The Demonic Possession of Gottliebin Dittus
Imagine a demonic possession so terrifying you wake up with blisters, vomit nails and frogs, and twist and turn your body into excruciating shapes.
That was the reality for Gottliebin Dittus in the 1840s. For multiple years, Johann Blumhardt performed exorcisms on Gottliebin. At one point, it was reported that over 1,000 demons were inside Gottliebin’s body.
Did she survive? How did it end? Find out by listening now.
What would you do if you saw your sister inflicted by evil?
How would a priest go to rid the world of evil?
What lengths are demons go to make people theirs?
What is up, Bizarros?! This week we dive into the story of a girl who was allegedly possessed by over 1000 evil spirits. Join us as we dive into the strange goings on in the case of the demonic possession of Gottliebin Dittus.
Who Is Gottliebin Dittus?
Gottliebin Dittus lived with her family outside of a small town in Germany in the early 1800s.
The family moved into a small apartment shortly after the death of both parents. The family consisted of two brothers named Andreas and Hans and three sisters named Katharina, Anna Maria, and Gottliebin.
Quickly after the family moved into the apartment, they started dealing with the “infestation” stage of possession.
The new home was creaking and banging at all hours. It seemed as though the new home might fall apart from its own volition.
But like the house, Gottliebin’s reputation also started to get shaken. It all started on the first day in the new apartment for her.
She was thought to be a pious girl before the family moved to their new home.
On the first day, she was praying at her new dining room table. The next second she was on the ground having a “fit.”
Gottliebin kept getting sick after this and could never seem to get better. The rest of the family noticed how loud and omnipresent the sounds were in the house. It was becoming oppressive, and after about a year of this, it’s within reason to say the haunting had moved into the “oppression” stage.
The first person that was told about what was happening in the home was the local religious pastor, Johann Christoph Blumhardt.
Johann Blumhardt was a Lutheran pastor who would write a book about the events that happened to Gottliebin.
As time passed, things got even stranger in the home, and Gottliebin decided to open up to Blumhardt. Maybe it was the unflinching way he spun his sermons that infatuated her with him, but somehow he won the poor, sick orphan’s trust.
She told him about the noises in her house and that she was suffering from “night temptations.” She also told him they were progressing in a way that was scaring her.
Blumhardt didn’t really know what to do at that time, so he told Gottliebin to pray and sent her on her way.
A month or so later, Gottliebin and Blumhardt meet again, but only after Gottliebin came down with her most deadly disease yet.
She was diagnosed with an infection of the face, and Blumhardt came to her bedside while she was in the hospital to pray for her.
Every time the pastor would try to make eye contact with Gottliebin, she would adjust her head to the side to avoid his gaze.
As she sat there with her hands folded in her lap, Blumhardt would start to pray, and as he prayed, he noticed she would make the effort to unfold her hands.
Because of this behavior at Gottliebin’s bedside, Blumhardt decided that he didn’t want to help her anymore, and like the rest of the town, he decided to distance himself from her.
Thankfully by the spring of 1842, Gottliebin had recovered.
However, the siblings came to Blumhardt for advice and guidance after the haunting at the house had become too much.
The house’s constant sounds were now so loud that the German villagers could hear them outside.
Gottliebin and others witnessed glowing lights shooting around her room at night.
And worse than that, Gottliebin had been telling her family that she had been seeing the ghost of a woman that she had known from the village that had died two years earlier.
The woman would stand in front of her bed and stare at her. She would be holding a dead child in her arms while she did this.
She would say things to Gottliebin as well, like “I want to be left alone.”
After hearing how the haunting had gotten even worse, he wanted to help again and came to the home and spoke to Gottliebin. He told her to not engage with the ghost because she may be evil.
Less than a week after Blumhadrt had visited, a note was found under Gottliebin’s bed. There was writing on it, but it was ineligible because the whole not was covered in soot, and next to it were a few coins wrapped up, also covered in soot.
Within that same month, a disembodied light found its way behind the stove and alerted the family to things that were buried behind it. The stove housed salt, chalk, bones, and more coins wrapped in paper.
Johann Blumhardt assumed that these objects were part of a dark rite and an evil magic practice. He took to a paper sack and burned what was inside. They all hoped that this would stop the strangeness happening in the home, but it didn’t.
It seemed that after the burning, the evil inside was unleashed as the paranormal happenings increased.
The sound of heavy footsteps walked through the whole house and never stopped, even during the day.
The boots would go out of their way to surround Gottliebin when she was by herself in the home, and the table in her vicinity would shake and raise violently.
As anyone would, Blumhardt decided to do an investigation of the property and the family.
He got a small team of investigators to come one evening, and as they searched the house, Blumhardt went into the living room. As he sat there, he heard loud knocks coming from Gottliebin’s room. The knocks were followed by loud banging.
