"I’m not totally familiar with demonology," admitted Father Everett. "How do you know such a spirit is behind the disturbance?"
"Well, in this case, it wasn’t all that difficult to determine," Ed said frankly. "These spirits work in characteristic ways. What’s going on here is essentially the infestation stage of the phenomenon. A spirit, in this case an inhuman demonic spirit, began moving the doll around the apartment through teleportation and other means. Once it aroused the girls’ curiosity—which was the spirit’s purpose in moving the doll—they made the predictable mistake of bringing a medium in here, who took matters a step further. She told them, in the trance state, that a little girl spirit named Annabelle was moving the doll. Communicating through the medium, the entity preyed on the girls’ emotional vulnerabilities, and during the séance managed to extract permission from them to go about its business. Insofar as the demonic is a negative spirit, it then set about causing patently negative phenomena to occur: it aroused fear through the weird movements of the doll; it brought about the materialization of disturbing handwritten notes; it left a residue of blood on the doll; and ultimately it even struck the young man, Cal, on the chest with a bloody claw mark.
"Beyond the activity, Lorraine has also discerned that this inhuman spirit is with us now. Lorraine’s an excellent clairvoyant, and she’s never been wrong about the nature of a spirit that’s present. However, if you want to go a step further, we can challenge the entity right now with religious provocation. You’ll be able to see for yourself...."
"No, I don’t think so," replied Father Everett. "Why don’t I just do what has to be done?"
In this case, the recitation of the exorcism-blessing took the priest about five minutes to perform in each room of the apartment. The Episcopal blessing of a home is a wordy, seven-page document that is distinctly positive in nature. Rather than specifically expelling evil entities from the dwelling, the emphasis is instead directed toward filling the home with the power of the positive—the power of God.
There was no trouble or mishap during the procedure. When he was finished, the priest then blessed the individuals who were present, and after doing so, declared all was well Lorraine also confirmed that the apartment and the people were free from the infesting spirit entity.
Ed and Lorraine’s work done, they then took their leave and started for home. At Deirdre’s request, and as a further precaution against the phenomena ever occurring in the apartment again, the Warrens took the big rag doll along with them. Placing Annabelle in the back seat of the car, Ed decided it was safer to avoid traveling on the Interstate, in case the entity had not been separated from the rag doll. His hunch was correct.
In no time at all, Ed and Lorraine Warren felt themselves the object of a vicious hatred. Then, at each dangerous curve in the road, their new car began to stall, causing the power steering and brakes to fail. Repeatedly, the car verged on collision. Of course, it would have been easy to stop and throw the doll into the woods. But if the profane item didn’t simply "teleport" back to the girls’ apartment, at the least, it would place anyone who found it in jeopardy.
The third time the car stalled along the road, Ed reached into his black bag, took out a vial, and threw a sprinkling of holy water on the rag doll, making the sign of the cross over it. The disturbance in the car stopped immediately, allowing the Warrens to reach home safely.
For the next few days, Ed sat the doll in a chair next to his desk. The doll levitated a number of times in the beginning, then it seemed to fall inert.
During the ensuing weeks, however, it began showing up in various rooms of the house. When the Warrens were away and had the doll locked up in the outer office building, they would often return to find it sitting comfortably upstairs in Ed’s easy chair when they opened the main front door.
It also turned out that Annabelle came with a "friend,” a black cat, that would occasionally materialize beside the doll. The cat would stalk once around the floor, taking particular notice of books and other objects in Ed’s office; then return to the doll’s side, and dematerialize from the head down.
It also became apparent that Annabelle hated clergymen. During the follow-up process on the case, it was necessary for the Warrens to consult the Episcopal priests associated with the incident in the young nurses’ apartment. Returning home alone one evening, Lorraine was terrified by loud, rolling growls that reverberated throughout the house. Later, when she was listening to the playback on the telephone answering machine, there were back to back calls from Father Kevins. Between his two calls was recorded the incredible growling noises she’d heard earlier in the house.
