MARCUS PARKS
You know now that I think about it, nobody ever really conjured anything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
ED LARSON
Interesting. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Think about it. Who conjured what?
ED LARSON
It was already there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was called The Conjuring.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's actually a really good question.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was already there. Like no one conjured. They just showed up and the ghost was already there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they-
MARCUS PARKS
They didn't do anything to bring the ghost in their life. Nobody conjured anything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
Did they conjure up the entire story as a lie and nothing actually happened at all?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you? The Perron family is absolutely rock solid.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Marcus Parks asking the big questions, with me is Henry Zebrowski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's not a single conjuring in The Conjuring.
MARCUS PARKS
Neither in Conjuring 1 or 2.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why is it called The Conjuring?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I have no fucking clue. Ed Larson, do you have a fucking answer for us?
ED LARSON
I told you, they made it all up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm looking at the plot right now.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I watched it last night.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know. I also feel like I also just watched it but I was stoned.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Doesn't the demon show up later?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the demon shows up later but no-
ED LARSON
But no one called the demon.
MARCUS PARKS
No one called the demon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
He was just late.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where is the conjuring in-
MARCUS PARKS
As we'll get into it, you have to go through the different stages.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You have to get to the oppression stage before the demon truly shows up.
ED LARSON
Yeah. He shows up with a fucking coffee 20 minutes late. You're like bro!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sorry.
ED LARSON
The fuck? We're sitting here-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen if you want me to be on time for your haunting, then you should conjure me 20 minutes ahead of time.
MARCUS PARKS
Today, the reason why we're mentioning The Conjuring is because we are starting a series on, oh my god, we've been waiting so long for this, people have been asking so much, we are going to do a full deep dive into Ed and Lorraine Warren.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have been dreading this a little bit.
MARCUS PARKS
Dreading?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Only because like we're really going to try to pin down how we feel about these very... I mean, you call them con men.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People call them con people. People say that they're grifters. People say sometimes they might do a little touchy, touchy, sucky, sucky.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they might just be-
ED LARSON
Catholics.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Spectral entrepreneurs.
MARCUS PARKS
So Ed and Lorraine Warren were a married pair of paranormal investigators and self- proclaimed demonologists who, thanks to the multibillion dollar Conjuring horror movie universe, are probably the most famous paranormal investigators in the history of the profession.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're technically supposed to get a degree in demonology before you're allowed to handle up to third level demons.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And a lot of this, honestly I feel like-
MARCUS PARKS
A degree at seminary?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. You would get a degree in order to handle those demons because if not you get a ticket from the devil. Which is extremely hard to expunge because guess what the devil always does? Show up to court.
MARCUS PARKS
He's not like a lazy cop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, no. The devil is at court. The devil is getting the free water. He has taken the bus. He has arrived to court.
ED LARSON
Representing himself.
MARCUS PARKS
But like most adaptations, the portrayal of Ed and Lorraine in those movies is way, way too good to be true and bears only a passing resemblance to the real Warrens. Really the biggest resemblance came in the form of the weird Connecticut accent Patrick Wilson uses while portraying Ed Warren.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I looked up the Connecticut accent to try to understand why Ed Warren sounds the way that he sounds because he sounds like the man who invented deep dish pizza. And he looks like a man who also only eats deep dish pizza.
ED LARSON
Good for him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's (Chicago accent) got that kind of like a Chicago kind of bent where everything's kind of like this. But I looked up Connecticut accent and there is none. Because I also thought Connecticut, because as a kid, as a boy from Queens-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From knockabout Queens, I thought Connecticut was for fancy people.
MARCUS PARKS
No!
ED LARSON
No, no, no, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Apparently no, Connecticut is full of trash too.
ED LARSON
Yeah, no. There's like four fancy places and the rest is New Haven.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I thought it was all fancy. Right? Long Island boy Rob, did you not think that Connecticut was for fancies?
ROB OKEY
It's a little bit fancy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We called it the country.
ED LARSON
It has fancy spots.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but have you ever driven through Connecticut? It's the most terrifying highways in America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I just assumed-
MARCUS PARKS
People in Connecticut drive like fucking maniacs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, have you been to California? Have you been anywhere? No one's good at it! All right? I think we need to take the state label away from bad drivers because they are everywhere. It's all over this country. It's an epidemic. I feel like honestly one thing that could help with the traffic is the mass shooting which I think is why they're kind of letting it go.
ED LARSON
I hate speeders, man. Every time I see a speeder, I'm like fucking you're taking all of our lives in your hands.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey-
ED LARSON
You're a speeder a little bit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eddie, the kids have to think we're rock 'n' roll, all right?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So please don't be against speeders. Sometimes you gotta drive like you're on your way someplace.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Don't worry, everyone, Henry is still a bad driver. Don't worry about it.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am an offensive driver.
ED LARSON
And I don't have a license. So there's that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He grips me a lot when we drive.
MARCUS PARKS
Well rather than the Christian superheroes they're portrayed as, Ed and Lorraine proved to be in many ways both believers and cynical scammers. And that's not even to mention the strong possibility that Ed Warren might have been a sexual predator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mrow! Like that? Mrrrrow!
MARCUS PARKS
No, not like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mrow, mrow, mrow!
ED LARSON
No, he played for the Nashville Predators, the hockey team, with his dick out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh! The worst sports-based crime of all.
ED LARSON
Why would they name their team The Predators?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
And there's also the allegation that Lorraine Warren enabled Ed Warren in that sexual predation for many, many years.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think the one thing that Lorraine did enable and I think that we should all... One of the biggest crimes, obviously there might be a little bit of molest in there, there's a little bit of fraud, there's a little bit of mail fraud, credit card fraud, various things that they might be involved in. But I think the biggest crime of all was somehow portraying to the world that you look like Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. And that is the greatest con that they pulled off.
MARCUS PARKS
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Possibly. Because Lorraine, she was elegant. We talked a little bit about this. She's got fetus head.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, she's got fetus skeleton head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's got fetus skeleton head. But that just to me makes her-
ED LARSON
A Zika baby?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, Zika's opposite. She got opposite of Zika.
ED LARSON
Oh she got big head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She got extra head.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I feel like that's part of the psychic thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Oh yeah, they do got the big head, the big hair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's got extra lobes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So she can think different.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then Ed Warren looks like a landlord, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Big potbelly, polyester powder blue leisure suits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And again, you can call him a child molester all day. You can call him a con man but you can't say he's not a fashion icon. Because that man knew how to dress a portly body.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you know how you do it? Many different swirled fabrics.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And vests. Did he wear vests?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lots of vests. Vests and the inside sunglasses all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I'm trying to get to.
ED LARSON
I would love that.
MARCUS PARKS
And let's not forget the cravats.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The cravats. Ascots, cravats. Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com. What is difference between and ascot and cravat and what does a child molester wear?
ED LARSON
Both. Bow ties as well.
MARCUS PARKS
But even before the Conjuring movies, the Warrens were as close to cultural icons as paranormal investigators get, especially during the 70s and 80s. That's because the Warrens were involved with or more often inserted themselves into some of the most infamous hauntings in modern history. And they mostly blame the problems on demon infestations which was convenient because Ed considered himself to be one of the world's foremost demonologists.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the key is consider yourself.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how you get the cred.
ED LARSON
Can I ask a basic question real quick before we get started?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a computer. These are microphones. That's Marcus.
ED LARSON
And where are we?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Southern California.
ED LARSON
What's the difference between a demon and a ghost?
MARCUS PARKS
A ghost... Okay, I can actually answer this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, no, Ed Warren has a full explanation.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. A ghost is a human spirit and a demon is an infernal spirit that has never walked the earth as human.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
And they believe in both.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Okay cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they don't believe a ghost can cause you physical harm. They think a ghost is more like when you see like orbs, hanging crystals. He also talks of the difference between a manifestation, like what it takes to see a ghost. But a demon is what hurts you.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because oftentimes when you see a thing and you wonder what that thing is and it smells kind of like fart and it kind of also make naughty thing and it move your wallet back and forth, it might be demons.
ED LARSON
Okay. Okay, all right. So ghosts are basically killed by demons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is your very interesting take on it. But no, they don't even hang out.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they cohabitate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they don't know that the other one's there. They don't know that they're roommates.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah because you can have both ghosts and demons in the same house at the same time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Oh okay. So it's like when all those gutter punks moved into our house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very similar.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I believe it's depression, oppression, visitation, I believe. That is what happened to us.
MARCUS PARKS
Now I think that the Warrens are a lot like the Bigfoot hunter who catches a glimpse of a Sasquatch once and embellishes the facts and sometimes fabricates evidence for the rest of his life because he knows what he saw.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does know what he fucking saw. He almost shot at it and his buddy was there trying to have sex with him because it was their weekend away from their wives and this Bigfoot came and ruined everything.
