Ed & Lorraine Warren

What happens when a devout Roman Catholic, self-proclaimed demonologist and a devout Roman Catholic, self-proclaimed clairvoyant meet and fall and love? Unfortunately you get The Warrens.

Ed and Lorraine Warren are often heralded by some more well known investigators as pioneers and icons in the field of paranormal research. Should they be? The short answer is no.

If you've never heard their names you have certainly heard of the cases attached to them; Annabelle, The Conjuring, The Amityville Horror, The Haunting in Connecticut, among others. All reportedly true and horrifying tales turned into books and big budget thrillers. Not to mention their countless appearances across television and media, and their haunted museum where you can see the real Annabelle. They definitely made their mark in the field and caught the attention of many; which to be frank seems like what they were after.

While I don't think they were hateful or mean-spirited people there are some glaring problems in the stories they helped sell and in the way they investigated that need to be addressed before granting legitimacy to their claims as paranormal researchers.

For starters the "Annabelle" tale was one that originated from the Warrens themselves, with no family or victims ever speaking out or coming forward. Everything was relayed through their retellings, which were inconsistent between themselves. Whether about the age, occupation, city, or number of roommates involved, the horrifying account of a Raggedy Anne doll possessed by the spirit of a young girl seems less chilling the more variants are presented as the true story. The inconsistencies could be chalked up to the imperfection of memory, but what can't be ignored is the obvious similarities between the general theme of the incidents and that of a Twilight Zone episode about a doll coming to life which aired long before the story "surfaced". To make things more suspicious, the demonic doll from the Warrens' account(s) and the mother in said episode also happen to share the name "Annabelle".

Enter the Perron Family, or the family behind The Conjuring. When the family moved into an old 14-room farmhouse and began experiencing strange and frightening things, they called in the Warrens. While Lorraine and eldest Perron daughter, Andrea, insist the movie is mostly accurate, members of the Perron family flatly claim the exorcism shown in the film never occurred. According to them, it was actually a séance in which the mother "became possessed" and began speaking in another language. Mr. Perron reportedly kicked Ed and Lorraine out of the home shortly after these instances over concern for his wife's mental stability. Andrea says the family then lived in said haunted home for a decade before being able to afford to move.

Though subsequent owner, Norma Sutcliffe, has acknowledged incidents of unexplained occurrences within the home, she vehemently denies that the paranormal activity there could have reached the extent of the Perron's and Warren's claims. Driven by curiosity, Norma dove deeply into the history of the property and determined that the whole backstory pitched in film was a complete fabrication. Bathsheba Sherman was nowhere near a wicked Satan-loving witch; she didn't kill herself, or anybody else for that matter; and she never even lived at the Arnold Estate or had anything to do with the supposedly demonic house. Once again, no actual research was done on the property by the Warrens. It also sounds like the Perron family may have already had internal issues before the Warrens arrived to exploit their stories. In 2013 Lorraine was quoted as saying “The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening. It still affects me to talk about it today.”

The events that led to the making of The Amityville Horror were suspicious from the jump, even before the Warrens became involved. A family somehow buys a house initially not realizing that a terrible nationally-televised tragedy occurred there less than a year prior. For whatever reason they keep the furniture and bedframes an entire family was slaughtered on, and then they run from the home terrified 28 days later. The media frenzy was swift and lasting. The family has maintained that while supernatural things did happen to them in the home, the book and movie were largely exaggerated. Despite the lawyer for the murderer, Ronald DeFeo, openly admitting that after many bottles of wine he and the Lutzs fabricated the whole thing in an attempt to capitalize on the shock value of the tragedy, none of that stopped the Warren's from inserting themselves into the narrative and hosting a "psychic slumber party" for a local T.V. station. It also never stopped Lorraine from touting it as the most evil home in America "infested with demonic energy". Despite her insistence of such, none of the subsequent owners ever had "demonic" experiences and the house has only sold a handful of times.

