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Have you heard about the upcoming film,\xa0The Haunting in Wicker Park, starring Erin Moriarty (The Boys) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things)? It was inspired by the experiences of the Becker family who invited NBC News cameras to film an exorcism in their Chicago home in 1971. Hear what we\u2019ve learned about this new film, and take another listen to Patrick's 2014 interview with\xa0Edwin F. Becker, who sadly passed away about a year ago. Visit BigSeance.com/239 for more info.\xa0

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In this episode:

Intro :00

Today we reach back into the Big Seance archives to re-visit the two-part interview with Edwin F. Becker in 2014, about the frightening, real-life experiences that he and his family suffered through in the early 1970s in their home in Chicago. Those experiences led to NBC\u2019s Carole Simpson filming the first televised exorcism in their home in 1971. Edwin's book, True Haunting, originated as just a journal to document it all. The accounts of the activity are just amazing, and as Patrick said in his review for the book over 10 years ago, it reads like amazing fiction\u2026 except it\u2019s not. In 2012, the Paranormal Witness series featured the Becker family in an episode titled, The Tenants, and Patrick highly recommends that you check that out, if you can. The 2-part interview for the Big Seance that we\u2019re revisiting today, was one of the first interviews Patrick had that he felt was really big, he was super proud of it, and Edwin later reached out to him to tell him that to that date it was perhaps the best interview he'd ever been a part of.\xa0:50

Sadly, Edwin died about a year ago in November of 2022. But to Patrick\u2019s surprise, today he discovered that there was a major motion picture in post-production, called The Haunting in Wicker Park, directed by Gary Fleder, and starring Jamie Campbell Bower, who played Henry Creel and Vecna in the fourth season of the Netflix series, Stranger Things. iMDb says it was supposed to be released in 2023, but 2024 is just around the corner and there are no trailers yet. There are, however, some behind-the-scenes production photos. Edwin was aware and knew about the upcoming film, because he excitedly announced it in one of his last social media posts. If you know any details about the release of the film, please let us know at patrick@bigseace.com. 2:22

Audio of the historic 1971 NBC footage of the exorcism of the Becker home with journalist Carole Simpson. Thanks to Edwin, the footage exists on YouTube. The aged audio is kind of atrocious, but it\u2019s worth a listen. 5:05

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The following interview was originally released in two parts in November of 2014:\xa0

Edwin F. Becker\u2019s bio. 11:06

Background on Edwin\u2019s book, True Haunting. 12:41

Edwin takes us back to 1970 and a story that begins with the purchase of an old two-story building, a home made up of two apartments, each on its own floor. 14:08

\u201cEddie, I\u2019m never coming down here.\u201d Edwin brought his wife, Marsha, in to see the new home and the basement. He hoped that she would see that they could fix it up and make it into a home. She was not a fan of the basement. 21:03

Nasty fighting among the family of the deceased former owner, and a deal to keep Myra, a scary old remaining tenant for 120 days.\xa024:00

\u201cWe started having anomalies immediately. I believe spirits are intelligent. I don\u2019t know if they can look into your soul and see everything you\u2019ve ever done, like a demon can, but I know that they can sense what you\u2019re going to do and read your mind. I learned that while we lived there, because they could anticipate my actions whenever I tried to record them on a tape recorder.\u201d 26:49

It all started with Marsha and the phone. 27:14

Edwin finally understands that there is a problem in the home, and he calls in a priest for a house blessing. It didn\u2019t go well and he bolted! 30:05

\u201cWhat do you do about it?\u201d 35:34

The mysterious sheds in the basement. 37:42

New downstairs tenants. 39:35

Runaway dogs. And Edwin borrows a tape recorder. 44:18

\u201cBut over time, what happens is you wind up walking on egg shells, number one, because you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to actually happen next. And you don\u2019t know what to attribute to paranormal and what not to attribute to paranormal.\u201d 46:53

\u201c\u2026it started toying with me. That was the first time it actually turned on the gas on the stove.\u201d 50:15

\u201cI started thinking about burning the place down.\u201d 51:25

\u201cAnd ghosts lie.\u201d Paranormal investigation, Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), and Ouija boards. 52:18

\u201cNo. I don\u2019t go ghost hunting, because you\u2019re going to walk into a room if you know there\u2019s an energy there, and you really don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a teddy bear or a raptor. And it can come home with you. There can be attachments.\u201d 54:07

Bullets and Yellow Pages. The Beckers turned to Joseph\xa0
DeLouise, a famous Chicago psychic. 54:30

Turning to exorcism. 59:39

A phone call from Carole Simpson and NBC led to the first televised exorcism. 1:03:50

\u201cBut if you look in that YouTube piece at about the minute and a half mark, there will be a dark doorway. There is no door on that. It was a vinyl folding door. You\u2019re going to see a ghost start to come out and go back in briefly. You\u2019re going to think that a woman\u2019s skirt or a woman\u2019s robe or something is coming through the door. You\u2019re going to see the tip of it, solid as a rock, and then you\u2019re going to see it back off.\u201d 1:07:05

\u201cThat exorcism went on for three and a half hours, and it was very, very creepy.\u201d 1:08:25

\u201cAnd then there\u2019s a clear child\u2019s voice that says, \u2018mama.\u2019\u201d 1:08:25

\u201cIf you look at the end of the exorcism, you can tell that they were not successful. You can look on their faces and they look like they just lost a basketball game by 52 points. And they left.\u201d 1:10:25

\u201cThe only thing we could do was get out of there.\u201d 1:10:43

A brief discussion of the Amityville story and that film. 1:14:55

\xa0A haunted piano. 1:17:34

Edwin\u2019s advice for anyone going through a haunting, plus current ghostly activity. 1:21:54

Edwin on orbs, photography, and Hollywood\u2019s representation of hauntings. 1:26:50

A Near Death Experience (NDE) 1:31:35

Outro 1:41:19

A special THANK YOU to\xa0Patreon supporters\xa0at the Super Paranerd and\xa0Parlor Guest level! 1:42:38

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The Big Seance Podcast can be found right here, on Apple Podcasts,\xa0Google Podcasts,\xa0Pandora,\xa0Spotify,\xa0TuneIn Radio,\xa0Amazon Music,\xa0Audible,\xa0iHeart Radio, and\xa0YouTube. Please subscribe and share with a fellow paranerd! Do you have any comments or feedback? Please contact me at\xa0Patrick@BigSeance.com. Consider recording your voice feedback directly from your device on my\xa0SpeakPipe\xa0page! You can also call the show and leave feedback at\xa0(775) 583-5563\xa0(or\xa07755-TELL-ME). I would love to include your voice feedback in a future show. The candles are already lit, so come on in and join the seance!

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