one last night and then it was described multiple times as like being just the most depressing thing ever. And we both kind of looked at each other and we're like, we're gonna choose something else, right? And it was like, yeah, okay. And then we actually chose Exorcist III, which I fell asleep during.

Gina (52:49) You—very uplifting.

Kathryn (52:56) You could watch that. That was not very scary. I fell asleep multiple times and every time I woke up, it was like, he was still just fucking sitting there talking. Like there was not a lot going on in that movie. But anyway, on brand for what we're talking about though, so—

Gina (52:58) Okay. We, yeah.

Kathryn (53:14) You could start there. That one has a big jump scare. You should actually—why don't you watch that? That could be a gentle—it's long and... I thought you said you liked those.

Gina (53:15) Maybe I will. You can't tell me there's a big jump scare in it and then be like, "You should watch it." I mean, I don't like them. I don't like movies that use them incessantly.

Kathryn (53:31) Okay. No, it's like there's the one big one that is apparently very famous. Yeah. It's like halfway—three-quarters of the way through.

Gina (53:36) I can do one. I can do the one big one. That's fine. That's fine. But you know how some movies it's like—you can't even watch it because the way that they build the tension just makes it seem like every time it cuts to a different shot, it's going to be something scaring you.

Kathryn (53:46) Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. I don't know why we're ending every episode with horror movie discussion now, but I like it. But I promise we won't do this every time, but it is relevant. There's a lot of debate on those types of movies. I am of the camp that believes that's just cheap storytelling. I don't like when filmmakers rely on a jump scare to be scary. There are—

Gina (54:07) Mm.

Kathryn (54:13) Smarter ways to scare people because there's a difference between being scared versus being startled, you know? And I think if you just rely on startling people, that's not—there's not a lot of art to that. Yeah.

Gina (54:18) That's a great distinction. I've never heard someone put it that way before, but I totally agree with it.

Kathryn (54:33) I'm a little—I do get a little snooty when it comes to just movies that are just like jump after jump after jump after jump. Yeah.

Gina (54:38) Yeah. I did—what was the—I watched It, the first one. Yeah, the new one. And that had a jump scare in it that I thought was really well done. It was like the bit where—well, I won't tell you them. I liked it. I thought it was good. I was scared. I was watching a lot of it through my hands, but it was good. It's scary.

Kathryn (54:45) The new one or the original one? Okay. I don’t know if I’ve seen the remake. I keep wanting to and I just don’t think I ever... Yeah. It looks very scary. Yeah, the makeup is 10 out of 10 in my opinion, based on what I've seen. I've not seen the movie, but yeah. Yeah, that should be at the top of my list. I don’t think I’ve—I haven’t seen that one.

Kathryn (55:14) But that's what scares me, like visually. Like speaking of the—I think part of why I’m like falling down horror movie rabbit holes—we mentioned The Exorcist. To this day, Regan—like I see her in my nightmares. Like that was just so—like that shit stays with me. Like a good horror movie makeup just is—ugh. We talked about this a little bit last time.

Gina (55:32) That's—yeah. I think that my mom might not agree with this anymore, but I remember growing up, she was always like Poltergeist really freaked her out—that movie. Because I think she saw it in theaters right when it came out and it was like the scariest fucking thing. And to this—at least to this day, to my knowledge—she is still really freaked out by it.

Kathryn (55:47) Yeah. Mm-hmm. That’s a spooky movie. I haven’t seen that one in a very, very long time.

Gina (55:58) We watched Inglourious Basterds yesterday and it was great. Neither had either of us, and so we were like, shit, let's give it a watch and it's fucking good. It's a great movie.

Kathryn (56:01) I haven't seen that movie in a long time. Yeah, we tried to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre last night, but we couldn’t find it on streaming. Anyway, this is such a rabbit hole.

Gina (56:19) Wow, I'm in the mood to watch a movie now, so I think I will.

Kathryn (56:23) I know. It's interesting, the last couple episodes, we have talked about horror movies so much, which is not something we ever talk about together.

Gina (56:29) A lot. Man.

Kathryn (56:32) Anyway. All right.

Gina (56:32) But yeah, that's it.

Kathryn (56:36) So don’t forget to give us a five star review. Really helps us out if you can interact with us on Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to us. Send us your stories. We really want to hear what you have to say. And yeah, until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.

Gina (56:56) Keep it creepy.