Are you interested in angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, influence, and how to protect against the unknown? If so, then welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. Hello, all. Welcome back to a jointly published episode with JJ, the host of the Southern Demonology Podcast, and Chris and Dean, the awesome host of the Wandering Road Podcast. And today we're going to be tackling something that is not only pertinent, but also a little timeless, at least within the paranormal community.
And that is the Annabelle doll. Whether you believe it or not, and to be perfectly honest, I am on the not side pretty firmly, though I'm not saying that I can't be can't have my mind changed on that one. We're going to go through some of the history, go through a little bit about Ed and Lorraine Warren, and then finish up with some thoughts as to not only their legacy, but how Annabelle has directly helped to impact that. How are y'all doing today?
Pretty good. It's right before a long weekend. So looking forward to that and looking forward to talking about this Annabelle story. Yeah, man, for sure. So, JJ, if you don't mind, maybe we could start with the actual story of the Annabelle case. Yeah. Would you like to kick that off? Yeah. So for those of you that have seen the Annabelle movie, that creepy ass porcelain doll is not what Annabelle looks like. Nope. Annabelle is this big ass raggedy Ann doll that a nurse, so the story goes, was gifted, was provided as a gift by, I believe, her mother or a friend or something like that, right?
Yep.
So she ended up taking the doll back home to an apartment that she shared with some roommates, but it was not long after they had the Annabelle doll in their home that weird things started happening. The story goes is that they would leave the doll sitting on the bed, and they would find that it would change positions, it would change different rooms. For instance, they might find its legs crossed or discover it upright when it had been laid down.
At first, these subtle movements were merely puzzling, but as soon as incidents escalate, the roommates began finding handwritten messages on parchment paper that read, Help Me or Help Us. The most frightening incident that we have with the Annabelle doll involves one of their friends. On several occasions, their friend, believe the name was Lou, but I may be incorrect, felt uneasy about the doll. And he said one day, while he was napping in the apartment, he awoke in terror to find that the Raggedy Ann doll was at his feet.
And he then claimed that the doll was gliding up his leg to his chest before it tried to strangle him. He fought it off, the doll fell limp, and shockingly, seven claw-like scratch marks then appeared on his chest, burning scratches that bled but ended up healing rapidly within a couple days. The physical attack left all three roommates badly frightened. At first they wondered if an intruder or some prankster might be moving the doll and writing the notes, but after thorough searches turned up no signs of a break-in, the strange activity seemed to defy any normal explanation.
Here is where these stories tend to always go wrong, right? You get in contact with somebody that does like some sort of seance or they do some sort of type of, I don't know, ritual or something of that sort. So the roommates were unsure of what to do, so they ended up inviting a medium into their apartment to hold a seance, hoping to learn what was behind those disturbances.
During the seance, the medium claimed that a spirit named Annabelle Higgins, the ghost of a seven-year-old girl, was attached to the doll, and that Annabelle had lived on the property before the apartments were built and died there at age seven under unspecific circumstances.
Here's where I get tripped up in this, and I'm totally with uh JJ here, but like every time I hear a story about a human possessing something after they die, especially a child, I and and then and then also they are they are somehow affecting the real world in which we all reside in. It's like, first of all, I I I know there's like you know the questions of like, well, is it really the soul? But let's say for for uh argument's sake that it is the human soul and they are the ones who have power. It's like, where do they get the power from? Like, do they I don't have that power.
That'd be awesome. You know, if I had some kind of power to like manipulate the world in a positive way, I'd fucking use it every day. But like when you die, it's like, oh, suddenly you're bestowed with some kind of power. So that I mean, that's why like, and then also the fact that she was supposedly seven years old, and that makes me question, you know, well, why why would a seven-year-old, how would a seven-year-old be so honed in on being able to cause all these problems and the desire to cause these problems?
So that kind of makes me lean towards like, well, if this is a real case, then it probably wasn't the spirit of a little girl, it was probably some malevolent spirit masquerading as the little girl. I don't know. What are you guys' thoughts on that?
And that's exactly true, because it comes to find out that later the it was really, as they claim, it was an infernal spirit that was masquerading as a child and attempting to worm its way into their lives in order to possibly dominate. Who knows?
