The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren

by Brittle, Gerald

  The Warrens are often reluctant to give precise details, such as the names of conjuring books, the specific ritual of witchcraft an individual used, or the name of spirits responsible for particular demonic attacks. Why?

  “I don’t mention the names of spirits,” says Ed, “because knowing a particular demonic name is to give recognition to that entity; if you give it recognition, no matter how small, you’re giving it fuel to manifest. As for specifics, let me put it this way. If you give someone a loaded gun, they’d be liable to fire it. If you give them a loaded gun with the firing pin taken out, then there is no danger of it going off. That’s what I do: I take the firing pin out of my statements. That’s what has to be done with such material. People who really want to know how to perform satanic rituals can walk down to the local library and find out. But I’m not going to be the one who told these people how to travel down the road of no return. My job is just the opposite: to help people who have already gone too far; and to tell those who may want to dabble in the occult: don't!”

  Ed then resumes. “The essence of black witchcraft is a pact with the devil, and women who make such pacts become, in effect, brides of the devil on earth. Now insofar as the devil is called the Prince of the Earth, the devil’s bride need only ask her ‘husband’ for earthly pleasures, and supposedly they are hers. The only hitch is that before any of these benefits come to the witch, she’s got to give her soul willingly to the devil. Kendra was mercenary enough to go through with such a pact. Part of the paraphernalia was the black lace mantilla, which she wore as a perverse ‘wedding veil,’ on top of which she placed a crown of goat horns. Next, she married herself into evil by renouncing God and her baptism and swearing allegiance to Satan. She finalized the ritual by washing down the vow with a cup of animal blood. The cup,” says Ed, pointing to the oak table in the middle of the Occult Museum, “is there by the veil and goat horns.

  “About a month after Kendra performed the ritual, the girl explained that Jimmy started to take an interest in her. He began calling on the phone and eventually started visiting her on weekends. For Kendra, things were hunky-dory. What she hadn’t counted on, however, was that she was in debt to the demonic. By performing the witchcraft ritual, Kendra had given permission for the demonic to enter her life. Ordinarily, the witchcraft formula she used would have attracted either Incubus, the sexual oppressor of women, or Succubus, the sexual oppressor of men; but in her case it drew a lesser demonic spirit. Nevertheless, this entity went forward and oppressed her sexually just the same, apparently because this was her point of greatest vulnerability. The spirit inflamed her passions again and again until she was reduced to being a servant of impulse. At that juncture, the oppressing spirit was able to possess Kendra at will, which was when she began to experience memory gaps.

  “Having spent well over an hour interviewing this couple—and I should mention the boyfriend wasn’t too pleased with what he’d heard—I knew that for the girl’s own safety, I had to arrange for an immediate exorcism. Otherwise the entity, knowing that I knew it was possessing the girl, might take her over one last time and bring about a suicide situation.

  “With that in mind, I went out in the hall and explained the problem to Lorraine, and told her to take the rented car back to the hotel for the night. The three of us then drove in Jimmy’s car to Kendra’s apartment. I spent the night watching old movies on television with Jimmy, while she slept in her bedroom with the door open and a light on.

  “The next morning I put a call through to a local Protestant exorcist in whom I had great faith. I couldn’t call on a Catholic exorcist at the time, because their clergy has to follow Vatican policy and undergo a three-day period of prayer and fasting before conducting any exorcism of the possessed.

  “The exorcist and his assistant, both Protestant clergymen, arrived about an hour later. Both were capable men, and I explained the background of the case to them. Of course, they’d heard it all before. Then Kendra was brought into the room. Up to this point, the clergymen had not witnessed the possession, nor had the girl been possessed since the night before. What I had to do first, therefore, was to prove to them that possession was in fact taking place.

