Young people are some of the most vulnerable candidates for demon possession, and most of the infamous cases deal with teenagers and young adults. In this article, you will encounter the details of Clara Germana Cele from South Africa, who was in need of an exorcism.
A Christian woman named Clara Germana Cele was deemed possessed by a demon at the age of 16 years old. Cele was attending school at St. Michael’s Mission in Natal, South Africa during 1906. She was an orphan when she was baptized as an infant. When she was 16, it is said that the girl made a pact with Satan, which was the cause of her demonic possession. This information is said to have been later revealed to her confessor, Father Horner Erasmus.
A nun wrote an account that stated Cele was able to speak languages of which she had no previous knowledge. Others witnessed this skill. It was recorded that she understood German, Polish, French, and other languages. The nun documented that Cele had clairvoyance powers that she demonstrated by telling intimate secrets about people she had never met before. She could also reveal the sins of complete strangers.
A disturbing habit of Cele was that she could not stand to be in the presence of blessed objects. When she was, the girl displayed great power and intensity. It is said that she could hurl nuns across convent rooms and often beat them up. When the girl cried, one nun likened it to a “savage bestiality.” The nun said that she hadn’t even heard an animal make such sounds. The attending nun at St. Michael’s Mission said, “No animal had ever made such sounds. Neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls. At times, it sounded like a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated by Satan had formed a hellish choir.”
Some people reported that the girl had levitated five feet into the air , both vertically and horizontally. If she was sprinkled with holy water, it was said that she would come out of her state of satanic possession. This was stated as a sign of true possession and not that the subject was suffering from a mental illness.
It is said that Cele’s exorcism took two days to complete. During this time, the girl’s first reaction was to knock the Holy Bible from the hands of the priest and grab his stole in an attempt to choke him with it. At the end of the exorcism, it was said that the demon was forced out of her body and she was healed.