Yeah. And the biggest no-no is that they fell for the sob story that the psychic apparently relayed to them during the seance. And they granted it permission, as an Annabelle, to take up residence in the doll. That seemed to have given them a short amount of emotional relief. They viewed the strange happenings as the sign of a benign spirit, not something threatening. However, far from improving the situation, the phenomenon only grew more malevolent after the invitation.
The scratches on Lou, the disturbing notes, and the doll's inexplicable movements continued, convincing the roommates that whatever was attached to the doll was not truly the spirit of a sweet young girl. No shit. And they were now dealing with something more unpredictable and sinister than before. And then enter the Warrens. But before we go into the Warrens, did we want to quickly discuss our thoughts? Well, your opinions on that entire situation.
Yeah, I don't mind taking a first dab at it. I am not questioning the fact that objects can have attachments. That uh if you believe in the paranormal, I I think that's almost a prerequisite belief that you may have. I mean, I can hearken back to like Anna Maria Manello's phenomenal book, Haunted Artifacts, in which she details a buttload of stories over this exact same phenomenon. And as we've stressed time and again, not only in our demonology series, but just in general, you never know what you're going to get when you start opening these kinds of doors.
And something may be aspirating as something else, uh, especially if it has horrible intent, then you're you're asking for a world of hurt. My particular issue with this story, uh, I've got two. The first is that the first Annabelle movie was absolute bloody trash, and the fact that they took my money when I went to go see it in theaters already pisses me off a great deal. Second one, slightly better, but still, we're not even going there.
The second is that it has to do with the Warrens, and I have a lot of questions about the authenticity of their actions and their legacy, and that may be a hot take. I don't think it is anymore, because a lot of people have woken up to a lot of the shenanigans that they pulled, and I'll give some examples of this later when we get to that point. So I'm not denying the fact that there could be something in there, but is it the truly demonic doll that everyone is pointing at? I have some severe doubts.
In fact, Chris and I were messaging each other talking about this, and he was pointing to some videos that he had found around Annabelle, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't believe that. And he's like, What? Would you go up and touch it? I'm like, Yeah, and he's like, fine, we'll find a way to make that happen. And I'm like, you know what? I don't believe in opening doors, but I am so confident that this thing has nothing in it that I would actually be willing to do that. And I'm not speaking of bravery, I'm speaking of just sheer stubborn anger. Honestly, to tell you the truth.
Dude, I would do that with you. I I'm I'm on the same exact wavelength as you. Like, I feel nothing attached to and and I I do believe, as just like you, like in the same regard, there are a lot of things that are unexplainable about things that are affixed to certain objects and energies and all that stuff. I I'm open to the idea that those those things are real, but for this story, there's just too many variables that don't line up in a way that feels authentic. And then you also bring in the worns, which which Chris and I had explained or we had uh delved into in a uh previous episode.
I'm not sure we'll have to look up what episode number that was, but I I think we we landed a long time ago.
Over a hundred episodes, probably.
Yeah, I know. It's been such a while, man. But hey, but as as uh JJ was talking, that stirred up a lot of old memories from that old the the previous recording, and we actually came to a lot of conclusions that I'm excited to bounce off of JJ because I think our takeaway after that episode was like, yeah, the Warrens were probably full of shit in a lot of ways.
I mean, I I don't doubt that they dealt with situations that were authentic because they were they reached a level of uh respect and admiration in the community, the paranormal community, that they probably got pulled into some things, but the way that they manipulated the um the money making and and the avenues and the techniques that they did and the timing and s and all that stuff, like I I'm excited to get into that a little bit more because I think uncovering the truth is probably the most fun part of all this.
If I may, gentlemen, uh just to play devil's advocate here. What is the particular reason that either of you don't well both of you don't believe the Annabelle story? If we remove the Warren factor, does that change anything for you guys? Because for me, I I I think maybe there was something going on here.
I'll tell you this. If you remove the Warrens, then yes, I might be more willing to believe. But the other piece of this that just really rubs me the wrong way is that this world tour, whatever the hell you want to call it, is just so happen to be occurring at the same time that the last movie in the Conjuring series is about to come out.
