5 things to know about the Warrens, paranormal investigators featured in 'The Conjuring'
In supernatural circles, the names Ed and Lorraine Warren are well known. Ed died in 2006 but Lorraine continues their mission, conducting high-profile investigations into paranormal activity, including the infamous Amityville house.
The work of the Warrens is back in the spotlight this month as one of their investigations from 30 years ago is chronicled in the film “The Conjuring,” starring Vera Farmiga as Lorraine andPatrick Wilson as Ed.
The film, based on the experiences of the Perron family in a Rhode Island farmhouse, is being hyped as one of the scariest in decades. Variety called it “A sensationally entertaining old-school freakout” and “one of the smartest thrillers … in recent memory.”
Read an account of the haunting by Andrea Perron, author of “House of Darkness, House of Light” here.
Here are 5 things to know about the Warrens:
1. Ed Warren grew up in a haunted house. From the time Ed was ages 5 to 12, he lived in a Connecticut house in which he experienced supernatural events.
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portray Ed and Lorraine Warren in “The Conjuring,†in theaters July 19. (Contributed by vera-farmiga.com)
“My father, who was a police officer at the time would often say, ‘Ed, there's a logical reason for everything that happens in this house.’ But he never came up with that logical reason," Ed said in an interview on the Warrens’ website.
The family heard pounding, rapping and footsteps, he said.
“My family would all go to bed and just around 2 to 3 o'clock in the morning, many times I would hear the closet door beginning to open up. At first I'd look into that closet and see only shapeless darkness, then slowly I'd start to see a light beginning to form and it would morph into like a ball shape, sort of like a basketball and then I'd begin to see a face in that ball.” Ed said it was the face of an old woman.
2. The Center for Psychic Research. The Warrens founded the New England Center for Psychic Research in Connecticut in 1952 with the goal of investigating hauntings. Around 1965, the Warrens went into a home where the spirit of a little girl named Cynthia who, speaking through a medium, said she was looking for her mother. The Warrens expanded the mission of their center to help earth-bound spirits move on. The Warrens say the center’s work is based in religion but also uses science.
3. Religion and ghost busting. The Warrens are Catholic and have said that background is what allows them to fight demons and to continue supernatural investigations. Ed describes himself as a demonologist, while Lorraine is a trance medium. The website contends they are not occultists and “not strange.”
“They are essentially ordinary people who happen to do highly extraordinary work.”
4. In the beginning. Ed, an accomplished artist, would hear of a home whose owners claimed it was haunted and would take Lorraine to check it out.
Movie poster for "€œThe Conjuring"
“We were just kids nobody was just going to let us in, we were curiosity seekers," Ed said on the website. So he would begin to sketch the house.
“I would do a really nice sketch of the house with ghosts coming out of it, and I'd give it to Lorraine, she'd go knock on the door and with her Irish personality she'd say, ‘Oh, my husband loves to sketch and paint haunted houses and he made this.’”
Then they would ask the home owners for their story.
5. The Warrens’ Occult Museum. This museum founded by the couple claims to be the oldest and only museum of its kind. The museum houses an array of haunted artifacts and items used in occult activities and diabolical practices around the world, including a conjuring mirror used for summoning spirits, a coffin used by a modern vampire, an organ that plays by itself and a Raggedy Ann doll said to be responsible for a death of a young man.
No comments:
Post a Comment