T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery (Ed & Lorraine Warren) on + 345 more book reviews
I recently came across this initial offering from, which is apparently one of an entire series of books featuring some of the Warrens' most famous cases. This volume focuses on those pertaining to stories about, well, in short, ghosts in graveyards, and encounters people have had with them. It's a short book, and begins with stories surrounding the old Union Cemetery in Monroe County, Connecticut, just a few miles from their home. Stories about it apparently abound, and have for at least a century. The second part is stories the Warrens have encountered about people's experiences with other graveyards.
There isn't much in this that would turn a skeptic into a believer, so the claim that "if you don't believe, you will" is exaggeration at its finest. That said, it's a fun read full of short stories allegedly told by folks from all walks of life (or the people they know) who have experienced the unexplained, and then contacted the Warrens. What kind of "investigators" the Warrens were is, as they even occasionally note in this book, is questionable - but they certainly served as a compendium or repository of all manner of reports of paranormal events.
That said: I do think that "paranormal" research is a legitimate field of inquiry, but since it lies outside of established methods utilized by orthodox researchers, shall we say, how to go about that remains in question.
I assume that the couple in question need no introduction: as the intro states, Ed and Lorraine Warren are indeed the most well-known paranormal investigators in history, due in no small part to the series of (admittedly HIGHLY fictionalized) movies about their most famous cases - the franchise has come to be known as "The Conjuring Universe," which now comprises about a dozen films, including the three "Conjuring" films, "The Nun" series, and the "Annabelle" spinoffs (which were, honestly, nowhere as good as the others). The Warrens claimed to have investigated over ten thousand cases during their "career," so it seems that the franchise will never be hard up for material.
That said: many have taken issue with the couple's fame, or, perhaps, more correctly, notoriety. Edward Warren Miney (1926-2006) reportedly became fascinated by the paranormal at a very early age. Ed claimed that he even grew up in a haunted house - he claimed that, at the tender age of five, he saw an apparition in the form of a ghostly ball of light, an "orb," which morphed into the transparent spectre of his family's deceased landlady. Shortly thereafter, he reportedly began having dreams of deceased relatives he had never met, including an aunt he claimed told him about his future with the paranormal rather than the priesthood, which he had been contemplating, as a practicing Roman Catholic.
Like Ed, Lorraine Rita Moran (1927-2019) likewise experienced some unusual abilities in childhood, although not to the degree portrayed in the films. She claimed that she once saw a vision of the future at her all-girls' private school at age twelve, which even one of the nuns noticed and questioned her about. What may surprise some people, however, is that Lorraine was initially the skeptic. She only got on board once she and Ed began visiting reportedly haunted houses. As their renown grew, Lorraine at one point even agreed to be tested by Thelma Moss, a researcher at a lab at UCLA. Moss performed "testing" and subsequently determined that Lorraine's psychic abilities were "far above average."
As related in one of "The Conjuring" films, the two met while Ed was working as an usher at a movie theater. The couple began dating at age sixteen. He shortly thereafter enlisted in the Navy in 1943, at age seventeen, but was only deployed for about four months when he was sent home after his ship sank in the North Atlantic. It was during that leave that he and Lorraine were married. He later returned to active duty where he served until the end of the war. The couple eventually had one daughter, Judy, who is likewise depicted in the films.
Since the priesthood was definitely out, after Ed returned home, the couple hit upon a strange idea: Ed had taken some art classes after deciding that he wanted to become an artist. In a twist of fate, he decided that he wanted to draw "haunted" houses as his primary subject. How they identified potential homes isn't clear, but Ed started to go around to various houses, sketch them, and then contact the owner, offering them the drawing in exchange for information about the haunting. They would then sometimes paint the house and sell the artwork.
This rather odd enterprise lasted about five years - The Warrens traveled all over the US painting and investigating reportedly haunted houses. When their renown as paranormal investigators grew, they left off drawing the locations in question and instead focused their efforts on paranormal investigation.
