Before his death in 2016, the Vatican’s former senior exorcist, who personally handled tens of thousands of possession cases, had one horrifying encounter that inspired a series of Holywood films, including The Conjuring.
Father Gabriele Amorth investigated possession cases all around the world for 30 years and specialised in exorcism, which is the act of eliminating unclean forces from people’s bodies.

The ghost hunter, a former soldier who battled Nazis during WWII, was unfazed by most – except for one rare case.

In 1997, he claimed to have seen a “peasant” who yelled insults at him in flawless English before spitting on him and assaulting him, precisely like in the 1973 horror picture The Exorcist.

Fr. Amorth apparently managed to pacify the “devil” with a prayer, but that was far from the end of the story.

In a book on Fr Amorth, Catholic priest Marcello Stanzione recorded the occurrence.

“But suddenly, shrieking and wailing, the monster broke forth and stared right at him, dribbling saliva from the young man’s mouth,” he wrote.

The possessed peasant’s body stiffened and he began to float, hovering three feet in the air for a few minutes before dropping into a chair, according to the book The Devil Is Afraid Of Me.

The devil then supposedly disclosed the precise day and hour he would depart from the man’s body.

This moment is mirrored in 2013’s The Conjuring, in which a calm housewife is possessed by the ghost of a malicious witch.

Fr Amorth linked various symptoms to how to recognise a demon, including spitting, vomiting shards of glass or chunks of iron, and even rose petals.

He stated that after vomiting, a lady spat bits of a transistor radio at him.

According to the priest, numerous people acquired superhuman power, including an 11-year-old child who fought off three police officers and a 10-year-old youngster who picked up a big table.