ED LARSON
But why did it have a hat on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he was hiding. He was trying to be incognito like Leonardo Dicaprio. I feel like immediately I just want to get this out of the way. So we've covered a little bit of paranormal activity this year. We talked about haunted dolls, kind of trying to get back into the zone personally because we were going to be doing the series this year, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I knew we were doing it. We just did a big old paranormal experience and you've heard, as we're gonna be talking more in depth than that. But for me the jury is still out. I am an agnostic across the board. I don't even believe in me.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I don't know where I am at in what I think about paranormal activity in general. But just know, just straight up as we cover this, we are going to treat some of this as... There are witnesses that were not the Warrens that experienced paranormal activity. And we believe in many ways that paranormal activity, whatever it is, whether it's science we don't understand or there's something about the way our brain interprets information and the way our consciousness reacts with reality and then how we generate reality, maybe it's something like that. But you're gonna need to ride along with us.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because this is an opened mind series that might require you to fucking smoke a fucking blunt or two.
MARCUS PARKS
Do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To just fucking relax. You're gonna need to relax some of that. All right?
ED LARSON
Yeah, I think the concept of ghost makes completely no sense but there has to be something to that most cultures believe in some sort of spirit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Like if most cultures, different religions believe in the same thing, then you gotta put some weight behind it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
It can't all be wishful thinking.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I think a lot depends upon the structured afterlife. I don't believe in a structured afterlife.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure. Neither do I.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a whole other story.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Neither do I. But I have no doubt personally, especially after my own recent paranormal experience in New Orleans that was detailed on last week's Side Stories, I have no doubt that Ed and Lorraine experienced an outsized amount of paranormal activity during their time as America's foremost paranormal investigators.
ED LARSON
Hangers on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, they saw something like, didn't he say it was like 4000 cases?
ED LARSON
That's too many.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
10,000?
MARCUS PARKS
There's somewhere between 4000-10,000.
ED LARSON
That's like three a day!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He saw a lot. Well the way they started might show why he thinks the numbers up. They did start in sort of a Wilt Chamberlain... I think that he was claiming he was fucking girls just by fingering them for a while just to get the numbers, to pad.
ED LARSON
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think sometimes he'd finger like three girls in a row, like he'd have them come to the hotel room-
ED LARSON
That's gotta count for something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah and he's be like blip-blip-blip-blip-blip. You get one, you get one, you get one. And then he would use those to pad his numbers.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure. But all that being said, I do believe that they did make up the vast majority of what they reported to be the truth and they embellished their stories to the highest degree in order to push their own Christian agenda that demons are real and to more importantly make a living doing so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If ghosts are real, of course it's going to make millions and millions and millions of dollars. Because it's about who harnesses it. Who's representing these ghosts? Where are the managers? Where are the agents and the bookers for these ghosts? These guys are all in the ghost business. So they have monetized it and they believe in their own special flair. Ed and Lorraine Warren more than anything bring that, what you said is cynical. It's true. It's a savviness to the packaging of the stories.
MARCUS PARKS
Savviness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they knew this is a perspective because they were also riding the wave of a brand new fascination in demons and Christianity in America. And then this is back before we knew just how much sucky fucky was going on inside these Catholic churches. They were just, at this point it was like Michael Jackson's dressing room in every church. You know what I mean? Like at this point they were fucking kids. They were Wilt Chamberlaining the kids.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were all bragging, they were doing the Legolas-Gimli like I felled 25 this month!
MARCUS PARKS
47!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is all. So just remember what we're coming into. It's like the Catholic marker, even though they were cult members-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's still viewed as a, that showed that they were very serious.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the dichotomy between belief and scam artist will be the focus of this three part series in which we examine both the Warrens' most well known cases as well as a few that aren't quite as popular. And that's in addition to talking about the Warrens themselves. In this we hope to get to the bottom of what Ed and Lorraine Warren were really up to in the near half century that they were the most visible members of the paranormal community until Zak Bagans and company came along and shouted their way to the front. Now these opinions about the Warrens are not just the wild speculations of three men with interests in the paranormal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some of mine. I'm gonna say some of my wild speculations will still be contained within the series.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to multiple people who had dealings with the Warrens, ranging from the supposed victims of hauntings and possessions to those who worked with them on books, Ed and Lorraine let the mask of Christian superheroes slip more than a few times, sometimes openly talking about juicing stories in order to sell more books.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For me that makes them more Christian that they knew to do that.
ED LARSON
Yeah. They're entertainers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they didn't see themselves as entertainers but they were packaged like they were. By themselves.
ED LARSON
Well they were great storytellers, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a part of the shtick.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And furthermore while Ed claimed to have had mountains of evidence and told story after story of his encounters with real life demons from hell, this is all just stuff Ed said. And his supposed evidence was jealously guarded from the public and even from other paranormal investigators.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a part of the scam.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The whole point is to hide things behind closed doors so that you're always guessing that they have something even more incredible behind closed doors than what you're seeing and hearing in front of you. So it's this carrot game that they do with you. You're the fucking horse, Eddie. You're the big fat uttered horse.
ED LARSON
(neighing)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yeah. And so they take the carrot of fun, spooky stories and then they always add it with the caveat. And you're sitting there, you're munching the carrot and then you're like wish it was a hamburger. And then what they do is they keep you with this idea that but that's just a taste. If you even had an idea how much stuff we had, you'd be frightened to be here.
ED LARSON
I wish I could show it to you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wish I could show it to you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And this practice of keeping supposed proof of demons to himself, which is fucking earth shattering news if it's true-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, if demons are real-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, if you had absolute proof that demons are real, that changes everything. This was no more on display than when the Warrens agreed to be the subject of an article by the New England Skeptical Society, hereafter referred to as NESS. And this is kind of, we want to give this as sort of an introduction to the Warrens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. A taste.
MARCUS PARKS
You can just get a little taste of who these people are. Now I'm usually wary of skeptical societies partly because they seem to delight in taking the flavor out of human existence and partly because they often ignore evidence that doesn't suit their narrative.
ED LARSON
Is that a double negative to be skeptical skeptics?
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Marcus just disappears. He just shatters into a thousand pieces. My god!
MARCUS PARKS
That's the thing, on the other hand the people they're investigating often ignore inconvenient evidence too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's either side of the spectrum.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Anybody who's showing up telling me that you automatically have a point of view to fulfill, you're going to search for that point of view no matter what it is that you find.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, skeptics and believers are in many ways two sides of the same coin. But with this article with NESS, investigators Perry DeAngelis and Steve Novella did seem to give Ed and Lorraine a fair shake.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because at this point, Ed and Lorraine Warren, these guys are fucking the Oprahs of ghosts.
MARCUS PARKS
And this is 1997 when they're going in here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So this is pre internet. Like these are people that you've seen on talk shows talking about-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And news.
MARCUS PARKS
And news.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Late night shows.
MARCUS PARKS
For decades.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And so they go, they really did, they went like all right... Because I appreciate what they said which is if anybody's got the proof, it's you guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So fucking here's the floor.
ED LARSON
Did the Catholic church like them?
MARCUS PARKS
Loved them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Loved them!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude, they were great.
MARCUS PARKS
Worked closely with them.
ED LARSON
They're scaring people into coming to church.
MARCUS PARKS
Of course.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you know what's great is that Ed Warren could do whatever he wants because he didn't even got the fucking collar on and then they can cut him loose like the CIA.
ED LARSON
That's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's like an asset for the Catholic church.
ED LARSON
That's very helpful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It does really help.
MARCUS PARKS
Well first of all, Perry and Steve did say that they found both Ed and Lorraine to be very nice and genuinely sincere, at least on the surface level. And that's an opinion shared by most people who interacted with them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't think that Lorraine Warren didn't make a mean ass sponge cake? That head alone. They'd be like my word, I could see you need a nice cool glass of lemonade. I have a psychic premonition that you got a seven inch fucking dick, right? She's pulling him close. I gotta show you a ghost. I'm gonna show you a little ghost. I'll be back. Bye! Let Ed tell you a story. Yeah, she likes to share. Yeah, we have a good time here with the ghosts. You see a lot of crazy stuff like the one time me and her turned a little bellboy from the hotel into the letter A. Let me explain. See he's munching the pussy, right. He's bent over, he's munching the pussy. I'm fucking him. He's got a wig on, right. Anyways. Oh Lorraine's back. Hey!
MARCUS PARKS
But the men from NESS, they also said up top in their article that Ed and Lorraine only had a lot of stories and very little proof, making the Warrens' New England Society for Psychic Research a research organization in name only. But for Ed, he said this-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
NESPR. You say it right.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay, The New England Society for Psychic Research, NESPR.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
NESPR.
MARCUS PARKS
I just thought it would be confusing to have NESS and NESPR in the same story.
ED LARSON
It is. It is, you're right. I agree with you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But NESPR came first.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, NESPR did come first.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's bigger.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
ED LARSON
Yeah. And NESS, I mean it belongs to Loch Ness.
MARCUS PARKS
Or Eliot Ness.
ED LARSON
Yeah, exactly. So if you're gonna be a skeptic, get a new name.