Yeah, all of the money all of the money, yeah, yeah.
And it's that money factor that really makes me think that this is nothing but bullshit. Yeah. Now, would I go fuck with like Robert the Doll?
No, absolutely not. You took the words right out of my mouth.
What what what is the distinction? Overwhelming evidence that Robert the Doll has going for him. The thousands of letters that are posted up in his vicinity asking for forgiveness, that is much more physical. It's uh it brings it much more into reality than some Hollywood magic and some tales told by two members of the paranormal community which have had more than a copious amount of shade thrown their way in the intervening years.
It's the same thing for uh I forget the exact park, but that park in I think it's in Hawaii, where they tell you don't bring anything back from this park, like the stones or pieces of wood. Rock.
We did an episode on that, dude.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, and they do, and it goes wrong, and they have thousands of letters and the rocks back, even though they say please don't send us that send them back. We can't handle all this influx of stuff. That I believe much more thoroughly than any raggedy and bullshit. Yeah.
But let's take a step back here. Yeah, Pele, yes, Pele's curse. Pele's no joke. Yeah, yeah. So whenever I go visit you, dude, and we go to that place, I am not taking anything with me. I will look, I will stay on the path, but fuck that shit. I'm not not doing that. JJ, you could pick up stuff. No, we'll see what happens. No, no, no. I do not want to do that. Let's use JJ's favorite corporate term. All right, gentlemen, let's circle back to the Annabelle story with the demon here.
We do have the spare cycles to devote to this. Yeah. Well, unless not bore the ocean.
Uh anyway, go ahead. We're gonna go after the low-hanging fruit of these incidents that the roommates and the owner of Annabelle Donna reported. So, what do we make of that their one friend, Lou, the gentleman Lou, saying that I woke up, this doll was climbing on me, it scratched the hell out of me. Apparently, I guess for that sake of that story, let's say that he did show that off to the roommates. But for for those instances where they notice that the doll is moving on its own, I laid it down on the bed, but now it's sitting upright. Its legs are crossed like it's a human sitting down.
Like, what do we think the motivation would be to make this up even before the Warrens got involved? So that's where psychedelics, psychedelics, psychedelics, LSD 1970, kids in college.
No, I'm just kidding. I I don't know, I don't know that for sure, but that's the first place that my my mind went to whenever I read the uh the background.
Well, and it doesn't even have to be malicious, it could be that they misremembered that they put this there and that freaked them out, and so that seed of doubt is being has been planted in their heads and they begin to magnify it. And then when you get the attention of paranormal investigators and you want to make a good story, whether consciously or subconsciously, it's extremely easy to exaggerate all this stuff, especially if they're coaching you and how to do that. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's a possibility.
Sure. Sure. No, no, no, no. I'm not not denying that. I'm just trying to think from the pers like take the perspective of the people that are dealing with this.
Something else that's important to really frame when it comes to these stories as we're as we're discussing it, is like the human factor, like JJ kind of alluded to it already, but like the grapevine factor, where like someone comes up with an idea, whether it's fabricated or believed and true or not, it still hits the stream and this cycle of being transmuted through every person talking here and there and sharing stories about what happened. I actually just what while we were talking, I was doing research and I was because I was curious.
One of the the uh parts of the story that I first landed on that that came to me when I was uh looking it up was there's this supposedly there was a priest who mocked the Annabelle doll, and then he got into a terrible car wreck right after he left. Like apparently he po pointed at the doll, like, oh, this is you know bullshit, Jesus, whatever. And then he got in the car and drove away and crashed his car. But then as I was like, okay, I want to I want to know more about that because that's sick, that could be significant. So I'm looking for a news article.
There's no new there's no news article for that. And uh actually there's a conflicting story about that being two younger people, I think a guy and a girl, or maybe two girls, and apparently that's part of the story where they're like, oh, they made fun of the doll, and then they got into a motorcycle crash right afterward. So it's like, which is it? It's not both, it's probably neither. And if there was any semblance to the tr of truth to that kind of story or that happening, it was probably something completely different. So like that, I think that's just interesting in and of itself.
