The World of the Warren’s

The paranormal field for years has
been chock full of characters that have cast their shadow and their reputation
on the research and pursuit of the High Strangeness.  Even back in the mid 1800’s, with the first
group of “Ghost hunters” founded in England, to spiritualist organizations that
swept through America in the early part of the century, to well-known Fortean
researchers such as Charles Fort and Han’s Holzer , the list of famous Paranormal
investigators has grown long.  But
perhaps no other researchers had the kind of reputation that Ed and Lorraine Warren had.  In recent times, they have been discovered by
a whole new group of people that may have not known about them previously, but with
the release of movies like “The Conjuring”, this has reinvented the story of Ed
and Lorraine to a whole new generation. 
Their stories, albeit “Hollywooded” pretty harshly to gain an audience,
continues to bring in the crowds.  However,
just like everything else, especially the realm of the paranormal, is the truth
as point blank as it seems?  There are
millions of people in this world that still do not believe in the Paranormal,
let alone stories as fantastic as what the Warren’s experienced.  Words such as Charlatans or hoaxers are often
shared in the same breath when discussing Ed and Lorraine and the cases that
they have documented.  But, because their
encounters seems so fascinating, is that a reason not to believe?  Do we try and debunk them because it’s
easier?  Or accept that there are things
in this world that we just cannot wrap our minds around, and some individuals
such as the Warren’s, have tried there hardest during their lifetime, to spread
their knowledge and help the unfortunate souls and families that were trapped
in these sorts of Supernatural nightmares?  
That’s the Rabbit hole we are going to jump down now.  Ladies and Gentleman, Sit back, grab a
cocktail, and follow along with us as we unweave the strange and at times
impossible to believe, “the World of the Warren’s...”

Open the Gates

Ed Warren was
born in 1926 and grew up in Connecticut, where as a coincidence, his childhood
house was known to be haunted.  Ed would
hear sounds and thumps at night, closet doors squeaking open and slamming shut,
and shadows wrapping around his bedroom ceiling.  Ed would tell his father what he was seeing
and Ed says his dad would say:  “Ed,
there’s a logical reason for everything that happens in this house.” but Ed
said he never came up with that logical reason.”  Ed Warrens Father was a policeman, and a very
down to earth person, who only knew what he saw in front of his face. Raised as
a devout Catholic, Ed, along with his family, never missed a Sunday going to
Church. His grandfather was very devout as well, and as strange as it seems,
when his Grandad passed, he bequeathed all his money to the church, where they
had made a giant stain glass portrait of St. Michael.  St. Michael as we all know (Or maybe you
don’t), was the Archangel who drove Satan out of heaven.  As Ed got older, what he was hearing in
church in regards to the Devil and Demons, got more intense in his personal
life.  When he was a teenager, he would
see a Nun all the time in his room.  She
would look sickly and pale, and even sometimes talk to him in his dreams.  The Nun would say, “You will tell many
priests which road to go down, but you yourself will never become a
priest.  When he finally came out and
told his Father about the Nun he would see continuously, and describe her in
detail, his Dad got faint and pale as he explained to his son what he was
seeing was his Aunt, who was practicing to be a Nun but never made it, due to
horrendous physical issues and finally passing away.  This all would make sense as to what his Aunt
would say to him in his dreams, because, fast forward years ahead, Ed became a
Demonologist, where he worked very close to Priests during the encounters that
he and Lorraine would experience.   He
would be one of the only people in the world to be a demonologist and blessed
by the church, without having to be an ordained priest.

Meanwhile, a mere 3 blocks away from
the Home that Ed grew up in, little did he know, lived his future Partner in
crime, his future soulmate, and consequently, his future wife.  Lorraine was also born in 1927, and grew up
as a proper little girl in a traditional Irish household. However, as normal as
her upbringing was, she soon found out she was a little different than everyone
else.  At the age of twelve she recalls:  “I was attending an all-girls private school,
it was Arbor Day, and we were all on the front lawn, standing around a circle
with a shovel-hole in the ground. We’ll, just as soon as they put the sapling
in the ground, I saw it as a full grown tree. I was in wonder, looking up in
the branches and the leaves blowing in the wind.  A nun behind me prodded me in the arm and
asked me why I was looking up into the sky and not paying attention.  I told her I was looking at the tree. Swaying
full size in the breeze.  She instantly
pulled me out of the group, and scalded me for making things up.  It was from that moment on, I realized not to
mention of my Clairvoyant capability to anyone, including my mother, if I
didn’t want to get shunned throughout my life.”