One day Father Daniel Mills, a Catholic exorcist, had been working with Ed and asked about the new addition to the office—Annabelle.
Ed told Father Daniel about the case and gave him the paperwork for his review. After hearing Ed’s account of what had happened, the priest picked up the rag doll and off-handedly said: "You’re just a rag doll, Annabelle. You can’t hurt anything." The priest then tossed the stuffed figure back on the chair.
"That’s one thing you’d better not say again," Ed warned him with a laugh. Yet, when Father Daniel stopped to say goodbye to Lorraine, upon leaving an hour later, she pleaded that he be especially careful driving, and insisted that he call her just as soon as he arrived at the rectory. "I discerned tragedy for that young priest," says Lorraine, "but he had to go his way."
A few hours later the telephone rang. "Lorraine," said Father Daniel, "why did you tell me to be careful driving?"
"Because," she told him, "your car would go out of control: you would have an accident"
"Well, you were right," he stated flatly. "The brake system failed: I was almost killed in a traffic accident. My car is a wreck."
Later in the year, at a large social gathering at the Warrens’ home, Lorraine and Father Daniel went into the den to chat for a few moments. By a strange coincidence, Annabelle had moved into that room the day before. While speaking with Lorraine, the priest saw an ornamental wall decoration make a quick movement Suddenly, the twenty-four inch long Boar’s tooth necklace above them exploded with percussive force. Hearing this stunning noise, other guests immediately converged on the room, at which time someone in the crowd had the foresight to snap a photograph. When developed, the print was otherwise normal—except above the doll were two beacons of bright light, both pointing in the direction of Father Daniel Mills.
"On another occasion," Ed recounts, "I was in my office, working with a police detective on a case that concerned a witchcraft-related murder in the area. As a cop he’s seen every kind of crime; he’s definitely not the sort of man who gets ‘scared.’
"While we were talking, Lorraine called me upstairs to take a long distance call. I told the detective he was free to look around in my office, but to be careful and not touch any of the objects, because they’d come from cases where the demonic had been invoked.
"Well, I wasn’t away any more than five minutes when upstairs came this detective stark white. When I asked him what had happened, he refused to tell me," Ed remembers, breaking into a grin. "He just kept mumbling The doll, the rag doll is real... ’ He was talking about Annabelle, of course. That little doll made a believer out of him! In fact, as I think back on it, any meetings I’ve had with the detective from that day on have always been in his office."
"Just last week, a similar incident occurred here," Lorraine adds. "While Ed was away in Scotland, we had a carpenter over to build additional bookshelves in his office. The carpenter came upstairs and asked me if I’d move the Raggedy Ann doll to another place so he could continue working. In all honesty, the doll scares me. But Ed wasn’t around, so I had to move it
"Profane objects like the Annabelle doll have their own aura. When you touch them, your human aura mingles with theirs. This change immediately attracts spirits; it’s almost like setting off a fire alarm. Therefore, for protection, I blessed myself with holy water then ‘blessed’ the ra
g doll with holy water in the sign of the cross. When I asked the carpenter if he wanted to bless himself too, he gave me a kind of accommodating smile, saying he didn’t believe in spirits or religion, and told me he’d pass on the holy business.
"Now, our tabby cat, Marcie, had been lying around in Ed’s office as she always does. Just as soon as I picked up Annabelle to move her across the room, Marcie’s hair raised up and she began screeching in pained terror. She edged over to the outside door and began making a strange-sounding call I’ve never heard a cat make before. Marcie wouldn’t stop until I opened the office door and let her out in the sunlight. The carpenter watched all this in amazement. Then, without saying a word, he reached over, took the holy water bottle from my hand," she says, smiling openly, "and promptly blessed himself with it. Like I say when we’re doing field work—I’ve never met an atheist in a haunted house."