Is and you can even kind of like twist this conversation towards like the idea of a talpa. We've talked about Tulpas before. If you're not familiar with the Tulpa, it's like basically humans focus on something so much that they give it power and they end up creating something supernatural out of nothing, which is uh a whole topic in and of itself that's uh fascinating. But like who knows?
This could this could be a Tulpa scenario where it started from nothing, the human grapevine grew through all these um anecdotes, true or false or whatever, and then people just fed power to it, and then it kind of took on a life of its own. So I don't know. That's another way to approach it.
That's an interesting thought. This could be, like you said, another instance of Philip the Ghost. The one thing that I want to make sure that everyone who is listening is is aware of is that we are not we're not making fun of people that believe this. If you believe this, that's great. We're not openly challenging that. But what we are trying to do is to showcase that there may be lingering doubts about this, and this is true whether you just like ghost stories, if you've been in the paranormal community for a long time.
Everyone runs the gambit of experience, and the one thing that we're not doing is trying to cast aspersions on this type of belief. Definitely, yeah, yeah.
I I I I probably should have done a better job clarifying that as we were kind of going off a little bit. Yeah, we may, I mean, we can always hopefully we I mean, hopefully we didn't lose anybody listening to this, but we could always kind of throw this portion the beginning. But I totally agree with JJ, like we're not here to um and we're never here to um make fun of anybody or poke holes in whatever anyone believes.
It's just all three of us just have such an analytical processing type of brain, like lot we're just logical in the sense that that's just how our brains work, and we want to get to the truth and the actual facts about what's going on, whether they're paranormal or not, like for real or or just fabricated or whatever. So like it's more of an exploratory thing, and it's never a let's poke holes and make fun of people sort of thing.
So we all three of us have had have experiences, like we've all had experiences that something weird otherworldly has happened, so we're all open to the idea that this sort of thing could could actually be going down. So just to be clear.
One thing I'll always say, like I I'll never apologize for having discussions and opinions on this show, but what I will say is that I personally think there might be some truth to this story. And I think that what muddies the waters, or as they say in your your corporate terms, JJ, clear as mud. Um I think what makes this clear as mud is that you involve very whatever you think about them, whether you think they were scammers, fake, legitimate, you inject very high profile paranormal investigators in the warrants.
Now If the Warrens were not involved and this case became well known, I think a lot of people would be viewing it in a different light. I think one thing that we have to take into consideration is that people may struggle back and forth with believing this story, but what you will see is a lot of people, I don't want to say trusting the superstition, but falling in line with the superstition of the Annabelle doll in general.
I think there was a video in New Orleans of like voodoo priestess or something like throwing holy water or something at the doll as it was being like loaded and driven away in a van. So basically what I'm trying to say is that, yeah, you may have some people that you know, I think it it's just a doll, but you you you'll have some people that may have some reservations about it, but they still take precautions. And I think I fall into that camp. I think that there's some truth to what these people experienced because if you look at the time period, what is it, 1970?
You're not, I could be wrong. I don't think that if you talk about ghosts during that time period, it it wasn't really greatly receptive as opposed to like the 90s when that shit started, you know, breaking out with these paranormal shows in the 2000s, and as as as receptive as people are, it is to it today. So I think we we could take in to con the the time period into context as well. Because it'd be like, oh, you're on fucking drugs, oh you're crazy. Some sort of thing to deflect what these people went through. So does that make sense?
No, it does. It makes total sense. I will say that one paying respect to something that could do you damage is never a bad way of going about things. Two, honestly, if there is any substance to the Annabelle case, I would say that it is in spite of the Warrens being involved, not because of. It's kind of like any horror movie or any movie period that has Nicolas Cage in it. If it was good, it's in spite of him being in that movie. It had to overcome that major hurdle, and it was still succeeded in that. And I can think of only like one movie that achieved that bar, like kick-ass.
Everything else, horrible.
Nah, face off was good with John Travolta.
You know, I don't like John Travolta. I don't like Nicholas Cage. I had no interest in ever watching that one. What about National Treasure?