After several years traveling and investigating, Ed and Lorraine founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1951. They also created an Occult Museum, which is featured in the films, where they kept some of the reportedly haunted artifacts they had come across during their travels. The organization is still run by Judy, Ed and Lorraine's daughter, and her husband Tony Spera. The museum was closed in 2019, as it was determined that the residential area where the Warrens lived wasn't zoned for that kind of enterprise, so they can no longer conduct tours of the property.
Ed and Lorraine Warren became household names on account of some of their most famous "cases," loosely defined, some of which are addressed in this book. Their most famous cases are now unquestionably world-famous. They were involved, to some degree, at least, in the Perron case, involving the so-called "Conjuring House," a rural farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. In 1970, Carolyn, Roger and their five daughters began experiencing terrifying phenomena in the ancient home revolving around the figure of "Bathsheba," a reported 19th-century witch who had allegedly sacrificed her own infant child, then hanged herself from a tree in the backyard. The Warrens claimed that Bathsheba Sherman had cursed the land so that anyone who lived on her property would die a tragic death. This "case" was the subject of the first "Conjuring" film.
Also in 1970, the Warrens encountered what is arguably the most famous haunted object in US history: an innocuous-looking Raggedy Ann doll known as Annabelle. The Warrens acquired it from a 28-year-old woman and her roommate who had noticed that the doll had begun moving around the apartment on its own in their absence. One of them also reportedly found scribbled notes strewn at random around the apartment which read "help us."
They called in a spirit medium who, during a seance, claimed to have made contact with a seven-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins, who asked to live there with them by inhabiting the doll. When things got even worse, Ed and Lorraine took up the case, and informed the roommates that they needed to immediately rid themselves of the doll: a demonic presence was using it in order to find a human host. They gave the doll to Ed and Lorraine, which they housed permanently in their museum, placing it in a sealed and locked glass case.
The subject of the second "Conjuring" film was the Enfield Haunting, where a single mother and her children living in a London suburb were reportedly being terrorized by an unseen force, which had for some reason focused its attacks on eleven-year-old Janet, who had begun speaking as though she was being possessed by or was channeling an old man. The family reported experiencing poltergeist activity in the form of furniture and other objects being hurled across the room, picture frames falling from the walls, and the children levitating and occasionally being thrown from their beds.
In something of a surprising turn, incredibly, some of these events were also witnessed by neighbors and journalists, which suggests that something was definitely amiss. The Warrens became involved after police officers even reported witnessing paranormal phenomena. The Warrens were able to learn that Janet had played with a Ouija board before the occurrences began, although it's unclear whether she had contacted the spirit said to be inhabiting her. Ed determined that the case involved demonic possession, but, unlike in the film, the couple took no real additional action. The family continued to live in the house.
Something of a turning point in their career occurred when the Warrens became peripherally involved in the so-called Amityville case in the late 1970s. I've written about this episode in a review of the "Amityville" book, but a brief synopsis is as follows: on Nov. 13, 1974, at about 3:15 AM, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. brutally murdered his entire family with a rifle, while they all slept in their beds. His motive still remains largely unknown. He at one point tried to claim that he was being influenced by a malevolent force, but that certainly didn't sit well with the jury which convicted him to life in prison.
It was widely whispered that the younger DeFeo and possibly his father and sister were involved in drug trafficking, and the father possibly had mafia ties, but the real reasons behind the brutal killings will never be known, despite many additional wild rumors and sordid local gossip, now that "Ronnie" Jr. has likewise died. One of the mysteries that remains is how DeFeo could shoot to death six members of his family, each of whom apparently slept through the murders of their family members, as each victim was found as though they been asleep at the time they were killed.
The following year, a new family, the Lutz family, moved into the house. They had called a priest to bless the home, whom they claimed instructed them not to use the upstairs bedroom or to allow anyone to sleep there. The Lutzes reported that within days of moving in, they began to experience odd occurrences in the house, which grew ever more disturbing. They claimed that their youngest daughter started speaking to an imaginary friend, a red-eyed pig she called Jodie. They also reported that they began experiencing foul odors throughout the house, followed by loud banging at around 3 AM, the time of the murders, shortly followed by incidences of levitating furniture and other objects. The family "fled" the house after just three weeks.