MARCUS PARKS
But for Ed, and he said this explicitly many times, this is sort of his out, if one did not have faith in the Christian god and have belief in the existence of demons on earth, then you could never possibly understand his research. Put another way, you had to have as much faith in Ed and Lorraine as the Warrens had in god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. It's like if you found me as funny as I found me, you'd be having a great time because I find me hilarious, right. And I know I'm hilarious and I believe in that in many ways.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Even though I doubt but still at the same time I don't.
MARCUS PARKS
No, you don't.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So but if you felt like that, you'd enjoy me more. I think it's a good caveat for all comedy shows.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you liked me, you'd have a better time here tonight.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah, that's why I don't like performing in front of people who don't listen to the show.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very difficult. Now anyone who's seen a Conjuring film knows about the infamous paranormal museum that is in the Warrens' home. For the uninitiated, the basement of Ed and Lorraine Warren's house is filled with artifacts from their many paranormal investigations, hundreds of objects that were in some way or another cursed, touched, or inhabited by demon kind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Over here we got this is the lamp that Aladidn rubbed or something, I don't fucking know. Over here we got this parking meter where I got a ticket. Two fucking weeks ago I got my jackhammer and I pulled it out of the goddamn ground.
ED LARSON
Is the museum open? Can you go to it?
MARCUS PARKS
From what I've read you can but it costs a lot of money.
ED LARSON
Of course it does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think to be honest it was just closed. I believe it was closed in 2019 when Lorraine Warren died. But I'm not quite certain.
MARCUS PARKS
I think, we'll talk about this more in the future but I'm pretty sure that the son-in-law of Ed and Lorraine Warren keeps the torch going with his own brand of Annabelle vodka.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, wow! Wow! Merchandising!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Nothing I like more than a doll that drinks liquor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Annabelle vodka: even a haunted doll could get divorced.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when the two men from NESS went down into the basement, they were warned not to touch anything inside. Anyone who went down into the basement was said don't touch anything. Because if they did, Ed said that he would have to purify their auras so they wouldn't be left vulnerable to demonic possessions or interference. For proof of this claim, Ed told the men that on one visit a man started banging on the case holding the infamous haunted doll known as Annabelle, demanding her to do something to prove her existence. For those who don't know, Annabelle is a haunted Raggedy Ann doll that's locked in a glass case in the Warrens' basement guarded by a sign that says 'Positively Do Not Open'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's crushing in the box office.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Annabelle has no idea.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Has no idea that all of this money is being made on her fucking back. She has no idea. It's what they did to Tupac is what they're doing to Annabelle.
ED LARSON
Annabelle needs a nice Jewish lawyer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Here's the case where I keep Annabelle's Jewish lawyer. I knock on that. Unfortunately every time I knock on that it's $150 an hour. Let's go! All right, next thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to Ed, the young man and his girlfriend left on their motorcycle and were soon mocking the doll and the Warrens like they were characters in a fucking Chick tracts. Do you know Chick tracts?
ED LARSON
No idea.
MARCUS PARKS
They're these horrible little Christian comic books. Like they're driving like ha, ha, ha, can you believe how stupid that doll and those people are? Ha, ha, ha. Oh no, I am losing control of my motorcycle. Oh no, I am now in this motorcycle accident and I am now dead and I am now in hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am in hell! Well have you ever seen Tijuana bibles?
ED LARSON
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's stuff like that.
MARCUS PARKS
I got a book of Tijuana bibles I need to show you.
ED LARSON
Man, you have a library you need to show me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you should go to his home.
MARCUS PARKS
Well suddenly, as I said, the young man lost control of his vehicle and drove directly into a tree. The man, Ed said, was killed instantly while the girl was hospitalized for a year. All because they mocked Annabelle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you know what? In the end I laughed. I'd love to see that. It's just the thing. That's just the thing what's nice. Annabelle, you still got it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I gave her a $10 tip. They said thank you, Annabelle. Good work, Annabelle!
MARCUS PARKS
Well as Ed put it, you do not challenge evil the way that this unfortunate young man challenged it because no man is more powerful than the fallen angel that is Satan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course except for Dio.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Dio could challenge Satan all day long.
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It didn't matter how tall he was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nope.
MARCUS PARKS
5'2" of just pure power.
ED LARSON
Vocal range, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pure talent.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the veracity of this story of the man in the motorcycle in Annabelle is impossible to check out because I don't think Ed ever gave the name of the couple, nor did he give the date of the accident. But every time a visitor entered his basement, Ed did treat each object as if it could potentially curse or kill anyone who touched it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's just good showmanship.
MARCUS PARKS
It is!
ED LARSON
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're selling tickets to a haunted museum.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You want it to be creepy in there.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Put gloves on, be scared. It's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Zak Bagans is doing it like fully to the hilt in Vegas right now. It's like a three hour tour. You can say what you want about it, it's scary in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the way the basement is portrayed in the Conjuring movies is a masterclass and spooky set design. Each object perfectly dusty, mysterious, and impressive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And you have the incredible face of Patrick Wilson next to it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's extremely handsome.
MARCUS PARKS
He's so charming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Talk about the puddles. My dick gets wet looking at Patrick Wilson. I don't like that. I don't want him to have that effect on me.
ED LARSON
You're really attracted to him. I've seen you mention this. He's got a big head. He's got Easter Island head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's extremely talented. Also he's from my part of Florida. My drama teacher used to talk about how wonderful Patrick Wilson was in States. And he did Broadway. And if you saw him on Broadway, you, my friend, would also be trying to fuck him against his will. Because he is a singular talent.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well back to the objects in the museum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So yeah, it sells the museum.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But according to writer Stefan Beck who toured the actual real museum in 2005, the Warrens' occult museum is a little chintzier than how it's portrayed in the movies. Reportedly, amongst other items, one can find an air horn-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
An LP of Black Sabbath's album Paranoid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
ED LARSON
Why not?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know what pressing but it's one of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's there.
MARCUS PARKS
They got a rubber frog.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very frightening.
MARCUS PARKS
A haunted organ.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No! Is it the liver or the kidney?
ED LARSON
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Various Halloween decorations, a lot of Halloween decorations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
A Grey Poupon jar labeled 'black magic witchcraft items'.
ED LARSON
Quick, get the mustard!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh fuck! God!
ED LARSON
Empty it, empty it! We gotta get this in here now! Put a lid on it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These hot dogs are cooling down! The President won't be here any longer! We gotta get him his hot dogs!
ED LARSON
Excuse me, do you have any Grey Poupon?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get outta here! Fucking Biden is a ghost!
MARCUS PARKS
And of course they have a haunted copy of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Guide.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfortunately it's not even haunted. It was just a... I researched a little bit about the museum.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just he thought Dungeons & Dragons was scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the people in the 70s thought that Dungeons & Dragons for some stupid fucking reason, they thought that it was the gateway to hell and demons and the practice and worship of the occult and all that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People thought that you would take acid, do D&D, and like jump out the window because you thought you were an elf.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They thought that that would happen. And then we're like now we have like televisions that are strapped to our eyeballs and you don't say anything. You know what I mean?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You wouldn't say anything at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
ED LARSON
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Well there's also a fair amount of crude paintings, they include works like paintings of hissing cats, paintings of haunted houses, a painting of a bald red woman in a green cloak, and a Frazetta-style painting of a naked woman wielding a sword.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It probably was a Frazetta.
MARCUS PARKS
It might have been a Frazetta actually.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean he better have had... If you're gonna fucking, you're not gonna have an original one thing in this house?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like a lot of this is an example of you remember how they talk about the first special effects or the train coming towards the camera?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And people screamed and they were like ah! It was the scariest thing. It blew their minds, right. I think that their basement, now if we went into their basement, you'd see it, it would look like a shitty thrift store.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like it would look like a big pile of shit. It would look like that, there was one place we went to in New Orleans, it was called like Factory of the Weird where it was like way, way overpriced and everything was just kind of like scattered everywhere. It was like fine. But I think now at the time that was viewed as very scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it could be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that time has now passed and now we don't find that scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Black Sabbath was much scarier back in the 70s.
ED LARSON
The first album though.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Oh the first album was super creepy.
ED LARSON
Yeah, that's the scary one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
The other ones is just Paranoid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's just a guy-
ED LARSON
It's about war.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
And the cover is a guy with a sword and a bicycle helmet.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I don't know why they thought that was evil. I think it's because Black Sabbath.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also, yeah, they were all into the backwards masking stuff.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I feel like-
ED LARSON
At that point the rats are eating salad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
ED LARSON
The fairies are wearing boots by that point.
MARCUS PARKS
Ozzy's rhyming masses with masses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, it's good. It's good, it works for him.
MARCUS PARKS
But back to the museum. Like fucking the real Annabelle looks super fucking lame.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's just a big Raggedy Ann doll.
ED LARSON
Now was it in a glass case like the movie?
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Oh very much so.
ED LARSON
Oh okay, all right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah, it was in a glass case.