No, come on. I'm just fucking with you. I'm fucking with you, I'm fucking with you.
I've actually got a real funny story about the National Treasure movie, but uh please. I won't yes, please, please, please. Okay, so I had a best friend, and the key word there is had ever since we were in elementary school all the way up. And one day he invites me out to go see a movie, and I'm like, okay, great. And it's national treasure. And this man has been this man had been married to ever since like right after high school to this girl. I knew the girl, we were all great friends, we hung out all the time.
I show up to this movie theater, and he is with this skinny, looks like she's on drugs girl, that I've never seen before. And come to find out, it's the mistress that he has been seeing. And I sit there and I awkwardly watch the movie, and then the next day the wife tracks me down and berates me for encouraging this. I said, I'm not encouraging anything. I was I didn't even know it was fucking happening. So that movie won't forever be tarnished because of that lovely little situation. So maybe that explains a little bit of my hatred for Nick Cage.
I don't think so, but it could contribute a tad bit. I have the most random stories sometimes. Sorry.
We we've talked about them a little bit already. Let's jump into the Warren section of the case. So in 1971, the Warrens through the grapevine, through some fathers, end up hearing about the case, and they agreed to interview the roommates and examine the doll. Ed and Lorraine, they immediately suspected that something was off about the Annabelle Ghost story. After speaking at length with Donna and the roommates and Lou, they came to the conclusion that the doll was not truly possessed by a child spirit at all, but it was being manipulated by an inhuman, demonic presence.
In other words, the demonic entity was using the doll as a conduit, pretending to be a harmless lost girl spirit in order to gain the roommate's trust. The warrens warned that the escalation and activity was a classic sign of infestation leading towards oppression, the demon's end goal was to possess a human host, likely one of the young women, and if the phenomenon had continued unchecked for a few more weeks, the entity may have caused serious harm or even death to the occupants. Concluding that the case was truly demonic, the warrants took action.
They arranged for an episcopal exorcism slash blessing of the apartment to cleanse the home. Father Cook performed a seven-page prayer ritual invoking God's protection and pause and positivity in what Ed Warren described as an extensive ecclesiastical blessing. Only once they felt that the apartment was secured did the Warrens address the doll itself. Donna, deeply shaken, asked the Warrens to remove Annabelle from the house entirely. The Warrens agreed they believe that as long as the doll remained, the demonic presence might linger or return.
Thus they took Annabelle with them when they left. However, the Warren if the Warrens thought the ordeal was over, they were quickly proven wrong. During the call ride home with Annabelle in the back seat, it turned into a harrowing experience. As Ed drove with Lorraine in the passenger seat and the doll secured in the back, the Warrens found that their vehicle intermittently losing control, the power steering and the brakes failed repeatedly, causing the car to swerve dangerously on the roadway.
Ed later reported at one point that the car nearly crashed as a result of these mysterious malfunctions. It felt as if an unseen force was manipulating the automobile, a force connected with the doll now in their possession. Remembering that the entity was also described as demonic, Ed stopped the car, reached into his bag for a vial of holy water, and doused a doll with it while making the sign of the cross over the Raggedy Ann doll. Only then did the car's mechanical problems cease, and the rest of the drive proceeded without incident.
The Warrens arrived safely back at their home in Monroe, Connecticut. Ed placed a doll in the study, but the Annabelle Strange saga still was not finished. Even while in the Warren's own home, the Raggedy Ann reportedly resumed its supernatural antics. According to their account, the doll would be left locked in a room or building only for Ed and Lorraine to return and find it in a different location.
Ed had claimed that several times he locked Annabelle in his outer office and yet found the doll somehow moved to the main house, often settling in Ed's easy chair, as if comfortably waiting for them. The doll also exhibited an intense aversion towards clergy who visited the Warren's home. In one famous incident, Father Jason Bradford, a Catholic priest with experience in exorcism, came by to see the Warren. Upon viewing Annabelle's caged form, Father Bradford picked up the doll and casually said, You're just a rag doll, Annabelle.
