Not surprisingly, considering the title, this was the most detailed and disturbing of the Warrens' books I've read so far. If you're not familiar with them - and who isn't, at this point, owing largely to the astronomical success of "The Conjuring" film franchise, Ed and Lorraine Warren are two of the most well-known paranormal investigators in history. The Warrens claimed to have investigated over ten thousand cases during their "career," some of the most profound of which are described in this book.
Edward Warren Miney (1926-2006) became fascinated by the paranormal at a very early age, because of some unsettling encounters he had as a child. Ed claimed that he had grown up in a haunted house, and at the age of five, saw an "orb" which morphed into the shape of his family's deceased landlady. Shortly thereafter, he began having dreams of deceased relatives he had never met, including an aunt who told him about his future, not with the priesthood, which he had been contemplating, as a practicing Roman Catholic, but as a paranormal investigator, something he never could have imagined.
Lorraine Rita Moran (1927-2019) began displaying psychic abilities in childhood. Surprisingly, Lorraine has revealed that she was initially the skeptic, but changed her mind once she and Ed began visiting haunted houses. Her abilities seemingly blossomed as well. She eventually agreed to submit to psychic testing at UCLA, which determined that her psychic abilities were "far above average."
The pair had met while Ed was working as an usher at a movie theater. They began dating at age sixteen, but Ed enlisted in the Navy in 1943, at age seventeen. He and Lorraine were married while he was on leave, but Ed served until the end of the war. The couple had one daughter, Judy.
Although Ed had initially intended on becoming an artist, the couple hit upon a novel idea: Ed expressed an interest in drawing "haunted" houses, so the pair began traveling around the country where Ed would sketch them, then contact the owner, offering the drawing to them in exchange for stories about the house.
It didn't take long for people to take notice. When they finally settled in Connecticut, Ed and Lorraine founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, in 1951. Their museum is still run by Judy, Ed and Lorraine's daughter, and son-in-law Tony Spera. The museum was closed in 2019 but the artifacts are still kept in their original house.
Ed and Lorraine Warren became household names due to their investigation of several of the cases featured in this book. In addition to those famous cases, the Perrin case at the so-called "Conjuring House," a rural farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island and the even-more-infamous Amityville case in the late 1970s, where Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. brutally murdered his entire family with a rifle while they all slept in their beds, this book focuses on lesser-known investigations specifically focused on instances of the demonic, which are terrifying.
It's worth mentioning, however, that the Warrens faced some serious backlash after their involvement with the notorious and controversial Amityville case. Despite the books, movies, sequels, articles and TV shows, the entire story was later debunked as an elaborate hoax, which Ed Warren still disputes, claiming that it was an example of trauma-induced amnesia - when, it was anything but.
In fact, according to Ronnie's defense attorney who was in on the whole thing, he and the owners of the house, George and Kathy Lutz, had concocted the whole thing "over many bottles of wine." The Warrens' insistence that the event was not a hoax, dealt a serious blow to the couple's reputation when everyone who was in on it finally admitted it.
Their personal life has been subject to scrutiny in recent years as well. Despite their whitewashed public image, controversy of some form or fashion followed just about everywhere they went. Ten years after his death, a woman came forward claiming that she had engaged in a forty-year-long affair with Ed Warren, which began when she was FIFTEEN.
What's more: Lorraine reportedly knew about it, and, despite being a supposed practicing Catholic, at one point pressured the girl to terminate a pregnancy in order to avoid tarnishing their reputation. There is apparently some merit to this claim, as Lorraine included a clause in the contract for "The Conjuring" film franchise that the subject of Ed's reported extramarital affairs was never to be included or mentioned.
Despite their controversial reputations, Ed and Lorraine Warren have definitely left their mark, not only with the movie franchise based on their most famous "cases," some of which are featured in this book, but in the general effect on popular culture. They are indeed household names, at least among fans of the horror genre. The Amityville franchise has waned in the past few years, but "The Conjuring" movies are still being produced.
That said: many of the events the Warrens describe are certainly fantastical, and defy belief. I leave it up to the reader to decide how much of the content they accept. It's just curious to me that there are now few if any photos or videos the like of which Ed Warren includes in the book. If technology has improved so much, it's worth asking why the type of evidence he describes isn't more common and widespread. It seems that indoor and outdoor Ring cameras and the like could easily capture incontrovertible evidence of the type of phenomena he describes, including teleporting doors and other household items, levitating refrigerators and heavy furniture and incidences of rocks raining on a property like hail.
And, it begs the question: if, as Ed Warren claims in the book, spirit entities can generate blood and other bodily fluids and effluvium, why are these not being systematically collected and analyzed, when sophisticated scientific tests such as DNA tests could shed much light on what's going on with these paranormal phenomenon? I doubt that demons have disappeared from the realm of the living simply because they might be caught on camera. If their purpose is to spread terror and destruction, it seems that the publicity that would generate would be the best way to go about it.
In any event: Ed died in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019. If you want to visit to pay your respects, they now lie side by side at Stepney Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut. Love them or hate them, their legacy is now certainly assured.