ED LARSON
A curio cabinet. My mom had Lladrós in those things.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. We had all the weird little fishing boys.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But it's not the porcelain nightmare like it's portrayed in the movie. It's a cloth Raggedy Ann doll.
ED LARSON
These are my haunted Hummels.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will always find that scarier. I find that scarier. I hate scary dolls in movies. I hate when they over set deck on the scary things. I think it's stupid because no way. Like to me the actual Raggedy Ann doll that is Annabelle is way freakier if it's actually doing the things it's saying that it's doing.
ED LARSON
Why not set it on fire?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've talked about this! It's a very bad idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Because if you do that, you just destroy the vessel, you don't destroy the demon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're doing Patrick Wilson doing Ed Warren.
MARCUS PARKS
If I'm doing Patrick, he's like because if you do that, you just destroy the vessel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just destroy the vessel.
MARCUS PARKS
It's hard to do it. It's hard to do that. Yeah, because it's the stupid accent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a bad accent.
MARCUS PARKS
But it's Patrick Wilson being so charming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, just looking at his mouth.
MARCUS PARKS
I believe everything that he says.
ED LARSON
See I'm turned on to Vera.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See I find her-
MARCUS PARKS
I mean por qué no los dos?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I feel like she is not the sex in that movie.
MARCUS PARKS
No, she's not the sex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the sex in the movie.
MARCUS PARKS
She's more the maternal like comforting presence.
ED LARSON
But she's the sex in everything else she's in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but I can't apply it to Lorraine.
ED LARSON
I liked her in Moonlight Miles, the bartender, yeah. Getting me drunk and shit because I'm sad.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the Warrens claim to have extensive photographic evidence of paranormal phenomena. But the bulk of the photographs that they have allowed the public to see, it's just blobs of light. Now there are a lot of ways that this can happen, especially with film. But usually these light blobs are created when the light from a camera flash is reflected back at the lens, causing an overexposed hazy blob to appear in the finished product. In other words, the Warrens just didn't know how to take a fucking picture and they took their mistakes as proof of the paranormal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See this is what you don't fundamentally understand. This is coming from Ed Warren. Because he talks about this, why it looks like globules. "You know glancing around the dark room, you see two bluish orbs of light roughly the size of golf balls floating near each other about 5 ft off the floor. As you watch, you might also see streaks of light flash away from your body. This is electromagnetic energy being drawn from your aura. In no time at all, these two balls of light come together and they merge into a larger ball. It's about the size of a grapefruit. The ball will then elongate into a tall cigar shape the size of a human being. Instead of the orbs of light, other people report seeing hundreds of tiny pinpoints of light and the ghosts like that, like the orbs, blend into a larger cylindrical glow. And in the case when it's got a bioluminescent glow, the definable features of a person will begin to emerge until the spirit is manifested as much as it possibly can. And to be accurate, buddy, it's because of the ghost. If the features are not recognizable to the viewer, if the features are recognizable to the viewer, it's an apparition. Either way, you gotta visitor!"
ED LARSON
Your impression is like he's doing a set of bench presses.
MARCUS PARKS
To me it sounds like he's trying to work through a really big pastrami sandwich.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is! You don't think he isn't? Look at him. Come on! You can't get me now ghosts, I'm not gonna be with you now, ghost!
ED LARSON
Oh I can't sit in that chair, you ain't got a pillow on it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh! Oh my god, you have active ghosts in here. No, that's Ed getting up from the couch. Ah!
MARCUS PARKS
Well as of 1997 when this article was written by the skeptical society, the Warrens had posted on their website that using flash makes capturing a ghost more likely, meaning that they probably weren't even aware that they themselves were creating the conditions for their alleged ghost photography.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How else are they supposed to know they're getting their picture taken? You want these ghosts to fucking show the good side to the camera so you can show the scientists and make a lot of money. All right? That's why you gotta get in there. Oh I know, I saw the ghosts, Ed. Oh, you gotta take their picture. They're so thick today! Oh the ghosts are thick today!
MARCUS PARKS
Now the Warrens also claim to have video evidence of the paranormal. The most famous being Ed's white lady of the Union Cemetery video. In it, a human figure is seen skulking behind some tombstones but the video is taken from such a distance and it's such low resolution that it's impossible to determine any details about it. Furthermore, Ed Warren almost never let anyone take any of his evidence or make copies for further analysis, all so Ed could control the narrative completely when it came to his and Lorraine's investigations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That might be the reason why we have no definitive giant like theoretical discussion about the quote unquote capital P "Phenomena" is because of what you'd call compelling material gatekeeping. This is across the board.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every single source I have ever read. Art's Parts. You got the stuff that's hanging out somewhere that nobody gets to see. George Knapp's got stuff that we can't see. Jacques Vallée has got stuff that we can't see. NIDS has got stuff that we can't see. Robert Bigelow has got information that we can't have. And it's all just like if you guys all just fucking got together and showed everybody your fucking horseshit, you might get some legit money from the government to resource it. And guess what? You guys all will get to fucking... You'll make your money and shit, you'll get all your stuff. But it's like with you not... We gotta see it.
ED LARSON
You see there's one big problem there, Henry, is that it's just, it's not there.
MARCUS PARKS
But they just don't have it.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will launch across the table. You never know though. I'm still holding out. I see compelling footage every day. Some of it, this one recent one I watched and it was-
ED LARSON
Is this ghosts or aliens?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, it was a ghost. It was like this woman was-
MARCUS PARKS
What was she doing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Getting pulled into a...
MARCUS PARKS
Into a back office of some kind?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was the back office of a store.
ED LARSON
Oh did she steal something?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
These ghosts are so naughty.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These ghosts are thoroughly searched by these store owners.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in the only video the men from NESS were allowed to take from Ed's private collection, a man was purported to dematerialize. The subject enters the room, stands in front of a mounted camera, scratches his head, and seems to disappear. And after he disappears, a ghostly white light follows. And as Ed and the two NESS investigators watch the video, Ed said matter of factly, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That kid disappeared. Can you imagine? Like it's the same. It's like when you try to show your friend a funny video or video you think is funny on YouTube.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're like huh? Huh? Like as they're watching it. And they're like thanks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Could you imagine just his big fat head, sweat pouring into his ass crack, going like eh? Ghost. See? Heh? Look right there. Ghost? See?
ED LARSON
You're supposed to talk them into it before they see it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right there. You're watching it. You're here with me. I'm Ed. Lorraine's over there. Hi! Hey, you like that? That kid, he's not there anymore. Hey, where is he? I don't know, I don't know. It's a ghost, right? Fucking crazy, right? Give me $100.
MARCUS PARKS
But when the film was taken for detailed analysis, it was easily discovered that the video was stopped in the final frame of the person in the room, then continued a few seconds later, after the guy moved out of the shot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who do you think was shooting the movie? It was a ghost. That's what's super fucking mysterious about this kid disappeared, didn't even know that he was alive. He was being directed by a ghost. This whole thing shot, filmed, written, produced by a ghost. Apparition because I could see him.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as the ghostly light went, it was determined that it was likely headlights from a passing car shining into the window. And so the conclusion that NESS came to is that while Ed and Lorraine Warren were very much believers in the paranormal, they were by no means legit investigators. Rather, they were excellent storytellers and fantastic self promoters who made a damn good living on those strengths.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I fight for these con people. I fight for them every day because we need them in the paranormal community because unfortunately they're the ones that bring things to the public.
MARCUS PARKS
But they're also the same-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These attention-hungry monsters are the ones that bring things out, we get to see it. Right? Unfortunately.
MARCUS PARKS
But they're also the ones that cause people to not believe because all their shit is so easily disproven and they're so easily proven to be liars.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because people don't believe in themselves. You gotta come to the material with your own ideas and you gotta look at this stuff and decide for yourself if it's real or not, right. You can't believe the Warrens, you can believe yourself, right? But don't do your own research, let other people do your own research. But at the same time, do the research that other people have done. I think that's the key.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do research that other people have done.
MARCUS PARKS
So read what the experts have said after they do actual research because what we do here isn't research. We read stuff and then we talk-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We report upon!
MARCUS PARKS
We report. We report upon the things that we have read.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I research. I live every day as Ed Warren. You don't think that this has not been a months long... Yeah because you think that the gaining weight has just been due to stress, new medication, and not giving a fuck about exercising anymore? No.
ED LARSON
When's the last time you broke into a church?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am in character. I'm gaining weight to understand Ed Warren.
MARCUS PARKS
Nice.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So you're saying like after this series is done, you're gonna get healthy again?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Well who exactly were Ed and Lorraine Warren? And how did they make themselves the face of paranormal investigation for decades, specifically in the 70s and 80s? Well for the answer to that we have to depend a fair amount on the face value biography that is 'The Demonologist' by Gerald Brittle. This book was written with the direct involvement of the Warrens, meaning that it almost always paints them in the most positive light possible and treats them like the Christian superheroes they claim to be. Luckily though there's been some investigation into the lives of Ed and Lorraine Warren outside of 'The Demonologist'. So while a lot of their biographical information comes from them, there has been a bevy of information unearthed that betrays the portrait of the loving, wholesome couple portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They don't even kiss.