Whether it's true or not, the Warrens investigated and claimed that the land the house was situated on was previously inhabited by a magician who had been buried on it. The problem is: this entire story was later thoroughly debunked as an elaborate (albeit VERY lucrative) hoax. In fact, according to Ronnie's defense attorney who was in on the whole thing, he and the owners George and Kathy Lutz, along with the author of the novel "The Amityville Horror," Jay Anson, had reportedly cooked up the whole thing.
The lawyer eventually confessed that he, the novel's author and the Lutzes concocted the whole story "over many bottles of wine." Lorraine Warren, meanwhile, had expressed her belief that the event was not a hoax, which dealt a serious blow to the couple's reputation when everyone who was in on it finally admitted it.
And, despite their rather whitewashed public image - especially in the movies, which depict them as squeaky-clean ghostbusters of sorts - controversy 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 even pressured the girl to terminate a pregnancy in order to avoid tarnishing the couple's 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 sex was totally off limits for any of the films, including Ed's reported extramarital affairs.
Obviously, their "professional" activities have raised eyebrows, and the occasional howl of protest. Ed and Lorraine's investigations eventually spawned the New England Skeptical Society (NESS), which, turning the tables, launched its own investigation - of THEM. In a 1997 interview, two investigators took their tour and concluded that none of the "evidence" they claimed proved the existence of intelligent spirit entities held any water. They concluded that "they're not doing good scientific investigation; they have a predetermined conclusion which they adhere to, literally and religiously." In other words: their confirmation bias had clouded their ability to see beyond their own belief system... like seeing the figure of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast.
Love them or loathe them, Ed and Lorraine Warren have definitely left their mark, not only vis-a-vis the movie franchise based on their most famous "cases," but in a renewed interest in the paranormal, much of which derived from their fantastical stories, true or not. Lorraine continued her activities even after Ed's death, appearing on numerous TV shows and serving as a consultant on the films in the "Conjuring" franchise. Ed died in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019 - if you want to visit them, they now lie side by side at Stepney Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut, their legacy certainly assured.
There isn't much in this that would turn a skeptic into a believer, so the claim that "if you don't believe, you will" is exaggeration at its finest. That said, it's a fun read full of short stories allegedly told by folks from all walks of life (or the people they know) who have experienced the unexplained, and then contacted the Warrens. What kind of "investigators" the Warrens were is, as they even occasionally note in this book, is questionable - but they certainly served as a compendium or repository of all manner of reports of paranormal events.
That said: I do think that "paranormal" research is a legitimate field of inquiry, but since it lies outside of established methods utilized by orthodox researchers, shall we say, how to go about that remains in question.
I assume that the couple in question need no introduction: as the intro states, Ed and Lorraine Warren are indeed the most well-known paranormal investigators in history, due in no small part to the series of (admittedly HIGHLY fictionalized) movies about their most famous cases - the franchise has come to be known as "The Conjuring Universe," which now comprises about a dozen films, including the three "Conjuring" films, "The Nun" series, and the "Annabelle" spinoffs (which were, honestly, nowhere as good as the others). The Warrens claimed to have investigated over ten thousand cases during their "career," so it seems that the franchise will never be hard up for material.
That said: many have taken issue with the couple's fame, or, perhaps, more correctly, notoriety. Edward Warren Miney (1926-2006) reportedly became fascinated by the paranormal at a very early age. Ed claimed that he even grew up in a haunted house - he claimed that, at the tender age of five, he saw an apparition in the form of a ghostly ball of light, an "orb," which morphed into the transparent spectre of his family's deceased landlady. Shortly thereafter, he reportedly began having dreams of deceased relatives he had never met, including an aunt he claimed told him about his future with the paranormal rather than the priesthood, which he had been contemplating, as a practicing Roman Catholic.
