The Spectacular Life of Donald Omand, Exorcist Extraordinaire

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2024

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When one thinks of exorcisms, it’s hard to get past the infamous imagery published to the world in 1973, of a young girl, floating above a bed, flanked by two priests, flinging holy water and yelling about the power of Christ. At the same time as the Exorcist movie was hitting the cinemas, however, there was one, real life exorcist doing very different work. With several decades of banishing evil under his belt, he was taking on far bigger tasks, with vampires, the Loch Ness Monster and even the Bermuda Triangle all within his sights. SOURCES Ewing, William (1914) Annals of the Free Church of Scotland, 1843-1900. T&T Clark, Edinburgh, UK. Omand, Donald (1970) Experiences of a Present Day Exorcist. Harper Collins, London, UK. Alexander, Marc (1981) The Devil Hunter: The Incredible Account of the Work of a Modern Day Exorcist. Sphere, London, UK. Alexander, Marc (1980) The Man Who Exorcised the Bermuda Triangle. A.S Barnes, New York, USA. Young, Francis (2018) A History of Anglican Exorcism: Deliverance & Demonology in Church Ritual. I.B. Taurus & Co., London, UK. Underwood, Peter (1990) Exorcism! Robert Hale Ltd, London, UK. The Sunday Mirror (1977) The Devil Hunter. The Sunday Mirror, Sun 20 Nov 1977, p10, London, UK. BBC Archive (2024) 1973: EXORCISING the LOCH NESS MONSTER | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive. Youtube, https://youtu.be/BNZ1dNWMh7c?si=FB6dipQ_oWTU3CeJ Miami Herald (1950) Sea's Puzzles Still Baffle Men In Pushbutton Age. The Miami Herald, Sun 17 Sep 1950, p6, Miami, USA. ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	When one thinks of exorcisms, it's hard to get past the infamous imagery published to the world in 1973 of a young girl floating above a bed flanked by two priests, fling in holy water and yelling about the power of Christ.
0:16.0	At the same time as the Exorcist movie was hitting the cinemas, however, there was one real-life
0:20.8	exorcist doing very different work. With several decades of banishing evil under his belt, he was taking on far bigger tasks with vampires, the Lochmus monster and even the Bermuda Triangle all within its sights.
0:36.0	This is Dark Histories where the facts are worse than fiction.
0:41.0	Hello and welcome to Dark History's season 8 episode 16. Today we've got a really fun
0:50.3	episode it's going to be a bit more of one of those quirky pieces of history.
0:54.7	Checking into the life of quite a special man. So yes, without further and doing that,
1:01.9	let's get straight into it because things are quiet these days,
1:05.2	no more news this week as usual. So let's just go. This episode is The Spectacular Life of Donald
1:11.9	Omond, exorcist extraordinary.
1:19.0	When one thinks of an exorcism, undoubtedly the most common thoughts that would spring to the minds of many
1:24.8	are those of dark-robed priests, tortured humans and violent demons. Most likely in
1:30.5	resembling the infamous scenes of Father Damien Karas toss in holy water over the levitating body of Reagan McNill, whose skin rotting from her bones dried and peeled from her body.
1:42.0	Such violent cases of exorcism, usually involving young teenage
1:46.2	girls possessed by a demon that have saturated horror cinema since the satanic panic of the
1:51.4	70s, have come to dominate the casual understanding of the concept of exorcism,
1:56.0	especially that within Roman Catholicism. But the job of a true non-fiction, flesh and blood exorcist is not always so straightforward.
2:07.0	The subjects, the process, or both have at one time or another throughout history deviated significantly from the commonly understood narrative,
2:16.6	forging a tradition and a ritual far greater in breadth and scope than is often realized and leaving stories that are so thoroughly bizarre that they render such common stories of exorcism and possession boring in comparison.
2:32.0	Stories of ghosts being in need of cleansing or exorcism have been
2:36.7	making the mainstream media since at least the 19th century, with the practice dating
2:41.6	much, much further back all the way to biblical times in some form or another.
	...

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