MARCUS PARKS
In the movie?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In the whole movie, they don't even kiss. They don't hug.
ED LARSON
But they've been together for years. They're religious.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You should be kissing! Catholics want you to fuck.
ED LARSON
Yeah, they want you to fuck but like this girl's haunted, what are they gonna make out in front of her?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'd do.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they did make one reference to sex. It was like do you remember what you said to me on our wedding night? Can we do it again?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, and you're like yeah, Patrick Wilson said that to Vera Farmiga. I think that Ed Warren was like... Do you remember, Ed, what you told us on our honeymoon? Yeah, I said I hope the fucking sub shop's open.
ED LARSON
I'd be furious if I-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah, I just got done heaving on top of you, woman. And I tell you what, that was the longest minute of my life. Now it's time to get some soup, a big dick Philly cheesesteak sandwich. Let's go look for some ghosts! I just made some ghost in my pants. Yeah, I delayed the cum. I didn't want to put it in you. I didn't want to insult you. Filling you with cum is a thing, it's just disrespectful, leaving a woman all full of cum like she's some kind of apricot. Thinks she's Timothee Chamalamadingdong.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Ed Warren isn't even Ed Warren's real name, or at least it's not his entire name. He was born Edward Warren Miney on September 7, 1926 in Bridgeport, Connecticut to an extremely Catholic family.
ED LARSON
No one believes a Miney.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no way Ed the Hiney Miney is gonna fucking make it in the paranormal world.
ED LARSON
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely not.
MARCUS PARKS
No. His family was so Catholic that when his father died-
ED LARSON
How Catholic were they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They molested every child in the family.
ED LARSON
They were so Catholic that they lied and stole from people.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Ed, I know personally this is gonna drive you fucking nuts. They were so Catholic that the bulk of his father's estate went not to his kids or his wife when he died but to the local Catholic diocese. And the church promptly wasted this man's legacy on yet another stained glass window.
ED LARSON
Oh but it wasn't there before!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The only way that's not a waste of money is if that stained glass window was a picture of a big fat guy with a big sandwich.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he died doing what he loved.
ED LARSON
And a little thought bubble that says 'I hate my kids'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate my kids. It's really fun. It's kind of more of a Sunday morning cartoon than a stained glass window.
MARCUS PARKS
Lorraine meanwhile, born Lorraine Moran a year later-
ED LARSON
Moron?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lorraine Moron. Oh I actually did want to add about Ed's dad because he talked about he was obsessed with his father.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And his dad was so Catholic, I've never heard this level of Catholic. I didn't know that they had-
ED LARSON
He used his rosary beads as anal beads?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He pulled them out of himself like a lawnmower. Is that he'd go to church every day. I didn't know there was mass every day.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, there's mass every single day.
ED LARSON
There's something, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess they gotta be doing something.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
There's mass twice a day every day.
ED LARSON
Yeah. The deacon's gotta practice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's gonna get his fucking minutes in.
ED LARSON
Did we lose Henry?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just dropped, I dropped out of my cans.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Henry dropped out of mine, too.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Henry's mic dropped out.
ED LARSON
Every episode we talk about haunted dolls, Henry's voice drops out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is. Whatever, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not even gonna address it because it really, it's a lot.
ED LARSON
I'm happy for you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I will say I have the haunted Ouija board in my home right now.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I put it in my-
ED LARSON
You look like a haunted doll.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(cackling) Love me! (hums Skidamarink) I was an abortion! Little borty ghost jumps in.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, I forgot you guys wrote and performed a sketch about a haunted doll. You guys had to do Dollmaker what, 100 times? 150?
ED LARSON
At least. At least.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm the Dollmaker!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was one of my favorite sketches you guys did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I have that haunted Ouija board in my home and I put it in my, I have like a bad juju drawer. I have all the stuff that I've collected, all the weird shit.
ED LARSON
You fit the whole Ouija board in the drawer?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I have a big drawer.
ED LARSON
That's a big drawer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I save it. I put all my fucked up stuff in it.
ED LARSON
What else is in it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have a John Wayne Gacy in there. I have some other like murder memorabilia. I got some other haunted memorabilia that sits in this drawer and I put stuff in it to sort of contain the juice in it, right. I put all like crystals-
ED LARSON
Do you got like powders and stuff in it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. And I put flowers. I try to make it a sacred little thing to keep it in. But I have been-
ED LARSON
Do you shoot into it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, my cum is for my family. That's saved for my family.
ED LARSON
You say wife.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, wife.
ED LARSON
Don't say family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My family. The dogs, half of it belongs to the dogs and our gardener. He needs his. But I have been noticing that I have been finding a film of slime in a puddle in the front of my house that I've had to mop up about four times. But that's the closest I've gotten to some form, there's some weird shit going on.
ED LARSON
Where's the slime? Is it on the concrete, like on the doorstep?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's on the wood.
ED LARSON
It's on the wood.
MARCUS PARKS
Inside the house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Oh inside the house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And I've wiped it up many times, I've cleaned it up. And it's a clear like a gel.
MARCUS PARKS
What does it smell like?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing. Because I smelled it.
ED LARSON
You should call the city.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not getting the city involved.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Lorraine, born Lorraine Moran a year after Ed, she grew up three blocks away from Ed and met him in 1944 when Ed was working as an usher at a local theater.
ED LARSON
Two clairvoyants growing up three blocks from each other? I mean what are the fucking chances?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's the thing, it's hardly that god brought us together for a reason, the story told in the Conjuring movies. And they were married a year later in 1945.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is just how people were married then. He was on his way to war too. So they just got it out of the way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he was already pregnant by the time he went to WWII. Which shows a strong man, big thick old cummies.
ED LARSON
So he killed people.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe. He definitely was there while other guys did, maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
The majority of people who go to war don't actually see combat.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not necessarily.
MARCUS PARKS
At least in like WWII, Vietnam and all that. Like yeah, the majority of people did not actually like shoot; weren't on like the front, weren't like in like Bastogne. That was easy company.
ED LARSON
Yeah. No one tells their story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will say it is a miracle thinking about how a young Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Moran, she went into a movie theater and she kind of was cute and she saw a man that looked like the child version of William Taft. And she said the actual, like these are the words according to the interview I just watched with her where she was saying, she's like when I saw that man for the first time, I knew in love and first sight. Because I knew that was the man I was gonna marry. Meanwhile he's like you want some popcorn? Hey, do you wanna get some kind of chicken leg or something with me? What do you do? Hey, you got a big head, you look like a fetus. You got nice bottoms.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Ed claimed to have been continuously drawn to the paranormal, saying that it all started when he was five years old. According to him, Ed's family lived in a house owned by an old spinster landlady who screamed at anyone and everyone at the slightest provocation. Classic pre ghost behavior. As such, a year after she died Ed said that he was playing in his room when the closet door flew open and a small light grew into a transparent, frowning apparition of his landlady.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the white lady of Sad Bitch Lane.
ED LARSON
Yeah. Where's the money, Ed?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's the money, Ed?
ED LARSON
Where's the money, you fucking loser?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm good for it, ghost! I'm good for it! You go back, you go back! I'm sick of the apparition, ghost.
MARCUS PARKS
she then disappeared. And it was this formative experience that set Ed on the path to a life and paranormal investigation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel that that's why I connect with Ed in a way because I think that he was what I was which is a chubby wannabe goth. He wanted to be close to where the goths were.
MARCUS PARKS
1930s goth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh Yeah. He wanted the ghosts, he wanted that life. But it's just hard for a chubby little boy because there's no mystery in a chubby little boy. Like when a guy, they always say tall, dark, and handsome. And he shows up and he's got a cloak on, he's mysterious. And they're all like... But then whenever the paranormal investigator shows up, it's never Max von Sydow.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's always Maurice Gross, who looks like one of the Mario Brothers. He looks like Ed Warren.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who is a walrus. It looks like he opens oysters with his mouth.
MARCUS PARKS
But it must be said that Ed did not like to refer to himself as a paranormal investigator. Rather, Ed liked the moniker of demonologist. This role, Ed believed, was prophesized by a series of recurring childhood dreams featuring a nun. After appearing a number of times in Ed's dreams. The nun finally spoke and told Ed, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You will tell many priests the right road to go down. But you yourself will never be a priest. Oh, Ed! Oh, you can't ever be a priest because that much cock would be wasted. Oh, Ed!
ED LARSON
You sprayed my habit!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, Ed. Cum in my little hat. Oh, my square-toed shoes. Put them on your ears!
ED LARSON
I'm sorry it's just a twin-sized bed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's all I'm allowed due to my (moaning) vow of chastity.
MARCUS PARKS
It's incredible how much nun porn the Italians produce.
ED LARSON
Oh of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They invented it.