It just so
happened, when Ed was sixteen working as an usher at “The Colonial Theatre” in Bridgeport
Connecticut, and it was there that he met Lorraine Rita Moran. Ed said,  “Lorraine
and her mother used to come every Wednesday night,” Ed remembered. ” I’d see Lorraine coming in and we started
talking, and we became friends. I was 16 at the time and she was 16, one night
I walked her home and asked her for a date” ” And that’s how it all got
started.” So it began.  Ed Warren went into the Navy on his
seventeenth birthday and four months later, after his ship sank in the North
Atlantic he was home for 30-day survivor’s leave. It was during that leave that
the two were married. When Ed returned after World War II,  he and Lorraine had a daughter, and Ed went to
Perry Art School for two years.  Thinking
they were going to start life out as artists, not in the paranormal field, they
both practiced on their paintings. It was
through painting that The Warrens began their ~Ghost Investigations. If Ed
heard of any place that claimed to be haunted, whether a haunted house, or a
haunted location he would drag Lorraine to check it out. “Oh Ed, there are no such things as ghosts,” Lorraine would say, Ed
would remind her of his days at his haunted home in Bridgeport and the shadows,
and the Nun…& Lorraine would go. 
Now, this is kind of funny of how fate seems to turn in one way or another.
  It was through the paintings that The
Warrens got themselves into these Haunted Houses over and over.  And then they would talk with the homeowners
one-on-one. Basically, Ed just wanted to see if the same things happened to
those families that happened to his family while growing up.  Ed’s quote:  “I’d go out in the middle of the road where
they could all see me and I’d start to sketch the house and you’d see the
curtains going back and forth “What’s this kid doing?” they would be thinking.
“I would do a really nice sketch of the house with ghosts coming out of it, and
I’d give it to Lorraine, she’d go knock on the door and with her Irish
personality she’d say, “Oh, my husband loves to sketch and paint haunted
houses, and he made this for you.” I made it special for them.”

This started Ed and Lorraine on an
incredible journey.  In 1952, they
founded “The New England Society for Psychic Research”, and the goal was just
to investigate hauntings, but soon turned into much more.  Cases they looked into would turn into more
than just simple knocks or shadows.  In
1965, they studied a case where a spirit of a little girl named Cynthia would
come through a trance medium.  The spirit
was looking frantically for her mother, and Ed and Lorraine thought that this
was more than investigations, they had to find a way to help these earthbound
spirits detach, and on the flipside of the coin, help families that had
attachments, or were experiencing violent hauntings, to be at peace.  Through their years of investigations, they
formulated an idea on what exactly this phenomena was, or how it interacted in
our world we see.  To quote Ed Warren
from the book Demonologist, written by Gerald Brittle;