Like Ed, Lorraine Rita Moran (1927-2019) likewise experienced some unusual abilities in childhood, although not to the degree portrayed in the films. She claimed that she once saw a vision of the future at her all-girls' private school at age twelve, which even one of the nuns noticed and questioned her about. What may surprise some people, however, is that Lorraine was initially the skeptic. She only got on board once she and Ed began visiting reportedly haunted houses. As their renown grew, Lorraine at one point even agreed to be tested by Thelma Moss, a researcher at a lab at UCLA. Moss performed "testing" and subsequently determined that Lorraine's psychic abilities were "far above average."
As related in one of "The Conjuring" films, the two met while Ed was working as an usher at a movie theater. The couple began dating at age sixteen. He shortly thereafter enlisted in the Navy in 1943, at age seventeen, but was only deployed for about four months when he was sent home after his ship sank in the North Atlantic. It was during that leave that he and Lorraine were married. He later returned to active duty where he served until the end of the war. The couple eventually had one daughter, Judy, who is likewise depicted in the films.
Since the priesthood was definitely out, after Ed returned home, the couple hit upon a strange idea: Ed had taken some art classes after deciding that he wanted to become an artist. In a twist of fate, he decided that he wanted to draw "haunted" houses as his primary subject. How they identified potential homes isn't clear, but Ed started to go around to various houses, sketch them, and then contact the owner, offering them the drawing in exchange for information about the haunting. They would then sometimes paint the house and sell the artwork.
This rather odd enterprise lasted about five years - The Warrens traveled all over the US painting and investigating reportedly haunted houses. When their renown as paranormal investigators grew, they left off drawing the locations in question and instead focused their efforts on paranormal investigation.
After several years traveling and investigating, Ed and Lorraine founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1951. They also created an Occult Museum, which is featured in the films, where they kept some of the reportedly haunted artifacts they had come across during their travels. The organization is still run by Judy, Ed and Lorraine's daughter, and her husband Tony Spera. The museum was closed in 2019, as it was determined that the residential area where the Warrens lived wasn't zoned for that kind of enterprise, so they can no longer conduct tours of the property.
Ed and Lorraine Warren became household names on account of some of their most famous "cases," loosely defined, some of which are addressed in this book. Their most famous cases are now unquestionably world-famous. They were involved, to some degree, at least, in the Perron case, involving the so-called "Conjuring House," a rural farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. In 1970, Carolyn, Roger and their five daughters began experiencing terrifying phenomena in the ancient home revolving around the figure of "Bathsheba," a reported 19th-century witch who had allegedly sacrificed her own infant child, then hanged herself from a tree in the backyard. The Warrens claimed that Bathsheba Sherman had cursed the land so that anyone who lived on her property would die a tragic death. This "case" was the subject of the first "Conjuring" film.
Also in 1970, the Warrens encountered what is arguably the most famous haunted object in US history: an innocuous-looking Raggedy Ann doll known as Annabelle. The Warrens acquired it from a 28-year-old woman and her roommate who had noticed that the doll had begun moving around the apartment on its own in their absence. One of them also reportedly found scribbled notes strewn at random around the apartment which read "help us."
They called in a spirit medium who, during a seance, claimed to have made contact with a seven-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins, who asked to live there with them by inhabiting the doll. When things got even worse, Ed and Lorraine took up the case, and informed the roommates that they needed to immediately rid themselves of the doll: a demonic presence was using it in order to find a human host. They gave the doll to Ed and Lorraine, which they housed permanently in their museum, placing it in a sealed and locked glass case.
The subject of the second "Conjuring" film was the Enfield Haunting, where a single mother and her children living in a London suburb were reportedly being terrorized by an unseen force, which had for some reason focused its attacks on eleven-year-old Janet, who had begun speaking as though she was being possessed by or was channeling an old man. The family reported experiencing poltergeist activity in the form of furniture and other objects being hurled across the room, picture frames falling from the walls, and the children levitating and occasionally being thrown from their beds.