You can't hurt anyone, dismissing the claims of its demonic nature. Lorraine gasped and quickly reprimanded him, urging the priest not to taunt the doll. Ed also expressed his concerns, telling the father that it was dangerous to say such things. That very day on his drive home, Father Bradford's brakes mysteriously failed as he approached a busy intersection and he was nearly killed in a horrible accident. Finally, the Warrens had a special wooden glass protective case built for Annabelle inside their home in their occult museum.
Ed constructed an enclosure to his specifications inscribing the Lord's Prayer and Saint Michael's Prayer on the case affixing a cross to it, and mounted a sign on the front reading Positively do not open. According to the Warrens, after Annabelle was locked in the glass case, they never saw it move again. The case serves to contain evil as they put it. And from then on, the doll simply sat behind glass until recently she is now on a tour throughout the country.
Where do we start?
Let her rip man.
Alright. So they get the doll, they start bringing it home, they claim that they're having car issues. Were there any witnesses to this? Was there any documentation around this? No. Not whatsoever. It's their propos it's their assertion, right? Second, where is the proof of all of these activities that this doll was supposedly having in their home? There's none. Three, why would you ever have a paranormal museum? And moreover, why would you build a glass case for this thing? If you really want to make sure it doesn't get out, why not have a steel cage? Why not do anything?
Oh, and just so happens that after it's in the glass cage, then suddenly it never moves again. That's really bloody convenient. None of this adds up. And I call bullshit on the entire escapade.
What gets me uh the most from the story, like you said, JJ, is the idea that they had all of these artifacts in one place. And so if we're sitting here and we're postulating, like, okay, well, there has to be some semblance of truth to these stories across the globe, across time that happen to be paranormal and they they are tied to physical objects and energies and all that stuff, like we're all open to that idea because we all know that there are things we don't know about this world and what's after this world and what all that junk.
But what's fascinating to me is like even if they were hucksters, like even if they just you know were all in it for fame and money, something weird must have happened. Like, because you know, if if these things, you know, one of these objects had to have been an actual something. You know, and it's just like so that that's what really gets me. Like, like you have all of these things in the room together, and I feel like nobody's talked about this, but like what happens if you have multiple objects with negative energies associated to them?
Like, let's say you have one object that's associated to some ancient, I don't know, ancient culture that is that religion is not around anymore, and then another one that's related to Islam, and another's related to Hinduism, another's related to Christianity, and all of these like artifacts are swirling together in negative energy. Do they like cancel each other out? Like, or like I don't know. Does that make sense? Like what like they must have experienced something, like one of these things had to be have had to have been authentic.
It's just strange to me that they could keep them all together and and not have the house explode.
Yeah, I mean as they as we say in the South, even a blind dog finds a bone every once in a while.
Yes, exactly. Yep.
It it could be that I'm gonna tell you the real reason that I have a problem with Ed and Lorraine Warren. And that is that beyond some of the shitty movies, I spent money on their book entitled The Demonologist, and I began to read the preface. If they could prove even one of the outlandish claims that they make in that book ever happened, then there would be no paranormal debate in the world at all.
One of the things was it was Ed Warren who was sitting at his desk and suddenly, or they were sitting in their study, and suddenly they heard a huge commotion in the hallway, and suddenly they found themselves being chased by a demonic entity that was rampaging throughout their halls. If you could prove that, great, but you can't. And nothing like the the claims are so fantastical that you have to either putt up or shut up at this point. And they never putt up. Now I will be generous. I will say that they probably started off with good intentions of wanting to help people.
I mean, as as you said, Chris, this was a time period in which people really didn't believe this. And if you were experiencing something even uh remotely off from the typical lived experience in the US, then you could be viewed as crazy. And so they stepped in and were wanting to help people in this regard. That's great. That's the way it should be. But tell me why.
Suddenly there was movie deals, lectures, book tours that surrounded it, to the point where a lot of the famous cases which they were supposedly involved in, a lot of people said, Oh, yeah, they were just like tangentially involved, and yet suddenly their names are the primary ones that are on the bill. There's just w I think that along the way they found out how to manipulate the media and how to get attention, and just like with a little bit of power, power corrupts.