 “If you look at a fan and it’s standing still, you can see the propellers
very easily. But, if that fan starts up you can’t see anything—it’s invisible.
Spirits are on that different vibrational field. They’re all around us right
now but you can’t see them. But if you were like Lorraine, you could see them Clairvisually,
hear them claiaudioally.”  I can’t. And
it wouldn’t pay for me to do that because as an investigator people would think
I’m a little odd seeing ghosts flying around when they couldn’t see anything.
So, I have to see it, I have to feel it, I have to hear it, I have to record it
before I accept it.  But, mediums and
clairvoyants are very necessary to us because they tell us immediately if
something is there. I wouldn’t know—I could go into a building for a month and
not know if there is something really there. I could interview the people, and
maybe through my knowledge I could tell if something is there, but the
clairvoyant is the draw. The spirits are drawn to a medium/clairvoyant like a
moth is drawn to a flame.  Many times we
use three or four clairvoyants in one place. We take them into a house
one-at-a-time, they don’t know where they’re going, what the case is about,
etc. And if they all tell me the same thing, which they see a woman spirit in a
certain room or a man or a child, then I know that we’re on the right track. N.E.S.P.R.’s
work is based in religion but also uses science. People have said to the
Warrens, “Oh God, you go into a house and you look for devils.” And Ed’s
response, “Your damn right I look for devils, and I look for everything else
to. And I have the scientists with me and they’re looking for something else
and we get together and we talk and straighten the whole thing out. Nobody can
bring us into a house and fool us. You couldn’t tell us that your house is
haunted and get away with it because I’m the biggest skeptic going. I have to
see it, I have to hear it and I have to feel it with the physical sense.” I do
think scientifically, we do have scientists working with us, and I think
theologically and scientifically. There are organizations of atheists,
so-called skeptical investigators that say, “There is no proof scientifically
that God exists, that spirits exist that miracles occur.”  That’s ridiculous, there’s all kinds of
proof. In [the Occult Museum] we have hundreds of items, we have thousands of
cases between here and the other buildings out there that prove beyond a shadow
of a doubt that the supernatural exists and the pre-to-natural exists.  We have thousands of pictures of ghosts. And
I’m not talking about filmy ectoplasmic type material, I’m talking about
spirits that are as clear as you and I. You ask us for evidence, we’ll give you
that evidence.   Scientists would say, “You
didn’t prove a thing, because you didn’t take that ghost and put it in a bottle
so we can open him up and examine him.” That’s stupid. They’re saying that
scientifically that you have to prove that God exists, that ghosts exist, there
is no such thing… you can’t get scientific in a supernatural world. 

And the Famous cases
begin:

 Keep in mind, these cases are quick descriptions, and not
entirely told the correct way perhaps? 
By how they really happened. These are all taken directly out of books
or quotes from the Warren’s.  This is
where the “Charlatan” or “Hoax” words are thrown around a little.  Not that we don’t entirely buy into the fact
that the Warren’s  believed in what they
did and what they saw, but from other peoples perspectives, it seems they may
have been quite liberal with the involvement they had in each of these cases,
or how the investigations actually occurred.  
Again, this is just a “smattering” if you will of the Warrens history,
but enough to let you, the listeners, aware of some of the past understandings.  Along with this, we are only going to cover a
couple famous cases.  If you don’t know
the movies based off of their accounts (whether loosely or correctly), than
your living under a proverbial rock. 

“The Amityville horror”

On December 18, 1975, the Lutz family
moved into the DeFeo home. Though it had only been 13 months since the DeFeo
murders had occurred, George and Kathleen Lutz thought the Dutch colonial was a
lovely home and a steal at $80,000 never expecting they’d have to leave it all
behind 28 days later.  A catholic priest
arrived while the Lutz family was unpacking to bless the family home. As the
priest made his way upstairs to the second floor entering the bedroom which had
formerly belonged to Marc and John DeFeo, he began sprinkling holy water at
which point an unseen voice told the priest “Get out!” Which he hastily did.  The Priest did not tell the Lutz family about
the voice, but he did warn them” Do not use it the upstairs room as a bedroom,
and not do not let anyone sleep in there.” Although ominous, the Lutz family
abided by the words of the priest and turned the room into a sewing room.  From the very first night they moved in, the
family claimed they felt strange sensations. Within days the family’s
personality had drastically changed arguments ensued.  George was plagued by a constant chill and
spent all his time feeding the fire place George also noticed a change in his
grooming habits and his and Kathy’s health declined drastically.  The Lutz’s daughter began spending all her
time in her room playing with an imaginary friend. She described as red eyed
pig called Jodie, who could transform not only shape but size at times being
larger than the house. Jodie also claimed she could not be seen by anyone
unless she wanted them to.  Mysterious
foul odors would emanate from different locations of the house. Black stains
appeared on the toilets and ceramic fixtures. Kathy was touched by an unseen
force and a Green gelatin substance would appear throughout the house.  Hundreds of flies appeared in the sewing room
despite it being the dead of winter. George would wake up nightly at 3:15 a.m.
which coincided with the time the police felt the Defoe’s were murdered.  George also awoke one night to witness his
wife transform into a 90‑year‑old hag
and the next night she began levitating off the bed. The Lutz family tried on
numerous occasions to contact the Catholic priest only to find the phones would
cut out whenever they would try to call. 
After failing to get the priest to return, the family took matters into
their own hands. Armed with a crucifix, they walked throughout the house
reciting the Lord’s Prayer. A chorus of voices erupted in response, asking
them, “Will you stop?”   The final night
was reported to be the worst, banging and wrappings as loud as a marching bands
emanated throughout the house, furniture being moved by its own accord, and the
children being terrorized.  After 28 days
in the DeFeo home, the family claimed they could take no more. They grabbed
only a few belongings and fled the house, taking shelter at Kathy Lutz’s
mother’s home in nearby Babylon.