  “One of the many tests for possession is to discreetly place a crucifix behind the head of the possessed. So in this case, the exorcist instructed the girl to close her eyes and slowly count to twenty. His assistant, already standing behind the girl, then placed a cross six inches behind her head. The entity possessing the girl suddenly let go with wild, violent screaming: ‘ Take it away! It burns! Take it away!’

  “Using the cross provoked the possessing entity to reveal itself, at which time we were able to intellectually confront the entity that had taken over the girl. The spirit, the same one that had possessed her the night before, admitted it was alone in the seizure of the girl’s body. When the exorcist told it to identify itself, it responded by declaring: ‘I am a servant of Diane.’ Diane is a sexual-oppressing spirit, by the way, known as ‘the goddess of the hunt’ in mythology. We got very little else out of the spirit. For the most part, it went off on binges of screaming, cursing, and howling.

  “Ordinarily, before an exorcism is allowed to take place, a formal investigation is conducted to prove possession has occurred in an individual. At the time, though, it was incontrovertible that the girl was possessed. Therefore, the exorcist decided it would be best to perform the deliverance ritual right then and there.

  “In this case, the exorcist had the upper hand right from the beginning because the thing was so fearful of any mention of God or of being in the presence of a cross or holy water. Still, the possessing entity was quite resistant during the reading of the ritual, which took about one hour to perform. During the ritual it kept screaming, ‘She’s mine, she’s mine. Her soul is mine,’ in reference to Kendra. In time, the spirit was exorcised from the girl that day, but just before it departed, the thing vowed it would ‘return to another.’

  “None of us present had any idea what the spirit had in mind. Later, I would be the one to find out.”

  * At the Medulla oblongata. For a fuller explanation, see Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda. Los Angeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1946.

  XII

  The Entity Returns

  “After the exorcism was over and Kendra was freed from bondage to this spirit,” Ed continues, “the girl turned the black lace veil, the goat horns, the cup, and the conjuring book over to me, lest she be tempted, or oppressed, to use them again. Lorraine then picked me up at the girl’s apartment, and later that day, as is my custom, I brought these articles home with me for safekeeping.

  “Right from the very beginning, the witchcraft paraphernalia caused me trouble,” recalls Ed. “A presence followed me everywhere. Then, the following night, after sunset, a psychic cold filled the office and Occult Museum where I’d put the objects. Sensing the change in temperature, I got up from my desk and looked out into the museum. There, by the veil and horns, I saw a dark gray cloudlike mass about the size of a man building into a dense black form. To prevent the thing from manifesting, I used holy water to drive it back into invisibility. Still, it was evident that the entity which possessed Kendra had traveled along with the profane objects.

  “As fate would have it, I received a phone call the next day from a fellow named Robert Goldstrom, who wanted to make an appointment to come to my office with his daughter Denise. ‘Why do you need to see me?’ I asked him.

  “Frustrated and upset, he explained that his daughter possessed a natural knowledge of what he took to be witchcraft. He said, giving me a quick runthrough of the girl’s life, that instead of playing like an ordinary child, Denise was often found off on her own, performing complicated rituals involving pentagrams, animal blood, and so forth—things a six-year-old would have no familiarity with. As the girl got older, she displayed an aversion to church and withdrew in the presence of clergymen. Meanwhile, neighborhood kids were instinctively frighte
ned of Denise; even her own mother was afraid to be left alone in the same room with her.

  “As a teenager, Denise got even worse. When she stared at people, even when they weren’t aware of it, she’d fill their mind with inhuman terror. The girl’s gaze was so intense she could actually stop machinery! I know this is true, because I later saw her do it She brought a car moving along a highway to a stone-cold stop. Yet, this activity was not the reason why Goldstrom had called me. Rather, Denise was now manifesting different personalities: some male, some female, and some that couldn’t even be called human. Moreover, the statements these ‘personalities’ made were extremely threatening to Robert Goldstrom and his wife.