MARCUS PARKS
My god. Well this nun dream, Ed said, foretold his future as the only demonologist in the world that was not a full time employee of the Catholic church but was still recognized as a legit expert in his field. That's what always gave Ed his credibility is that the Catholic church recognizes me as a demonologist.
ED LARSON
Yeah, the pope's like oh yeah, that guy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah, I guess he's with us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
He seems fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because this is also we got the nazi pope, there's a lot of bad popes during... I guess it was mostly during John Paul II.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean the nazi pope came after Ed died.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Was this all John Paul II?
MARCUS PARKS
Well no.
ED LARSON
Pre.
MARCUS PARKS
John Paul II started in what, the 70s? '75?
ED LARSON
Maybe '81 or something. I don't know his exact day. I'm gonna guess '80.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All I know is he was too Polish to die.
ED LARSON
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For too long. That's what I always liked about John Paul II is that he just kept forgetting to fucking give up.
MARCUS PARKS
78.
ED LARSON
78?
MARCUS PARKS
1978. So yeah, so he would have been recognized by the pope before that.
ED LARSON
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
There's only been three popes in our lives.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's wile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, and I couldn't give a living fuck about any one of them. I think every one of them should be turned into dog food. You know what I mean? Literally ground up and fed to animals.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he would have been recognized probably under the reign of Paul VI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How fun would it be to... Think about grabbing a pop by his little slippers and pulling him out of his chair. How fun would that be?
ED LARSON
Oh man. Or like hiking up his dress and fucking hitting him in the face a couple times.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh!
ED LARSON
Beat him up like a hockey fight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? No!
ED LARSON
Spanking his little butt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Swiss guard, I feel like a lot of times the Swiss guards, it's just a costume. They're trained, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Oh they're highly trained. Highly, deadly trained, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But highly trained like Disneyland employees are highly trained?
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe. I wouldn't put them on the role of like Spetsnaz or Green Beret or anything like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But I would imagine they know their shit.
ED LARSON
Who's training them? There's not like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The pope!
MARCUS PARKS
The ones before.
ED LARSON
Does the Vatican have an army?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Swiss guard.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know if that's an army, that's more of a guard.
ED LARSON
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
No, I don't think they have an army. They used to have an army, the pope did have an army way back when.
ED LARSON
Yeah. The Romans.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're way into the weeds of shit that we don't know anything about and the episode is not about.
MARCUS PARKS
I do know the Catholic church did have an army for like centuries at a time. But as far as Lorraine's role in all this went, it is actually pretty similar to what's portrayed in the movies. While Ed was the potbellied warrior defending mankind against the demon hordes, Lorraine was the clairvoyant, the one who could communicate with spirits using her psychic powers. Now sometime in the late 40s, early 50s, Ed and Lorraine started their paranormal careers in an oddly invasive manner. See both of them were fair to middling landscape painters. And when they would hear about reports of active haunted houses in the newspaper, they'd loiter outside the home across the street and sketch it. And seeing as how they lived in New England, America's most haunted region, these haunted house stories came more often than you'd expect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually really appreciate how they got into paranormal research and hunting. Because it really is the equivalent of being a multi hyphenate during the mid aughts when you had to make your own shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As a comedian. Where you just have to find their lane. They both were trained as artists. Ed and Lorraine went to art school together. They both were like... Lorraine, as soon as she met Ed, again I don't know if it's just because he had the gift of gab or whatever, she was head over heels for him. They went to art school together and when they got out he was so obsessed with the paranormal he would just go. I commiserate with that, where he was the guy that... He would became so interested he would just sort of put himself in these places.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is how you honestly get it anywhere in this life.
ED LARSON
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta go to where the shit is. But I actually think it's kind of cool. Like your house is haunted, you know those stories about your own house. You look out, you see this dumpy guy and some weird wispy fetus head psychic woman-
ED LARSON
What's going on in there? Hey!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You hear any boos lately? Hey! You gotta ghost in there! You got something inside of there!
MARCUS PARKS
But when they finished with the sketch, Ed and Lorraine would knock on the door of the homeowner and tell them that they could have the sketch in exchange for information about the haunting. The Warrens would then double dip on these sketches when Lorraine would turn them into full paintings. These haunted house paintings were sold at art auctions and that drummed up interest for Ed and Lorraine's fledgling careers as paranormal investigators and demonologists.
ED LARSON
So they were literally sketchy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And Ed meanwhile worked as a bus driver until the whole demonologist thing took off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I find most amateur demonologists are bus drivers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Nothing's wrong with being a bus driver. It's a hard job and they get attacked all the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Very difficult job.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about being an amateur demonologist.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what's difficult.
ED LARSON
You're right.
MARCUS PARKS
Now once word got around about Ed and Lorraine's investigative prowess and their psychic powers, or at least Lorraine's psychic powers, the whole package became terribly impressive to the public. So in 1952, decades before the paranormal revival of the 70s, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, NESPR.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Which is still active today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's still around.
MARCUS PARKS
Word soon spread that there was a very impressive sounding organization in Connecticut that would take your claims of paranormal activity and demon possession seriously when no one else would. They were ready to believe you. And the calls started rolling in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I tell you what, if you don't want to talk about ghosts, if you don't want to talk about poltergeists or apparitions and stuff, what's also kind of nice is you get on my bus, we don't gotta go on the normal lanes. There's a whole lane for the bus. So I can take us anywhere you wanna go in actually a very express amount of time. So you come on down, I'll show you where the demons live. They're there, there's one there, there's one there, there's one there, there's one there. Don't pull the emergency brake! This is a goddamn emergency brake and everybody quiet down. I'm driving a bus to a demon's house!
ED LARSON
So they were like actual Ghostbusters.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well in a way. Now it's important to note here that the Warrens were very much filling a gap in American society. See during the 1950s America did not have strong beliefs in the supernatural, demonic possession, or the devil as like a guy who's just around. Like that's what crazy people believed. Really it wasn't until the late 60s with the rise of ironically Protestant charismatic Christianity did exorcism, a traditionally Catholic practice, start to come back into fashion. But it was really, as we've said time and again, The Exorcist that really brought the devil back to America.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really did. And I did a little bit of research about the idea of using the anti abortion stance to politicize the Christian right, that's also sort of where the obsession would go after this.
MARCUS PARKS
That is a very long and incredible story.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Of how abortion, like it all started with an experimental filmmaker, no shit. It's a bizarre and long story. But it's very cool. There's an episode of this great podcast I like called Things Fall Apart that goes into it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's fucking weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think I listened to that one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. It involves like a field of baby dolls with no arms or something. It's very strange.
ED LARSON
Man, I remember one time Julie's great uncle was a priest and we were driving him back to the priest nursing home one day. And then across the street of course is a church and there was a bunch of crosses on the lawn of the church. And I was like hey Father Bob, why are all those crosses on the church? He's like each one of those crosses represents a baby that was aborted this year. And I was like that's not that many.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To be honest I want double that next week. Let's go. All right? I got my hook, I got some pills and a vacuum.
MARCUS PARKS
Well today exorcisms are at an all time high, with requests to the Catholic church ranging from outright criminal gay conversions to a guy who believed his truck was possessed by the devil because it kept breaking down no matter how many times he took it to the shop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
A Ford.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Fix Or Repair Daily.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But back in the 50s and 60s, if you thought you had a case of demonic possession or an out of control haunting that no one believed, you could count on Ed and Lorraine Warren to arrive at your home to investigate and possibly help get rid of your demonic problem in one way or another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As long as it was a demon.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. As long as it was a demon. If it was a ghost it'd be like yeah, deal with it, see you later.
ED LARSON
Do they stay in New England or do they go-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They go everywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
They go everywhere. But I mean a lot of their cases did end up being in New England.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Long Island, Rhode Island, a lot of the islands.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ghosts stay on islands because ghosts are canonically afraid of boats.
MARCUS PARKS
However Long Island, not an island, a peninsula, sir.
ED LARSON
Ooh. That's what Long Island!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't believe that!
MARCUS PARKS
Rob?
ROB OKEY
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He doesn't know.
ED LARSON
I think it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because he's from Long Island.
ED LARSON
I never heard that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is a long peninsula.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not an island.
ED LARSON
But it's not connected, it ends at Queens and Brooklyn and the river goes through. Doesn't it? So it is a long island. I don't think it is a peninsula.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right. Either geographically it's an island, legally it's treated as a peninsula. What does that even fucking mean?
ED LARSON
It's because there's a bridge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How did we get here? What are we doing?
MARCUS PARKS
It's a contiguous part of New York state legally.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Legally.