20 days after the Lutz’s fled
Paranormal Investigators Ed & Lorraine Warren were called in by Marvin
Scott a news reporter with channel 5 NY who had covered the Amityville story
and worked on a prior investigation with the Warrens.  A team of reporters, investigators, and
parapsychologist’s were assembled by Ed Warren and met at the home at 112 Ocean
Avenue. The Lutz family refused to re-enter the home during the
investigation.  During the investigation
Ed was physically pushed to the floor while using some religious provocation in
the basement, Lorraine was also overwhelmed by the sense of a Demonic presence
and was plagued by her psychic impressions of the Defeo Families bodies laid
along the floor covered in white sheets, and a sense of physically being pushed
back.   The research team also captured
an image of spirit that appeared as a little boy peering from the second floor.
The land was also found to be used by John Ketchum.   John
Ketchum was a practicing black magician and had a cottage on the land prior to
the construct of the Dutch Colonial in 1924. John requested that his remains be
buried on that property and they remain there till this day.  The Shinicock Indians also at one time had an
enclosure on this land that was used to house the sick, and the mad, those in
this enclosure were left to die. The Warrens believed that the suffering there
had left the property with a very negative energy and dark history. And that
Such a negative history was a magnet for demonic spirits and the
preternatural.  The Warrens believe these
energies directly impacted the lives of both the Defoe’s and the Lutz’s. The
Warrens retrieved a handful of the Lutz’s earthly possessions and deed for the
property The Lutz’s sold the rest of their belongings and relocated to California.  The Ocean Avenue home that was once purchased
for $80,000 in 1975 by the Lutz family, sold for $950.000.00 in 2010, and is
again on the market. There have been no further reports of activity from recent
residents.

“The Enfield haunting”

In August
1977 single parent Peggy Hodgson called police to her rented home in Enfield,
claiming she had witnessed furniture moving and that two of her four children
said that knocking sounds were heard on walls. The children included Margaret,
age 13, and Janet, 11.   A police
constable said that she saw a chair "wobble and slide" but “could not
determine the cause of the movement”.  Later
claims included disembodied voices, loud noises, thrown toys, overturned chairs,
and children levitating, which by the way, there is a crazy picture of her 13
year old being thrown around on a bed.  Over a period of 18 months, more than 30
people, including neighbors, psychic researchers and journalists, said they
variously saw heavy furniture moving of its own accord, objects being thrown
across a room and the daughters seeming to levitate several feet off the
ground. Many also heard and recorded knocking noises and a gruff voice.   The
story was covered in the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror until reports came to an
end in 1979.  Now, here’s the flipside to
that just to be fair.  In 1977, the
Warrens investigated claims that a family in the North London suburb of Enfield
was haunted by poltergeist activity. While a number of independent observers
dismissed the incident as a hoax carried out by "attention-hungry"
children, the Warrens were convinced that it was a case of "demonic
possession".   Although critics say
the Warrens were involved  "to a far
lesser degree than portrayed in the movie" and in fact had shown up to the
scene uninvited and been refused admittance to the home.  To add to this, it was also reported that the
girls were caught trying to bend spoons, throwing their voices, etc.  Even though some investigators have
recordings of video as well as audio that disprove this.  The girls di admit that SOME of the things
that were happening were mischief they made up, but they claimed they only did
it to try and deal with what was really happening.  A way to sort of “Comprehend” the situation
around them.  The mother had absolutely
no reason to bring any light to the situation, along with the fact of heavy
furniture flying through the air.  Could
the girls have caused that?  Not sure on
this one.  However, the book Demonologist,
mentions that the Warrens had taken at least three trips out to investigate the
Haunting.  It’s not very clear whether
they performed this on their own accord, or wanted the spotlight.