To combat this demonic activity, Blumhardt started to pray, but when he did, the windows around him rattled as if they were about to shatter. The chairs that were in Gottliebin’s room around her threw themselves up into the air and crashed back down.
The team removed the floorboards to look for a source for the banging. Nothing was found to account for it, but they did find more paper packages filled with powders, coins, and a pot that contained small bones mixed with mud.
The day after the investigation, the family of 5 went to church. After the service, Gottliebin was found on her bed unconscious. She shows signs of being suffocated, and her skin was glowing red.
She woke up on her own about an hour after being found. Despite the fact, she was worked on by doctors.
In a trembling, weak voice, she told Blumhardt that she had seen the dead woman again after coming back from Church.
The entity was waiting in the living room for Gottliebin with her dead child in her arms, and the evil that washed over Gottliebin made her faint.
With all the evil they found in the house and this revolution from Gottliebin, Blumhardt decided to move the family out of the apartment to a new home.
He thought moving might save them and asked the family not to return.
The city even went as far as to put two cops on patrol of the home at all hours.
The town believed that the horror was starting to fade, but Gottliebin and Blumhardt were hiding an even darker secret.
The banging and the footsteps followed the family to the new home and somehow got worse.
Gottliebin started to experience consistent convulsions that got worse over time.
She would often faint and convulse in front of Blumhardt, entering“trance-like” states. The white foam would come from her mouth, her arms would flail around violently, she would contort into excruciating shapes, and her head would turn while lifting her body while unconscious.
She would wake occasionally and speak of seeing the demonic float around her while having these attacks.
Out of frustration and fear at watching these attacks, Blumhardt rushed over to Gottliebin’s side while she was having an attack and put his hands on her praying.
He whispered to Gottliebin to “fold your hands and pray,” and she managed to come out of her attack.
That’s when Blumhardt suspected the possession of Gottliebin, and the oppression had moved to possession.
He continued this until it was clear the demonic was too strong for that.
While Gottliebin was having a fit one afternoon, Blumhardt noticed that Gottliebin’s face had contorted in pure hate. She started to swing at Blumhardt, and then her eyes rolled back, and she started to chant in another demonic voice.
This is a quote about what was in Gottliebin
“It is said that Gottliebin’s body was hosting 14 demons, and they were being led by the spirit of the dead woman whom she had been previously seeing. This woman was apparently a murderer who killed two children and buried them in her field. She was also a dark magic practitioner, and this condemned her to a restless afterlife. Thus, she was forever bound to the devil, and she was determined to make Gottliebin suffer. With time, the darkness attached to the young woman kept getting stronger, and at one point, there were 425 separate demonic entities in her body, which further increased to 1067.”
After this first seemingly demonic encounter, Blumhardt found Gottliebin had been hurting herself more and more often in between her fits. She would often have a “bleeding nose, bleeding wounds on the chest, and strands of hair forcefully plucked out by herself.“
She even felt disembodied hands choking her at night. The hands would disappear and leave blisters that would take weeks to heal.
“With time, the Blumhardt started finding Gottliebin with her body swollen extraordinarily with water, and she would vomit out whole buckets of water. She started being assaulted by non-human spirits, and on multiple occasions, she was found on her bed swimming in her own blood.”
Not being able to bear the ordeal, the young woman tried killing herself, but the evil entities inside her did not let her do it. The pastor, however, kept working day and night and successfully relieved her of multiple demons every day.
In February of 1842, Gottliebin started vomiting strange things. This started with small pieces of glass and progressed to small pieces of iron. With time, she started vomiting multiple nails together, and it did not stop there.
Gottliebin started vomiting huge shoe buckles, uncountable quantities of pins, lengths of wires, and knitting needles. It is said that even small living animals like bats, frogs, and locusts came out of her mouth.
During the final period of her possession, the demonic entities in her body started to possess her sister Katharina and her brother Hans.
In a state of spirit possession, Kathrina shouted in rage that she would cut Blumhardt into a thousand pieces.
She had to be put in physical restraints because of her violent actions. While restrained, she shook her body so hard that it appeared as if she wanted to tear her body.
Finally, after two years of horrific demonic possession, Gottliebin and her family were completely set loose from the clutches of evil because of Blumhardt’s persistent efforts.
Gottliebin confessed that she was exposed to magic when it was used for physical healing while she was young. The instance which is linked to her possession, however, happened when she visited her cousin while she was seven.
Her cousin, who was apparently evil, somehow pledged the poor girl’s soul to the devil, following which she was cursed with everlasting illness.
Was Gottliebin Dittus Possessed By Evil Spirits?
What do you think, Bizarros?
Was this poor girl possessed by rebellious non-human spirits that tortured her and her family?
Was she a conduit to the spirit realm because of the magic her evil cousin performed on her when she was little?
Or could more simple answers tell us what happened? Due to the death of her parents, Gottliebin claimed to be possessed by an unclean spirit for attention.
Or was there something demonic going on in this small village in Germany?
Let us know in the comments.
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