MARCUS PARKS
Now concerning the subject of money, and this is a big deal, money is a big part of the Warren story. It's interesting and somewhat hard to parse once I really started thinking about it and started really looking at their careers. See the Warrens never charged money for their services. You say they were like the Ghostbusters but the Ghostbusters were a capitalistic venture.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what was the joke of the Ghostbusters was was that it's being lost all the time. It's about blue-collar workers working in a paranormal aspect.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But the Warrens practiced paranormal investigation for decades before they started seeing any sort of book deals or significant back in cash. That shit didn't really start coming until the 70s. They started in 1952. So to be absolutely fair, it very well could be that the Warrens did start out as genuine believers but over the years it seems like the money and the fame won out. Both however were most likely rationalized by the Warrens telling themselves that they were just using the fame and money for good to spread the word of god. But ultimately they just ended up being a more harmful presence again and again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They knew the power of what they were working with. I think that they... More than true believers. I think that Ed and Lorraine Warren really did-
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lorraine Warren is absolutely a true believer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ed Warren, he's a devout Catholic but that doesn't mean you're not a piece of shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So that's what he was. But it is interesting because he does it all through the Catholic framework. He does, to me, say things that are accidentally kind of esoteric from here and there. But that's mostly just because the Catholics don't really wanna admit the fact that their bible is a grimoire and that what they do are magical practices.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, ceremonial magic.
ED LARSON
Yeah, fucking written by a king.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
ED LARSON
Now but if she was a true believer then she did see ghosts.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She says.
MARCUS PARKS
Or at least that she believed that she could communicate psychically.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She saw things.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And I think they did see things.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She said that she could read auras and that she was a clairvoyant which means she can see the future.
ED LARSON
I mean you put yourself in enough crazy situations, something's gonna happen eventually.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my feeling.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now when Ed and Lorraine entered a haunted location they relied on what they called the three sensitivities. And if a location exhibited all three, then that was enough for them to declare a location haunted or a person possessed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now when I was taught the three sensitivities is that it's when you suck on the neck, if the penis moves, that's good.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you suck on the ears and the vagina goes up and down, something's wrong, you've been sucking too hard. All right? There's two. Three, it's like I can't stand yogurt. Don't put any yogurt in there. That's one of my big sensitivities. And I was like oh ghost, it could have been a human. They know what I like.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as what those sensitivities were, it can be boiled down to whether or not Ed and Lorraine were vibing with the scene, if it felt right. In fact every single bit of the whole three sensitivities theory involved long winded explanations created solely by Ed and Lorraine Warren, meaning none of it can be verified by an outside source or even really discussed unless you buy into the Warren's worldview.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did the Supreme Court 'I know ghosts when I see them'.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. For example, when Lorraine was asked how if there is a demonic spirit in your home, she said you just know. Which is extremely unhelpful to the rest of us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You just know, Lorraine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because of your fetus-shaped psychic head. Okay?
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the rest of us, we got fucking small, normal, rounded heads.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Usually your baby starts floating, that's a dead indicator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know when the demon's around honestly you're not getting any work done.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as Ed Lorraine put it, while people philosophize about demonic possessions as purely psychological phenomena, anyone who has ever walked into one of these houses where demonic presences have made camp would never make such an empty statement. Ed said that when you walk into one of these houses, the family is liable to be sobbing or huddled together in terror with their clothes half torn off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
In the air one can smell the powerful stench of sulfur, ozone, rotting flesh or just straight up shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's after I change into my uniform. My ghost hunting uniform. And then the real stinky stuff starts. That's when the demons get in there.
MARCUS PARKS
I never wash it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wash it, why would I?
MARCUS PARKS
Objects will be levitating and incredible pounding comes from the walls which are themselves covered in obscene or anti religious statements that have been written by unseen hands in any one of a dozen languages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, he wrote god's a loser. That's mean.
ED LARSON
In Sanskrit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's mean. Why'd you say that? Why'd you say that about god? He made you.
MARCUS PARKS
Objects will materialize and dematerialize right in front of your eyes, religious objects will be desecrated, little fires will flicker on the corners of chairs, curtains go up in flames, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
ED LARSON
Full circle.
MARCUS PARKS
Now these claims run counter to every single other investigation of poltergeist hauntings or even demon possession I've ever read. And that includes reports by hardliners like Malachi Martin who wrote a book with the very dramatic title 'Hostage to the Devil'.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Warrens had their own situation. They had their own belief system.
MARCUS PARKS
In most cases, like say the Enfield poltergeist case, some of these things do happen but on a much smaller scale. And the somewhat more credible possession cases, at least the ones that kind of make you think a little bit, may give you a little bit of pause, those are just fucking bizarre. They're confusing, they're weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, like alien abduction stories.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's high strangeness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It is very much high strangeness. But Ed's claims are so incredibly embellished that if you take them at face value, then yes, I could see how you could believe that demons are real and the world is an even scarier and more dangerous place than it already is.
ED LARSON
It's like that thing where you believe something crazier than something that was just kind of normal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. But if he was a real demon hunter, he would have one of those big anime swords. Like he would be going everywhere with battle scars and like demon armor on.
MARCUS PARKS
He's be like Guts from Berserk?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'd be walking everywhere with all the various trinkets he'd picked up from all the missions he's completed. He'd have like, you know how like by the time you're at the end of a video game, you got like a helmet from one set on, you got the pants from another set on?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like that's what he'd look like. He'd look like your Dark Souls run.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. My Elden Ring character with the gigantic mushroom hat and the big dragon armor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just gotta say thank god I got the save scrolls. I got the save scrolls and I got the reroll potion. There's no way I would get through that if it wasn't for my mega sleeves. Plus two dexterity.
MARCUS PARKS
But like anyone who really, really wants their beliefs to be true, the Warrens take nuggets of common paranormal experiences like knocking or bad smells and blow them up to cinematic proportions, which is what makes The Conjuring movie so much fun. Now according to Ed, there are three stages of demonic activity. And Ed's perspective on demonic possession is gonna be extremely important to know about when we start going through their cases one by one. According to Ed, the three stages are infestation, oppression, and possession. If I remember correctly though, these are common designations in the world of demonology. I don't know if Ed took it from somewhere else or if other people are taking it from Ed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I might be wrong and please, oh I can't wait for you to tell me that I'm wrong, but I believe that Ed Warren may not have designed this on his own.
MARCUS PARKS
May not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that demonology is a very old course of education.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that they've been teaching it for a long time.
MARCUS PARKS
Now during the infestation stage, a demon will create fear and generate negative energy in order to break down the human's will. These are the annoying things. These are the knocks, moving objects, cold spots, just stuff that makes you feel weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It makes you angry.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Slapping your sister.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yeah, slapping your sister. Fingering your butthole while you're asleep.
ED LARSON
That makes you happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Depends on how big the finger is. I like a little smooth one.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to Ed, this process usually begins after someone opens a door into the unknown and walks down the darkened path. This breaks the law of invitation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is obsessed with the idea that all of this paranormal activity is the people within its fault.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, he's blaming the victim over and over again. This usually involves ceremonial magic, incantations, seances, Ouija boards, or playing Dungeons & Dragons. I would imagine that if Ed Warren were alive today, he would designate listening to this show as an invitation to demonic possession.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like that one guy's impressions! He seems like a straight up guy. I like him. Get him in there, I like that. I like to hear his little voices and he seems like a funny guy. But otherwise it seems to be an invitation for the devil.
MARCUS PARKS
But once the demon is let in, so to speak, the oppression phase begins with a psychological attack dedicated to the complete domination of a victim's will. The goal of oppression is to cause the individual to lose control which then opens the door to full fledged possession.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. It's like what happened in Brooklyn. Over a period of time various svelte people arrived with various handlebar mustaches, some with the mustaches tattooed on their index finger to put over. They came with their bangs, they came with their ukuleles, began the infestation. Then the oppression began which is asking for Moby's tea line, just walking around saying hey, there should be a sandal store here instead of this bodega or hospital.
ED LARSON
See I think they started in the 1920s, went underground, and came back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Came back. Yeah.
ED LARSON
Like cicadas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And then at the very the possession is when those svelte people now have children and they're taking your fun things away from the neighborhood. you used to like.
MARCUS PARKS
Yep. That's why I moved out of Greenpoint.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yup.
MARCUS PARKS
Well oppression, Ed said had many signs, disgusting smells, ghoulish moans, blood curdling screams, heavy breathing, magical whispering, and ghastly visions. You might also experience materializations, dematerializations, teleportations, levitations, cuts, burns, gouges, wounds, bruises, headaches, demon faces on the TV screen, and inhuman voices on the phone.
ED LARSON
I thought you gotta say it like at the end of a Zoloft commercialization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Materializations-dematerializations-teleportations-levitations-cuts-burns-gouges- wounds-bruises-headaches-demon-faces-on-the-TV-screen-and-inhuman-voices-on-the- phone.
MARCUS PARKS
May also include diarrhea, loosening of the bowels, bleeding from the ears.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
May also include instant death.
MARCUS PARKS
Now usually oppression focuses on one or two family members but conveniently the oppressed don't even have to be the ones to have broken the law of invitation. It could have been someone decades earlier who allowed themselves to be overtaken by a demonic spirit, someone the family didn't even know and therefore cannot verify.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Demons are their thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That brings us to our first story, that of the Perron family which was famously retold in the loosest manner in the very first Conjuring movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is a very loose retelling of the story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When you re-watch The Conjuring too you forget that that's the intro to Ed and Lorraine Warren. And it is the intro that they use for a lot of their cases in terms of the books that they wrote. They wrote a whole book just about this one. It's all from their perspective so it's mostly full of shit. But that's what we're trying to parse apart here. It's just... We'll get to it. Now it begins, just know that this truly is one of their first big cases.