"It’s difficult for people to accept the existence of something they’ve been conditioned not to believe in" Ed asserts. "Still, lack of knowledge allowed this negative spirit to wrangle its way into the lives of three unwary young people. Had they known such sinister spirits exist, then it’s quite likely that today a young man would not have been physically struck with the mark of the beast."
Many, nevertheless, contend that the notion of spirits is irrational or unfounded. They say the phenomenon is an illusion, or a hallucination, or that it doesn’t exist at all. At best, the activity can be explained away by science. Or can it? Recently, the Warrens broached this very subject on nationwide television.
IV
Unnatural Phenomena
An hour and a half after leaving Connecticut, Ed and Lorraine Warren sit in an off-stage lounge waiting to tape The David Susskind Show in New York City,
The show’s theme that night is “The Occult,” and during the opening segment three folks tell what it’s like to live in a haunted house. The Warrens will be featured on the remainder of the program in a panel discussion with Father Alphonsus Trabold, Dr. Alex Tanous, and two psychic researchers they’ve just met. Father Trabold, a long-time friend of Ed and Lorraine, is a Franciscan friar and professor of theology. He is also an expert on demonology and paranormal phenomena. Dr. Tanous is a respected psychic and theologian who teaches at the University of Southern Maine. To this group watching on the monitor, it quickly becomes apparent that the real theme of the show is not so much the occult in general, but spirit phenomena in particular.
When the opening segment is through, these experts and authors move from the green room to their place on the set. Following the commercial break, David Susskind guides the discussion right to the point: “Is this phenomenon real—or is it just some quirk of man’s mind?”
Providing parapsychological explanations, Dr. Tanous and other guests supply the judgment that much of the phenomena is caused by psychokinesis—the power of mind over matter. Father Trabold and the Warrens agree with their explanations, but also warn that some of the activity is caused by an external agency. They also add that it is foolish, if not dangerous, to underestimate unusual happenings in a home, especially those which might actually be demoniacal in origin. The Warrens further explain that the Amityville case was not a hoax, and the preposterous, often fantastic phenomena reported by the principals in the case were indicative of the strategy of the demonic. “Nevertheless,” Father Trabold points out, “one should not be too eager to believe that all strange occurrences are supernatural in origin.”
The show went well. Yet, it never explored the deeper significances of spirit phenomena, and what’s really behind them. Still, when the program was over, David, as soft spoken off camera as he is on, thanked everyone for making it a very interesting evening. All were glad to oblige. For the viewer, though, who was now being treated to light entertainment on the same channel, there were many lingering questions. What is the role of science in the study of the supernatural? What is parapsychology? What are the limits of the scientific approach to spirit phenomena? Where do the parapsychologist and demonologist part ways?
Certainly, Ed and Lorraine Warren will be the first to explain that all strange movements and activity are not the work of spirits, let alone the demonic. “Very often,” says Ed, “there are natural explanations for odd goings-on in a house, as scientists have been able to prove beyond doubt. But it is wrong to believe that the legitimacy of spirit phenomena ultimately depends on the verdict of the scientific establishment. The supernatural is not a scientific subject, per se; its validity cannot be determined by scientific analysis alone. True, spirit activity has been captured on film and other recording devices, but there is far more to the subject than observable phenomena.”
Still, as Ed notes, evidence is not lacking: “Those of us who deal with the supernatural day in and day out know the phenomena are there—there’s no doubt about it. Therefore, when people tell me they don’t believe in ghosts and spirit forces, what they’re really saying to me is that they’re not familiar with the data on the subject Yet, the data is there—should one care to look. In fact, much of it has been collected under such rigid conditions as to make a lot of other scientific research look pale in comparison. For example, take a case Lorraine and I began investigating this past summer [1978] in Enfield, England, where inhuman spirit phenomena were in progress. Now, you couldn’t record the dangerous, threatening atmosphere inside that little house. But you could film the levitations, teleportations, and dematerializations of people and objects that were happening there—not to mention the many hundreds of hours of tape recordings made of these spirit voices speaking out loud in the rooms. [In a Transatlantic linkup to Enfield, these voices were broadcast on WVAM radio (Pennsylvania) on June 16, 1978.] I won’t repeat the vile language the voices used when I entered the room with them, but while we were there, the British Society for Psychical Research had already videotaped 1,300 hours of this phenomena going on. The BBC was there separately filming the case, apparently for a television documentary.