“The Devil made me do
it Trial”

The trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson,
also known as the "Devil Made Me Do It" case, is the first known
court case in the United States in which the defense sought to prove innocence
based upon the defendant's claim of demonic possession and denial of personal
responsibility for the crime.  On
November 24, 1981, in Brookfield, Connecticut, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was
convicted of first-degree manslaughter for the killing of his landlord, Alan
Bono.  According to testimony by the
Glatzel family, 11-year-old David Glatzel had allegedly played host to the
demon that forced Johnson to kill Bono. After witnessing a number of
increasingly ominous occurrences involving David, the family decided to enlist
the aid of self-described demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren in a last-ditch
effort to "cure" David. The Glatzel family, along with the Warrens,
then proceeded to have David exorcised by a number of Catholic priests. The
process continued for several days, concluding when, according to those
present, a demon fled the child's body and took up residence within Johnson.
Several months later, Johnson killed his landlord during a heated conversation.
His defense lawyer argued in court that he was possessed, but the judge ruled
that such a defense could never be proven and was therefore infeasible in a
court of law. Johnson was subsequently convicted, though he only served five
years of a 10- to 20-year sentence. 

Again, let’s dig a little deeper into
this.  During interviews, they claimed to
be eyewitnesses to demonic possession, and both were adamant in their support
of the Warrens' recollection of events. They asserted that paranormal activity
began after they went to clean up a rental property they had just acquired.
David recollected that an old man appeared, pushing and terrifying him. The
couple initially thought David was using the old man as an excuse to avoid
cleaning, but David informed them that the old man had vowed to harm the
Glatzels if they moved into the rental home. David's visions of the old man
included the man appearing as a demonic beast who muttered Latin and threatened
to steal his soul. Although the family allegedly heard strange noises coming
from the attic, no one but David ever witnessed the old man. After David
experienced night terrors, exhibited strange behavior, and obtained unexplained
scratches and bruises, the family called upon the services of a Catholic
priest, who attempted to bless the house. The terrified family concluded that
the house was evil and would no longer continue to rent it.   David's
visions worsened, occurring in the daytime as well.  Twelve days after the original incident, the
family summoned the self-proclaimed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren to
assist.   Lorraine allegedly witnessed a black mist
materialize next to David, an apparent indication of a malevolent presence.
Debbie and her mother told the Warrens they had seen David being beaten and
choked by invisible hands and that red marks had appeared on his neck
afterwards.   David had started to growl, hiss, speak in otherworldly
voices, and recite passages from the Bible or Paradise Lost. The Glatzels
recounted how each night a family member would remain awake with David as he
suffered through spasms and convulsions. 
 After receiving a prognosis of
multiple possessions from the Warrens, David was subjected to three
"lesser exorcisms".   Lorraine asserts that David levitated, ceased
breathing for a time, and even demonstrated the supernatural ability of
precognition, specifically in relation to the murder Johnson would later
commit. 