"The Enfield Poltergeist", or the basis for The Conjuring 2, is another that should draw major red flags, as the Warrens weren't even invited to investigate and were outright denied admittance to the home. According to parapsychologist Guy Lyon Playfair, the Warrens showed up entirely out of the blue and requested admittance, as "they could make a lot of money out of the case." Playfair had none of it, and while that should have been the end of the Warrens' role in the story, it never stopped Ed from saying he "witnessed Janet levitate mid-air." While supposed photographic evidence was collected by a paranormal investigator of such an occurrence, the photos were later determined to be merely an 11 year old caught jumping off of her bed. In fact, most of the investigators (the ones who actually worked the case) insisted that the girls were faking it the entire time. Then in 2015, Janet herself admitted that she and her sister faked some of the phenomena. Ed, having passed in 2006, left Janet's confession without comment; Lorraine, however, continued to maintain the story's authenticity.

We find similar reports of exaggeration, and even outright lies, from the Warrens stemming from their involvement with the Snedeker family, known in popular culture as the family from The Haunting in Connecticut. The family was going through a lot; a move, a kid with cancer, and, according to the neighbors, some serious drug and alcohol problems. While the Snedekers and Warrens stand by the story as known, horror novelist Ray Garton (who helped turn "The Haunting" into a book) says otherwise. He has stated that while interviewing the family members he grew concerned of their credibility, as each account of the happenings only seemed to create greater confusion when compared to those from other family members. When Ray approached Ed with this concern, Ed's reply was reportedly, "Oh, they're crazy... You've got some of the story - just use what works and make the rest up... Just make it up and make it scary." Ray also said of Lorraine "'If she told me the sun would come up tomorrow morning, I'd get a second opinion."

In nearly every case where the Warrens caught wind of strange paranormal events, they arrived with pre-conceived religiously-driven ideas and ran with the publicity in search of monetary gains. This level of consistent malarkey is hardly the kind of credible stuff a burgeoning scientific field should be putting stock into, especially given the historic nay-saying of researchers as conjurers of falsehoods. Speaking of which...

Let's address the recent release of The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It case; the story of a young boy, David, with 43 demons in him (the Warrens actually said that). As guardian's are want to do in instances of raising a troubled youth, David's ignored all psychiatric options and called a priest for a blessing. When the blessing didn't help, they did the next-most sensible thing and called in Ed and Lorraine Warren, who dragged in more priests. Three lesser exorcisms later, they sent the poor boy off to a school for children with psychological issues. Lo and behold that when David was exposed to the pseudo-science of professional counseling, his condition improved for the better. However, it's what happened after David was sent away that spawned the book and the upcoming movie.

According to the 1981 defense of Arne Johnson (fiancé to David's older sister, with whom the child was living) some of the demons exorcised from David overtook Mr. Johnson's body, causing him to stab his landlord to death in front of his fiancé and her young cousin. Turns out that wasn't a strong argument at trial and off to jail he went. True to form, the Warrens teamed up with an author, Gerald Brittle, and set out to write a book recalling their side of the story (y'know, for science), thus cementing their place in yet another slice of paranormal history. Later in 2007 a brother of David's, Carl, attempted to sue Gerald Brittle and Lorraine herself claiming the family was manipulated by the Warrens, that David's mental health was exploited, and that they were trying to get rich at his family's expense. Unfortunately for Carl, and almost poetically, his case was dismissed, as he too had written his own tell-all book and was looking to capitalize on the suffering of his kin.

Perhaps one of the only credits which can be given to the Warrens is that their work, regardless of its credibility, did help push the field of paranormal investigation to the forefront of pop culture. However, when looking at those contributions through the lens of critical investigation it becomes transparent as a ghost that the praise they gained and the pedestal on which they are placed by some is far from deserved.

They themselves were not true investigators; they were leeches to the limelight. They followed the cameras and media frenzies with overzealous religious babble and an eagerness to claim every situation as "demonic". They conducted no critical research, and performed next to no investigations other than Lorraine closing her eyes and seeing, you guessed it: demons. Furthermore, they knowingly pushed false narratives with the sole goal of capitalizing on the hype of each successive paranormal account with which they were involved. If nothing they said could be trusted, then at least there is one side of their "contributions" you can believe:

Given the number of books, T.V. appearances, consultations on films about themselves, and their hokey, haunted museum, they certainly believed in getting paid.