Ed and Lorraine Warren are probably the most famous ghostbuster team of all time, if you
don't count fictional ghostbusters.
Lorraine Warren died in April 2019, but what legacy did she leave behind?
Let's separate fact from fiction and get to the truth about this infamous medium.
The hunt begins
Lorraine Warren was born Lorraine Rita Moran in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
She met Ed when they were 16 years old, and married him in 1945 while he was on military
leave.
Ed's original ambition was to be a painter, but he soon tilted toward another obsession:
ghosts and the paranormal.
If he ever heard a rumor that a house was haunted, Ed would go paint it.
The couple reportedly developed a habit of giving the painting to the curious homeowners,
who would then usually invite the couple in for a tour, giving them the scoop on the ghosts
within.
It's maybe not the most typical start to a ghost-hunting empire, but honestly, what would
be?
"You had an abrupt career change."
"I knew television was the future."
I see dead people
Over the years, the Warrens' haunted house tours turned into more organized investigations,
eventually becoming active attempts to drive spirits out.
They positioned themselves as professionals who helped people afflicted by the supernatural
- or at least wrote books claiming they did, including one widely-derided work about a
demon-possessed man who believed he was a werewolf.
As the Warrens' hustle took off, Ed took on the role of a more grounded demonologist.
But Lorraine's contributions were more mystical, stemming from psychic powers she claimed to
possess.
"I see dead people."
Lorraine professed to be a trance medium, or someone who could channel the spirits of
the dead.
She also claimed to be clairvoyant, capable of perceiving things that most people can't.
As Ed himself reportedly explained it,
"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 clairaudioally."
"The fairy tale is true"
In real life and in The Conjuring movies, the Warrens professed to be devout Catholics.
The movies even claim that Ed Warren was the only lay person authorized by the Vatican
to perform exorcisms - a made-up bit of Hollywood hyperbole.
One Catholic priest who performed exorcisms with the real Warrens later described their
stories as sensationalized, telling one interviewer, quote, "I don’t like to be publicly associated
with them."
"I don't know her."
"Me neither."
But while the Warrens might not have exactly been endorsed by the Church, Catholicism certainly
influenced their philosophy of demonology.
They believed that modern secularism had invited more demonic activity into the world.
As Ed Warren was quoted as saying,
"The fairy tale is true.
The devil exists.
God exists.
And for us, as people, our very destiny hinges upon which one we elect to follow."
The horror, the horror
Prior to the Conjuring films, the Warrens were most famous for their association with
the Amityville haunting, a reported case of the supernatural that's inspired more than
three dozen movies.
"Well, it's been well established that Amityville was a blatant hoax."
The short version of this famous haunting is that in 1975, the Lutz family moved into
a house in Amityville, New York, only to be driven out by a demonic presence.
The Lutzes then learned that about a year before they moved in, a man had killed his
whole family in the house.
But while this story formed the basis of a famous movie, the Warrens didn't become involved
until after the Lutzes left the house.
They showed up at the house in February 1976 with a TV crew.
It was then that their crew took the famous "ghost boy" photo that the Warrens would show
on various talk shows while promoting the first Amityville Horror film, on which they
had been hired as consultants.
While it's definitely a creepy photo, the entire Amityville haunting has since been
thoroughly debunked, with one of the people behind the original story admitting the whole
thing was made up.
"You lied."
"I exaggerated."
The devil doll
These days, the Warrens' most famous case is that of the haunted doll, Annabelle.
Despite having a whole trilogy to her name, the story of the Annabelle films is completely
fabricated, not even incorporating details from the Warrens' investigation.
But Lorraine said she didn't mind the liberties in the Annabelle movies because they still
served the purpose of warning people about the dangers of demons.
"Demons.
Ah, well.
There's something you don't see every day."
The Warrens' version of the Annabelle story is much closer to the events depicted in the
first Conjuring film.
But even that movie dramatizes events by turning Annabelle into a dirty porcelain doll, while
the real Annabelle is a traditional Raggedy Ann doll - one that only looks spooky if you
light it just right.
An occult museum
One element from The Conjuring that's true is the museum of creepy artifacts the Warrens
cultivated in their home.
Supposedly, the purpose of the museum was to put dangerous objects under the watch of
experienced demonologists, where they could do harm.
Incidentally, it also became a way that the Warrens could supplement their income from
book sales and media deals.
"Diversifying.
Smart."
"Yes it is.
Yes it is."
Some of the objects purported to be included in the collection were a vampire's coffin,
a conjuring mirror, demon masks, and tons of haunted dolls, including a so-called shadow
doll that will visit your dreams and stop your heart.
Unfortunately for those who might want to take that risk for themselves, the Warren
Occult Museum was closed due to zoning issues in March 2018.
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