“The phenomena are there, really there! That’s why I say, either you know or you don’t know spirit phenomena exist. If you don’t know, go investigate the findings yourself, but don't tell me you don’t believe in spirits. Because I'll prove them to you: in fact, I’ll show you things that go on in this world that you wouldn’t believe could happen!”
Despite the vast amount of data scientists and other investigators have been able to collect, the scientific approach nevertheless remains somewhat of a double-edged sword. Although the scientist may be able to confirm unusual phenomena, he is really in no position to judge whether that activity is being caused by spirit agents. For this reason, the most appropriate role for science in the study of the supernatural is to show where strange events are not the work of spirits. Because, more often than not, natural explanations can be found for the occurrence of unusual activities in a home.
“Misinterpretation, misidentification, delusion, and hallucination account for a great deal of reported ‘supernatural’ activity,” Ed points out "A string of coincidences may lead a family to jump to the conclusion that they’ve got a ghost. Other people may hear ‘spirit voices’ when actually their hi-fi speaker is picking up radio waves on its own. Faulty house wiring will cause lights to flicker or appliances to fail when the circuits are overloaded. And, people with paranoid tendencies will seize on any unusual activity to satisfy their fantasies.
“Many times people will read a horror story or watch a scary movie and spook themselves. In a few weeks, these people come to believe they have a ghost in the basement or a vampire in the attic, and you can’t convince them otherwise. So they hire so-called experts to come in and get rid of their ‘ghost.’ These experts will come into the house, parade around in wizard robes, set off smoke charges from a magic shop, recite a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, and generally put on a performance! Then they’ll charge thousands of dollars for occult services rendered. This will go on until they've wrung every last cent out of these poor people. I know of one instance whe
re these kinds of fakers bilked two women out of fifty thousand dollars!”
Perhaps the primary legitimate explanation for peculiar goings-on in a house is psychokinesis, the power of the mind to levitate or teleport small objects through space. PK, as it’s abbreviated, is caused by the transfer of psychic energy to objects. Typically, the individual giving off this energy is under a great deal of stress. Frustrated or angry children are quite often the source of PK activity. Though unusual psychokinesis may be similar to phenomena brought about by spirits," Ed indicates, "PK levitations rarely involve weights of over one pound. No experiment has yet shown the human mind able to move weights of over two pounds. Demonic spirits, by contrast, regularly move furniture or appliances that would require two strong men to lift.
“Sometimes there are everyday physical reasons for strange movements,” he continues, “such as magnetic or geological disturbances in the area where strange movements are reported. Now and then, electricity creates forces that bring about a suspension of gravity or other unusual effects near walls. Electrical baseboard heating can generate static electricity that may attract or levitate lightweight plastic or paper items. Inside the walls, steel pipes and other metal objects have been known to become magnetized, thus giving them the power to attract small nails or paper clips. Although such activity may look mysterious, what’s really happening is perfectly normal. On those occasions when there is neither a human nor a physical explanation for strange events, then spirits do in fact tend to be the cause of the disturbance. And when spirits are at fault, then over half the time the activity can be attributed to inhuman spirit agencies."
Yet, unusual phenomena, in and of itself, are not the demonologist’s primary concern. That tends to be the work of the parapsychologist, who studies unusual phenomena from the scientific point of view. In the past, parapsychology received a lot of bad press because those who called themselves parapsychologists were often self-ordained experts waving mail-order degrees as credentials. Nowadays, though, the subject is a legitimate area of inquiry, being studied by accredited professionals in major universities and research organizations.
The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren Page 7