EXCLUSIVE: Inside the terrifying possession of Mexican Ouija orphan
The girl who shocked the world this week after she was videoed being 'possessed' after using a Ouija board was trying to contact her dead parents and had taken a shamanic drug used in Mexico to contact the 'spirit world', MailOnline can reveal today.
16-year-old orphan Alexandra Huerta, who appeared possessed by evil spirits in a video taken by paramedics as she was taken to hospital had taken Brugmansia, a poisonous plant which grows in tropical regions of Latin America.
The drug is also known as Angel’s Trumpet for its large poisonous flowers, and induces dark hallucinations, confusion, muscle paralysis and can lead to death in large doses.
Brugmansia can induce temporary insanity, especially in those who are not yet fully grown.
'She started convulsing and screaming of terrible visions', said Maria Camaño, 48, her guardian in the house where the trio tried to make contact with the dead on Sunday June 22.
'We tried to pray for them and to get them to pray as well, but it only made the demons who had taken control of her angrier', she said in an interview with the MailOnline in the house near the village of Tepotzlan where the disturbing episode took place.
Maria gave a terrifying account of the effects the Ouija board and 'bell flower' drug, as it is known in Latin America, had on Alexandra and her brother and cousin. They still firmly believe that she was in fact possessed.
The young people, after only minutes into playing with the Ouija board, began screaming, complaining of terrible visions and attempting to hurt themselves.
'I thought they were going to lose their minds', said Maria. 'There is a lot of shamanism in the hills where we live and I was terrified when I saw what the Ouija had done to them.
'She was possessed by a spirit who wanted to harm her.'
At first Maria went to the local priest to perform an exorcism on the three but he refused because they didn't attend the church regularly.
'The priest here wouldn't have been able to do it anyway. We need special priests from the capital to perform exorcism,' Maria added.
Then an ambulance was called and what happened next led to worldwide notoriety.
Alexandra appeared in a two-minute video taken by paramedics apparently possessed by evil spirits, strapped to the ambulance stretcher for fear that she might harm herself.
In the video that swept round the internet, the 16-year-old orphan switched between groaning, laughing hysterically and muttering to herself in the video.
'I’m going to die', she says at one point in the video as she laughs to herself.
'What are you laughing about?', the paramedic asks her. 'Why are you going to die? You have to get better, your family is waiting for you.'
'They will die', she replies.
Doctors at the hospital in Tepoztlan where the three were taken, said: 'They spoke of feeling numbness, double vision, blindness, deafness, hallucinations, muscle spasm and difficulty swallowing.'
'Alexandra was speaking in tongues and in a voice that was not her own', said Ms Camaño,
The three were under the effects of Brugmansia drug for seven hours.
The drug induces powerful nightmares, and it used in many shamanic religions in Mexico to allow adherents to make contact with the spirit world.
'She went between laughing hysterically and threatening to kill herself. She tried to hurt herself with the kitchen tools. It was horrible to watch', said Maria.
'When she went into her trance we tried to bring her around by forcing her to smell onion and alcohol, but it did nothing to help her', she told the MailOnline. 'She was a completely different person'.
Alexandra is an orphan whose parents died when she was 16, and alongside her brother Sergio and cousin Fernando, attempted to use Ouija magic to contact her deceased parents.
'She never knew her parents as they died when she was just a year old', said José Camaño, head of the house that is home to orphans from ten other families.
'She wanted to contact them and we told her this was a way to do it'.
The three had left their early on Sunday morning to search for the drug, whose flowers grow predominantly in areas of tropical cloud forest around the village in the Mexican state of Morelos - an hour to the south of Mexico City.
The plant is boiled into a tea and then consumed.
The orphans drank the dangerous concoction an hour before enacting their seance. 'They hoped it would open their minds to the spirits they tried to contact', said Mr Camaño.
'We knew what they were doing', he said. Mr Camaño had encouraged Alexandra to contact her deceased parents with the use of his Ouija board.
'But we never thought it would lead to them becoming possessed, we are simply happy to have them home again'.
Alexandra, who spent Sunday night in hospital following her bad trip, returned safely to the house on Monday. Her guardians refused to allow her to speak.
'She is resting following their ordeal, we want to make sure she is safe', said José, who farms and sells vegetables for his livelihood.
'We want to sue the paramedic who filmed Alexandra', he said. 'The entire family is suffering as a result of what happened'.
Alexandra has no memory of what happened after she started playing with the Ouija José said, so there is no way of knowing whether the trio believed they had contacted the dead parents at any point during their ordeal.
José added: 'She woke up in the hospital. We are worried she may still be possessed by these demons'.
'We know what we did was very wrong', said Mrs Camaño. 'She is a Christian girl who doesn’t even drink alcohol. We should not have encouraged her to attempt black magic to contact her parents'.
Also known as the 'spirit board', the Ouija was a Victorian parlour game in which participants move a wooden or glass indicator, supposedly channelled by spirits, across a board with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers one to nine, and the words 'yes', 'no', 'hello' and 'goodbye'.
Mainstream religions reject the game, seeing the board as a spiritual threat, and warn their followers not to use them. Many others believe it is just a game with no special powers whatsoever.