Located in Monroe, Connecticut
Edward Warren Miney (September 7, 1926 – August 23, 2006) and Lorraine Rita Warren (January 31, 1927 – April 18, 2019) were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a self-taught and self-professed demonologist, author, and lecturer. Lorraine professed to be clairvoyant and a light trance medium who worked closely with her husband.
In 1952, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), the oldest ghost hunting group in New England. NESPR uses a variety of individuals, including medical doctors, researchers, police officers, nurses, college students, and members of the clergy in its investigations. This is a much more scientific based approach to the paranormal that just going into a facility with an EMP and a camera to see if anything moves, especially for the time.
They authored many books about the paranormal and about their private investigations into various reports of paranormal activity. They claimed to have investigated well over 10,000 cases during their career.
These two paranormal investigators became famous for their discoveries over the years. Ed and Lorraine Warren worked on hundreds of cases using Lorraine’s gift of clairvoyance to drive out demons and spirits and who rose to prominence in the 1970s, largely as a result of their involvement in the investigations into the legendary Amityville House – which itself inspired a separate successful franchise of horror films.
As they traveled all over the world to perform various rituals, the Warrens brought back evil objects. There are artifacts from Asia, Canada, Europe, and Mexico, as well as the U.S. In the following years, they struck up quite the reputation, working on a number of supposedly supernatural cases and even creating an Occult museum in which they would store mementos and oddities from their various investigations – including the real-life Annabelle doll, and artifacts that had been touched by evil is kept in the basement of their own home.
When they weren’t delving into high profile cases of demonic mischief as the Amityville haunting (the murderer who claimed demonic possession as his defense) and the exorcism of the witch Bathsheba (a case which was most recently portrayed in the film, “The Conjuring,” which also featured a version of the museum), the Warrens were popular lecturers in their day. Throughout these cases, the Warrens collected trinkets and totems they claim were defiled by evil, locking them in the museum to keep them safe from the public.
The eccentric collection contains everything from an alleged vampire’s coffin to a child’s tombstone used as a satanic altar. Some objects are just oddities that are there from the Warrens’ decades of investigating the paranormal such as Death curses, demon masks, and psychic photographs line the museum’s walls, while others come from the Conjuring franchise itself, accented by a Halloween store’s bounty of plastic props (assumedly for mood). Looking at the Warrens’ collection, one might begin to think that Hell has a thing for dolls. the museum also holds several human skulls that were used in occult rituals and witchcraft to communicate with demons, opening gateways between hell and Earth.
The items in the Warren Occult Museum have been used in satanic rituals. The Warrens disclosed that some still have demonic forces attached to them. This explains why no visitor is allowed to touch any item in the museum. According to an interview with the Warrens, these items maimed or killed people or even drove them into mental hospitals. You’ll also find shadow dolls, voodoo dolls, Satanic idols and tools, various demon masks, possessed toys, death curses, psychic photographs, and other cursed items at the Warren Occult Museum. The basement contains objects from exorcisms and other supernatural practices.
Whether or not one believes in the paranormal, the Warrens’ Occult Museum may be one of the preeminent chronicles of modern culture’s obsession with the supernatural. Of course, it could also be just a spooky collection of stuff in an older woman’s basement.
Naturally, not everyone believed that the work they were doing was rooted in anything approaching the truth. Neurologist Steven Novella expressed his major skepticism, explaining, “The Warrens are good at telling ghost stories, you could do a lot of movies based on the stories they have spun. But there’s absolutely no reason to believe there is any legitimacy to them.”
Skeptics Perry DeAngelis and Steven Novella investigated the Warrens’ evidence and described it as “blarney”. Skeptical investigators Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford concluded that the better known hauntings, Amityville and the Snedeker family haunting, did not happen and had been invented. The Warrens’ have handed over much of their video and audio proof to the Vatican where it cannot be accessed by public means.
Just showing one or two of these would lend legitimacy to their reputation and everything they have worked for but instead of making copies, they have given away all of the originals and keep only the artifacts which does not make sense to me. One would think that a demon possessed doll would be better off in the Vatican surrounded by priests and the Pope who could regularly stand guard, bless, and/ or dispel a demon. But instead it is kept in a museum along with 100s of other artifacts that are considered dangerous so that you can pay a large sum of money (especially for a haunted basement museum) to see them.
While this is a lovely and spooky display for a haunted museum, all Ouija board users know not to leave the planchette on the board for any reason. Some of the rules involved in the use of the board consist of:
- If the planchette goes to the four corners of the board, it supposedly means that you have contacted an evil spirit.
- If the planchette falls from a Ouija board, a spirit will get loose.
- If the planchette repeatedly makes a figure eight, it means that an evil spirit is in control of the board.
- Never use the Ouija board in a graveyard or place where a terrible death has occurred or you will bring forth malevolent entities.
- Sometimes an evil spirit can permanently “inhabit” a board. When this happens, no other spirits will be able to use it.
- NEVER leave the planchette on the board if you aren’t using it.
For a paranormal researcher that has been doing this for decades to break one of the most emphasized rules of the Ouija board seems a little off to me. I believe it is just there to add to the décor.
Do I believe that Ed and Lorraine Warren have encountered ghosts, demons, and the paranormal?
My personal Opinion: Yes I think it is highly plausible because they had made it their life’s work during a time when that type of a career choice would not have been taken serious by any means. However, I also believe that things have been embellished or even made up because they began to really make a living off of people’s love of the genre and all that it encompasses. Especially with a book deals and eventually movies, their career choice has set them up well both in popularity and in a monetary sense. Despite that, the vibe their museum gives off is awesome and I would love to visit it someday. Unfortunately, the museum is currently closed with no current plans to reopen.
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