  “In response, he brought the girl to psychiatrists, who recognized her problem as being something more than psychological. The doctors told him to bring his daughter to a clergyman, but the minister whom Goldstrom consulted wouldn’t see the girl unless he brought her to see me first. After listening to the man’s problem, I made an appointment to see them both the following Saturday at eleven A.M.

  “That night, the spirit again attempted to manifest in the Occult Museum; and again I did my thing with the holy water. The next day, Monday, Lorraine and I left for speaking engagements in Pennsylvania and Ohio. We didn’t return home again until late Friday. The following day, Saturday, at eleven in the morning, Robert Goldstrom arrived with his daughter for their scheduled appointment. Denise was about nineteen. She was a tall, thin brunette with blue eyes that put out a fierce, penetrating gaze. When I attempted to shake hands with the girl, she backed away and stared distrustfully at me, keeping track of every move I made.

  “Bringing these two people out to my office, I asked Denise to take the chair beside my desk, while her father sat in an easy chair close by. I then switched on the tape recorder and asked Mr. Goldstrom to state the problem again. He repeated that whenever he or his wife spoke to their daughter, they could never be sure if they were talking to Denise—or to some alien personality. The girl all the while never took her eyes off me.

  “When the father was done, I attempted to question the girl. ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Denise Goldstrom,’ she answered me contemptuously.

  “How old are you?

  “ ‘Older than you think,’ she said.

  “How about what your father told me? Is it true you’ve been manifesting different personalities?

  “ ‘He’s paranoid,’ she answered. ‘I’m myself. I’m whoever I want to be.’

  “ ‘Are any of your personalities inhuman?’ I pressed her.

  “ ‘I don’t have to answer any of your goddamn questions,’ she shot back.

  “ When I looked up to ask Denise another question, she was directing one of her piercing gazes at me. ‘You picked the wrong guy to try that on,’ I told her. ‘Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again !’

  “For the first time since she entered our house, the girl looked away from me. She seemed dazed and disoriented, as though she’d just been clunked on the head with a baseball bat. Her eyes wandered over the articles on my desk, then came to rest on the black lace veil that I’d put in the far corner to stop the spirit from manifesting. Suddenly, before I could block her, Denise jumped up, grabbed the veil, and drew it to her breast. Her features immediately began to transform into those of a wild, sneering creature distinct from this otherwise attractive girl. I drew two vials of water to myself, one unblessed, the other blessed by a very pious exorcist, and moved away from what was no longer Denise, but an inhuman spirit: a lesser devil of hell. This,” says Ed, pushing the Play button of the tape recorder, “is what I heard.”

  Raucous, diabolical laughter suddenly erupts from the twin bookshelf speakers.

  “You’re laughing at me,” Ed’s voice says, “but who am I talking to?” And the spirit that possessed Denise begins to speak.

  Voice: I know who you are! Ha,ha, ha, ha, heee... (laughter).

  EW: Who are you?

  V: Ho, hoo...

  EW: Who are you?

  V: Don't you know me? Ha! Don't you know me? Oh, come on, you know who I am. Don't you know who I am? I'm suffering. I'm suffering (because the spirit has recently been exorcised).

  EW: Why are you suffering?

  V: Ho, ho, heee... Black is my color. It's the color of death, the color of death! The color of DEATH!!

  EW: Who sent you here?

  V: I worship Diane, and Lucifer!... And light, light, light: everything holy is damned!

  EW: I have something for you.

  V: (Defiantly) What have you got for me that I don't already possess? I can possess anybody that I want, you (expletive deleted).

  EW: I'll put it on your hand, and you tell me what it is. (Testing the entity, Ed puts unblessed water on Denise's band.)

  V: Oooooh. It's wet!

  EW: That's right.

  V: It's wet, and I don't like it I like putting fats of people's body over my body. And I like blood. And I like to see blood. And I like to drink blood.

  EW: I have something else for you. I have holy water for you.

  V: Holy water? Holy what? You?....you're no man of God!

