Raymond J. Bishop

Raymond J. Bishop (January 15, 1906 – February 1978) was a Roman Catholic priest. He became one of the several priests involved in the case of exorcizing a boy in St. Louis, Missouri, who was allegedly possessed after using a Ouija board. The case would inspire author William Peter Blatty to write a novel about exorcism, titled The Exorcist.

Life

In 1949, Father Bishop taught at St. Louis University, where one of his female students asked for help concerning her thirteen-year-old cousin (for reasons of anonymity referred to by the pseudonym Robbie Mannheim), who she said had been experiencing supernatural attacks after playing with a Ouija board and had already gone through one unsuccessful exorcism. Bishop contacted his close friend, Father William S. Bowdern, and they performed another exorcism on him.

In the 1950s, Bishop was sent to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, where he taught for more than twenty years. He died in February, 1978 in Nebraska.