MARCUS PARKS
Now The Conjuring was released about seven years after Ed's death in 2006 but Lorraine died in 2019. So she worked as an advisor on all the Conjuring movies up to that point and even had a cameo in the first movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she's sitting in a chair not doing jack shit.
MARCUS PARKS
And you really only see like the top of her skeleton face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, all you see is the fetus part of the cranium.
ED LARSON
You know she must have been so annoying on set. I... Don't... Think... That...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lorraine?
ED LARSON
Get to it, get to it, get to it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or every five minutes like grabbing a grip and being like you'll die soon. See that's what I would do if I was a famous psychic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd just be grabbing people like you must get to Toledo! And then just run away, just grab people. Do you see madness is coming, sir?
MARCUS PARKS
Well until her death, Lorraine Warren and one of the Perron daughters, Andrea, they insisted that the film The Conjuring was accurate to the real events. And so to be absolutely fair, let's go through the story as it was told by the Warrens and by Andrea Perron in her book 'House of Darkness, House of Light'.
ED LARSON
Oh she wrote a book.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
That's why she lied.
MARCUS PARKS
So in December of 1970, Roger and Carolyn Perron moved into a large home near Harrisville, Rhode Island with their five daughters. Ancient by American standards, the house had been built in 1736 on a 200 acre plot of land. Just as they were about to move in however, the previous owner warned them that for the sake of their family, keep the lights on at night.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But how are we supposed to sleep?
MARCUS PARKS
Keep the lights on at night if you value your family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is there something because there's like a hidden step and people tripping or-
MARCUS PARKS
If you value your family, you will not turn the lights off!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I don't understand, that doesn't really make any sense. Nighttime is when you need the lights off.
MARCUS PARKS
I will not elaborate further. Fuck off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just feel that all of this should have been disclosed while we were doing the inspection.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not my problem anymore. Fuck you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just feel that things are kind of spinning out of control here. Also how did you own this house, ghoul man? Where did you go to work in the shadowy-
MARCUS PARKS
I inherited it from my uncle!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh you're a nepo ghoul?
MARCUS PARKS
And sure enough the haunting started almost immediately, although the spirits were friendly at first and focused mainly on the children. The first two spirits to show up were Mrs. Arnold and Johnny Arnold.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Johnny Arnold, ghost on the prowl.
MARCUS PARKS
These were obviously the previous residents of the property, for the Perrons had moved on to a piece of land known as the Arnold estate. Now Mrs. Arnold would tuck the girls in at night and kiss them on the forehead while Johnny, who supposedly hung himself in the attic in the mid 18th century, played with the children's toys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) Man, if I hadn't killed myself there would have been so many different toys to play with. Oh I would love to see an Atari. I shouldn't have died so early!
MARCUS PARKS
There were also other harmless ghosts like the sweeper who would invisibly make the noise of a broom sweeping. And when the family investigated the noise, they'd find the broom in the closet with a neat little pile of dirt next to it.
ED LARSON
They had a janitor?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
ED LARSON
They had a ghost janitor?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, even ghosts know if you got time to lean, you got time to clean.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh ghost janitor. That's a great movie.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ghost Janitor!
ED LARSON
This house is clean!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The only thing that would make me scary is being in the bathroom with the ghost janitor not knowing that he's in there because you know he's peeking into the stalls.
ED LARSON
I'm getting too old for this shit!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I see you. Do you need a mint? Would you like some deodorant or Binaca? Get out of here, ghost bathroom attendant. That's a big shit.
ED LARSON
Get me more buckets, please.
MARCUS PARKS
But quite suddenly the haunting turned violent. The Perrons began hearing disembodied cries and banging doors. And at exactly 5:15 am on certain nights, the negative spirits would lift up beds and toss the sleeping Perrons to the floor, who would wake up to the smell of rotting flesh. Things then got quite a bit worse for there was one encounter that Andrea mentioned in her book that the family refuses to speak about. As Andrea put it, there was a very bad male spirit in the home with five girls. And that was all she was going to say about that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey little girls, I know you're asleep but I just wanna let you know the one thing y'all need to do, yeah, I might be a ghost and your mom might not like me but I want to let you know you better work. And if you girls want to go out there, you need to show them pussies up. And I need you to get that man for his money. Lock it down, scam alive. Every day get that scam going on, okay? Yeah, your mom not may not like me because I'm shooting you straight. Okay? Because you better get that bag, girlfriends!
MARCUS PARKS
Get that bag?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Woo!
MARCUS PARKS
But pretty soon the negative spirit-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't like what this ghost is teaching my daughters.
MARCUS PARKS
But pretty soon the negative spirit surprisingly focused not on the girls but their mother, Carolyn. From what they could tell, the head spirit had the hots for Carolyn's husband Roger who would feel gentle caresses whenever he went down to the cellar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I gotta go back down to the cellar.
ED LARSON
Get a little gentle caress.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, it's kind of nice down there. Are you guys, anybody else getting a handjob in the basement?
ED LARSON
Baby, your caresses are too hard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You ever thought about chopping off your hands? I've heard phantom limbs are incredible.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to Andrea, things got dangerous when Carolyn was in the barn one afternoon and heard a swishing sound slicing through the air. Suddenly a hand scythe appeared and hovered in mid air before hurtling towards her. The blade struck her neck and shoulder but since she was layering that day, she didn't get cut.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So a cardigan saved her from a scythe.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From a decapitation, yes.
ED LARSON
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She tripped on a rake and needed an excuse.
MARCUS PARKS
Then Carolyn supposedly started seeing visions. She said that she was awoken in the early morning hours by footsteps in her bedroom. But when Carolyn woke up expecting to see one of her daughters, she was faced with the looming, grotesque figure of a woman. The apparition's neck was broken and her head hung down to one side as they do in the scary movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah the (creaking).
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But her face was featureless with no eyes or nose, save for a gray mesh of cobwebs over her mouth. She also had no hands and no feet.
ED LARSON
So what are you scared of?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, she can't do anything. Just standing there.
MARCUS PARKS
So instead of walking towards Carolyn and Roger's bed, the apparition hovered forward, filling the room with the smell of rotting flesh. But just before the ghost made contact, Carolyn yanked the blankets off the bed hoping to wake her husband but he seemed to be under some sort of spell that kept him asleep. The ghost however quickly disappeared and Carolyn was terrified to see that her husband was covered in scratches. But the night's horrors were not over. Just before dawn, probably around that 5:15 mark, Carolyn awoke to the sound of the headboard rattling as their bed moved forward. The room got cold as it always did during an encounter and the rotting stench returned. Suddenly the room was illuminated by torches held by the dead, eight, maybe ten spirits filling the room with light. The house, Carolyn said, was humming so loudly that it muffled her screams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(muffled screams)
ED LARSON
(snoring)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Roger's just completely peacefully-
MARCUS PARKS
Passed out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Husbandly asleep.
ED LARSON
Thanks for the scratch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
The ghost then began chanting, saying:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Beseech thee leave! Was mistress afore ye came and mistress here will be again!"
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
ED LARSON
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Your whole fucking shit is gonna fall apart. He's making me co-editor.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're not gonna know which restaurant reviews are true or not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna fucking say go eat at Bernie's and Bernie's sucks!
MARCUS PARKS
You're not gonna know whether that new take on the Icelandic hot dog with curry is any good. You're not gonna know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're not gonna know. You're gonna have to go yourself, the old fashioned way. Like how we used to find out the weather by sticking your hands out the goddamn window.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But I can't wait to come see Iceland. I love you so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We really can't wait.
ED LARSON
It's gonna be awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't wait to go. I've never been to Reykjavik so I'm very excited.
ED LARSON
I wanna see this shit so fucking bad. Listen to the Brighter Side, folks. I'm doing it with Amber Nelson twice a week. Get into it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. You better. All right. Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
ED LARSON
Hail Annabelle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't.
ED LARSON
I like her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's bad.
ED LARSON
She's cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's a bad girl.
ED LARSON
She's a movie star. She's big time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She bad girl.
ED LARSON
She's got three fucking movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's mean.
MARCUS PARKS
Origins was okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like Origins the best.
MARCUS PARKS
Me too.
ED LARSON
It was the best one.
MARCUS PARKS
It was the best one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I've seen every one of the films.
MARCUS PARKS
So have I.
ED LARSON
I haven't seen The Nun II.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nah, not good.
MARCUS PARKS
Both of the Nun movies are fucking awful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I like the woman who plays the nun.
ED LARSON
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I don't like the film.
ED LARSON
What are you gonna do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just gonna have to really... I'm gonna have to change.
ED LARSON
See none of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Goodbye.