  EW: No, I'm not.

  V: You're in between, aren't you?

  EW: That's right, in between.

  V: You don't know! He stands in hell or heaven. And there's not a hell, and there's not a heaven. No, there's not a hell, and there's not a heaven. There's just a place, and I won't tell you of that place now, will I? You know, don't you? You know. You're standing between heaven and hell. And there's no heaven or hell. But you're gonna get it!

  EW: No, you're the one that's going to get it.

  V: (Diabolical laughter rings out for ten seconds,) I like this. Do you know that? It gives me peace. (Spirit now crying.) It gives me peace, and I like peace. I like peace, and to be quiet. But I don't like you! (Screaming.)

  EW: And I know why you don't like me.

  V: (Screaming, enraged) Why?

  EW: You don't have Kendra to possess anymore, do you?

  V: (Cackling) I have anyone I want to have. I am stronger than you and your man of God (the exorcist)!

  EW: We'll see. We'll see who's the strongest. What is your name? What do you call yourself?

  V: Let me put it this way, man... (vulgarity) I'm a favorite of Lucifer. Do you know who Lucifer is?

  EW: You tell me, who is Lucifer?

  V: Ha, ha, ha, ha. He's the one god who's right! Do you know, when I want something I can have it? (Proclaiming) I can have what I want!

  EW: You wanted Kendra, but you couldn't keep her.

  V: Ho, ho, ho. Kendra doesn't know! Kendra doesn't know!

  EW: What doesn't she know?

  V: She will drink the blood! She will drink the blood! And she'll see me! I'll possess her again!

  EW: Again?

  V: (Adamantly) Again!

  EW: No, she won't.

  V: (Shouting) And by what means are you going to protect that girl? She's mine! Her soul is mine!

  EW: Nothing of her belongs to you.

  V: I will suck the blood out of her!

  EW: You'll do nothing to her!

  V: Ha, ha! I like her. She's my toy (cooing).

  EW: She was your toy, until she came to me. But you'd like to get even with me, wouldn't you?

  V: (Cackling and laughing) I can do anything I want to do!

  EW: You'll do nothing! I have something (holy water) that is stronger than you'll ever be. You know that too, don't you?

  V: Oh, ho! Yes. (Shouting) You believe in such false things! Ah! What's that?

  EW: You tried to come to me the other night. What did you intend to do? I drove you off, didn't I?

  V: I wanted to kill you, and I really meant it. (Unintelligible screeching)... Are you going to stick something in my heart? I don't have a heart!

  EW: That's right, you don't have a heart.

  V: No.

  EW: But, I'll give you something else. (Ed casts holy water on the posse
ssed.) You don't like that very much do you?

  V: (Enraged, screaming) No!!!

  EW: Do you like the sign of the cross?

  V: No!

  EW: All right, now I'm going to tell you something...

  V: (Violent screaming.)

  EW: ... I want you to leave. And I don't want you to ever come back here again!

  V: Stop it!

  EW: No, I won't stop it. In the name of God, you're going to leave....

  V: (Screaming violently) In the name of Jesus Christ, shut up!

  EW: It will be in the name of Jesus Christ! And you'll leave! And you won't come back again!

  V: (Declaring) I shall return! Or, if I do not return, one stronger will! I am weak, but there are others stronger!!

  EW: You're weak, and you'll go, and I'll drive you off. In the name of God, I'll drive you off.

  V: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, heeee...

  EW: Here's something else for you to think about (Ed anoints the body with holy water in the sign of the cross.)

  V: (Agonized screeching) Oh, my God, fire! Fire, fire, fire!

  EW: (Above the screeching and wailing) I don't want you to come back to this house again! Do you understand me?

  V: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh...

  EW: I don't want you to ever come back to this house again! Now leave. Leave!

  Baleful moaning, caterwauling, and various animal sounds are then heard receding into the distance as the possessing entity withdraws from the body of the girl.