What You Need to Know About the Exorcism Case That's Now An Exorcism Trial

Anyone who thinks attempts at exorcism are only on-screen nowadays is terribly wrong. Four men in France are now on trial after they bound a teenage girl to a bed in the manner of a crucifixion crucified manner and attempted to expel "demons" from her in a week-long exorcism ceremony during 2011. While this might easily like an internet hoax, the four men are actually on trial for "kidnapping, acts of torture, and barbarism," according to the Agence France-Presse.

The four men were all former members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, a U.S.-based Protestant church, who had been expelled in 2010. The victim in question, Antoinette (no last name given), is of Cameroonian descent and a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Terrifyingly, the man who instigated the event is the victim's former boyfriend, Eric Deron, who she met through the church.

Parisian police discovered Antoinette in a flat in the Grigny suburb of Paris. She is reported to have been beaten and tortured by Deron and three of his friends, who kept her bound in the crucified position for an entire week. The ceremony would probably have gone on longer if that authorities had not intervened.

The exorcism ceremony is probably the scariest aspect of this whole case. Deron and his friends legitimately believed that they would, "exorcise her from her sins, and get rid of the devil inside her." The defendants argued that Deron and Antoinette were deeply in love and that she had consented to the exorcism. Deron also thought of himself as a prophet.

The fact that there is even a minority of the world population that believes in this is way scarier than anything you'll see on Halloween. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church was quick to distance itself from the members of the case, just like most of society. The case is now on trial, and the devil is in the details.