 In October 1980, the Warrens contacted
Brookfield police to warn them that the situation was becoming dangerous. According
to eyewitness testimony, Arne Johnson coerced one of the demons purportedly
within David to possess him while participating in David's exorcisms.   Johnson returned to the rental property to
examine an old well that supposedly housed the demon. In both the dramatized
version and his personal account, Johnson recollects that this was his final
encounter with the demon while completely lucid, as it was after encountering
the demon at the well and making eye contact with it that he became possessed.
The Warrens claim to have warned him not to do this.  As David's condition continued to worsen,
Debbie and Johnson decided it was time to move out of her mother's home. Debbie
was hired by Alan Bono, a new resident in Brookfield, as a dog groomer. Debbie
and Johnson began renting an apartment close to her place of employment.  After moving in, Johnson started to exhibit
odd behavior that was strikingly similar to David's, causing Debbie to fear
that he had become possessed as well. According to Debbie, Johnson would fall
into a trance-like state, wherein he would growl and hallucinate but later have
no memory of it.  On February 16, 1981,
Johnson called in sick to his job at Wright Tree Service, and joined Debbie at
the kennel where she worked, along with his sister Wanda and Debbie's
9-year-old cousin Mary.   Bono, the couple's landlord and Debbie's
employer at the kennel, bought the group lunch at a local bar and proceeded to
drink heavily.   After lunch, the group returned to the
kennel.  Debbie then took the girls to
get pizza but insisted they return quickly, anticipating trouble. When they
returned, Bono, intoxicated at this point, became agitated.   Everyone left the room at Debbie's urging,
except Bono, who seized Mary and refused to let go.   Johnson headed back to the apartment and ordered
Bono to release Mary.   Wanda told the following
events to the police:  Mary ran for the
car as Debbie attempted to mitigate the situation by standing between the two
men.   Wanda tried in vain to pull Johnson away.  Johnson, growling like an animal, then drew a
pocket knife out and stabbed Bono repeatedly. 
 Bono died several hours later.
According to Johnson's lawyer, Bono had suffered "four or five tremendous
wounds", mostly to his chest, and one that stretched from his stomach to
the base of his heart.   Johnson was discovered a few miles away from
the site and was taken the local jail for the murder of Alan Bono.

Final days:

There obviously are a lot more
stories that encompass Ed and Lorraine’s 50 plus year career in the study,
understanding, and harnessing of said supernatural entities, but we would be
here for days if we were going to continue down that route.   However, it’s worth noting at least the
names of the other investigations, such as the Perron Family which The
Conjuring was based off of, the story of Annabelle, The Snedeker House which
the “The Haunting in Connecticut” was based off, The case of the Werewolf which
made a brief appearance in the film Anabelle comes home, and last but not
least, The Smurl family case, which was a book in 1986 called “The Haunted”,
and a movie of the same name.   Not only
have they both been involved in writing 6 different books of their encounters,
but flew around the world giving lectures, seminars, and advice to anyone that
shared a vested interest into their research. 
Ed Warren passed away on August 23, 2006 at the age of 79.  Lorraine continued to keep their research
alive and intact, with guest appearances on Paranormal State, and the Discovery
Channel Series “A Haunting”, before she passed an April 18th, 2019
at the age of 92…which weirdly enough is my birthday.   Their
Society they founded in 1952 is still going strong, and if you are in the
Monroe CT area and are interested in a tour of their Museum, email Nespr2@yahoo.com, or go to Warrens.net to find the
latest info. 

 Despite the accusations of being possible
frauds, or whether you truly embrace the idea of hauntings, demons and the
like, the one thing that EVERYONE…including the people that were trying to
debunk the Warren’s  would routinely say,
was that Ed and Lorraine Warren were the most kind hearted, good people
around.  There’s something to be said
about that when you’re in that field of work.  I personally, have a very hard time believing
in Demon’s or possession.   As an Anti-Theist, I feel that you have to
believe in God in order to believe in the Devil.  But maybe if you separate the Religious
aspect of it and just concentrate on the good vs evil concept, than it helps to
explain the phenomena a little better.  I
always ask Mike Pardue, founder and lead investigator of “Oquirrh Paranormal Investigators”
here in Salt Lake, this question: “What do I do to feel safe and stay safe before
an investigation that possibly has evil intentions behind it? I’ve had
attachments before and their not fun.  Mike,
you can just say a prayer and carry a St. Michaels emblem for safe passage…What
does the “Non-God” believer have for self-defense for something that may be
harmful or evil?”   So far, all I’ve gotten out of Mike in return
is a laugh, as he tells me to go set-up sound for the investigation and stop
being such a wussy…So there’s that.

Close the Gates