In something of a surprising turn, incredibly, some of these events were also witnessed by neighbors and journalists, which suggests that something was definitely amiss. The Warrens became involved after police officers even reported witnessing paranormal phenomena. The Warrens were able to learn that Janet had played with a Ouija board before the occurrences began, although it's unclear whether she had contacted the spirit said to be inhabiting her. Ed determined that the case involved demonic possession, but, unlike in the film, the couple took no real additional action. The family continued to live in the house.
Something of a turning point in their career occurred when the Warrens became peripherally involved in the so-called Amityville case in the late 1970s. I've written about this episode in a review of the "Amityville" book, but a brief synopsis is as follows: on Nov. 13, 1974, at about 3:15 AM, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. brutally murdered his entire family with a rifle, while they all slept in their beds. His motive still remains largely unknown. He at one point tried to claim that he was being influenced by a malevolent force, but that certainly didn't sit well with the jury which convicted him to life in prison.
It was widely whispered that the younger DeFeo and possibly his father and sister were involved in drug trafficking, and the father possibly had mafia ties, but the real reasons behind the brutal killings will never be known, despite many additional wild rumors and sordid local gossip, now that "Ronnie" Jr. has likewise died. One of the mysteries that remains is how DeFeo could shoot to death six members of his family, each of whom apparently slept through the murders of their family members, as each victim was found as though they been asleep at the time they were killed.
The following year, a new family, the Lutz family, moved into the house. They had called a priest to bless the home, whom they claimed instructed them not to use the upstairs bedroom or to allow anyone to sleep there. The Lutzes reported that within days of moving in, they began to experience odd occurrences in the house, which grew ever more disturbing. They claimed that their youngest daughter started speaking to an imaginary friend, a red-eyed pig she called Jodie. They also reported that they began experiencing foul odors throughout the house, followed by loud banging at around 3 AM, the time of the murders, shortly followed by incidences of levitating furniture and other objects. The family "fled" the house after just three weeks.
Whether it's true or not, the Warrens investigated and claimed that the land the house was situated on was previously inhabited by a magician who had been buried on it. The problem is: this entire story was later thoroughly debunked as an elaborate (albeit VERY lucrative) hoax. In fact, according to Ronnie's defense attorney who was in on the whole thing, he and the owners George and Kathy Lutz, along with the author of the novel "The Amityville Horror," Jay Anson, had reportedly cooked up the whole thing.
The lawyer eventually confessed that he, the novel's author and the Lutzes concocted the whole story "over many bottles of wine." Lorraine Warren, meanwhile, had expressed her belief that the event was not a hoax, which dealt a serious blow to the couple's reputation when everyone who was in on it finally admitted it.
And, despite their rather whitewashed public image - especially in the movies, which depict them as squeaky-clean ghostbusters of sorts - controversy 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 even pressured the girl to terminate a pregnancy in order to avoid tarnishing the couple's 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 sex was totally off limits for any of the films, including Ed's reported extramarital affairs.
Obviously, their "professional" activities have raised eyebrows, and the occasional howl of protest. Ed and Lorraine's investigations eventually spawned the New England Skeptical Society (NESS), which, turning the tables, launched its own investigation - of THEM. In a 1997 interview, two investigators took their tour and concluded that none of the "evidence" they claimed proved the existence of intelligent spirit entities held any water. They concluded that "they're not doing good scientific investigation; they have a predetermined conclusion which they adhere to, literally and religiously." In other words: their confirmation bias had clouded their ability to see beyond their own belief system... like seeing the figure of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast.
Love them or loathe them, Ed and Lorraine Warren have definitely left their mark, not only vis-a-vis the movie franchise based on their most famous "cases," but in a renewed interest in the paranormal, much of which derived from their fantastical stories, true or not. Lorraine continued her activities even after Ed's death, appearing on numerous TV shows and serving as a consultant on the films in the "Conjuring" franchise. Ed died in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019 - if you want to visit them, they now lie side by side at Stepney Cemetery in Monroe, Connecticut, their legacy certainly assured.