And they see they saw the money opportunity that came in, and I I can't I can, but I won't fault them for being human in that regard, because it's a very easy temptation to fall into, but fall they did, and that's why I simply cannot trust anything that they were involved in. Now, the fictional Ed and Lorraine Warren that's depicted in the Conjuring movies, most of which are good, besides the first Annabelle and the Nun series, which are just horrible, those are decent movies. And if it happened like that, that would be something completely different. But it's not, and I wish it were.
I think a lot of us wish it were. I wish a lot of us thought that hope that Zack Begins never existed, or he never opened up his idiotic haunted museum in Las Vegas, and he did that anyway. So we all have a lot of hopes, and they rarely ever come true.
Can you imagine like going back uh 500 years to a time when you know science wasn't pervasive and people just kind of believed even more so today, like what they heard or read they could read, and but you told somebody like in 500 years you can get rich and have boats and planes and mansions by just talking about the paranormal, and then meanwhile, this one like you know, shaman dude sitting in the mud and dirt with his like tattered clothes is just like what the fuck? You know what I mean?
Like it like it just blows my mind, like born in the wrong time in the same way that actors and famous athletes and all that stuff. Like, imagine being imagine being alive to watch your profession explode in lucrativeness, like you just going from like, oh, I busted my ass playing baseball up until like 1942, and then I retired, and then like ten years later I'm watching people sign like multi-million dollar deals, like god damn it, like I fuck, you know. So I feel I'm with you, man. Like I think they can they can't they can they captured that perfectly in the time period that they came up in.
Oh, that that makes sense. Uh I I get your person, Mr.
Devil's Advocate, pop on in.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, let me put it this way. Oh, fine, I'll I'll continue the devil to be the devil's advocate. If you find a way to make money with your hobby and you know how to get attention, why should that diminish what you're trying to do with regards to helping people?
No, I mean that that's a good point. If you are above board in your actions as you do that, more power to you. I'm not against anyone making a buck in this world. It's when you begin to falsify and fabricate and exaggerate what you're doing or what you're involved in in order to further your claims for money or fame or whatever it happens to be, that's when I have a problem with it. And I think that's exactly what's happened in their particular case.
One question I'll have for you, JJ, is that what do you think of the relationships they had established with clergy among the different Christian and Catholic churches? In which you you would think that they would be the first ones to call them out. Specifically, like a seasoned exorcist would would tell Ed or somebody, like, dude, this is fucking wrong. Like you're gonna get people hurt.
That's a really good question, and I don't have an answer for that. I will say that if these priests were doing blessings or exorcisms of locale, those do not require a bishop's approval in order to conduct those. So really, I mean, it's just a matter of the priest's time at that point. If do they err on the side of caution? If so, then and that's usually the case, then you wouldn't have seen any kind of um reaction from that particular standpoint. I don't know. Maybe that it may maybe that is the fatal flaw in my bias against them. And I I'm being completely honest, it is a bias.
It is not like I have researched this for a thousand years and I have concrete proof that you know they were sh they were frauds, I could be completely in the wrong here. So my ego is not inflated enough to claim that I am beyond reproach. And if that is a case for that, and if y'all have particular instances, the listeners and they're listening or watching this, let us know. Feel free to write us. You can find my contact information on southerndemonology.com, Chris and Dean.
You can reach us at TWRadpodcast at gmail.com.
We uh do ask for no hate mail to be sent.
But if you have hate mail, send it to JJ.
Please don't. I get enough of that as it is. I don't need to add fuel to the fire on that one. But if you do have legitimate concerns or things that you want to point out, then feel free to. Yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Yeah, before before we go, I did a quick look up because I was curious as to what Father Malachi Martin thought of them. Because if you look at the time period, they're operating in the same time period. Yep. You're right. And it looks like from what I could find, is that he viewed them as you know, cultural Phenomenons. He respected Lorraine's contributions enough to include her voice in one of his documentary narratives. And he it seems that Father Martin kind of viewed them as fellow professionals operating in an overlapping field.
But he never really published anything specific about them, either supporting them or damning them. So I I think it's very interesting when you and that would make sense.
I mean, if you're wanting to like Martin, when he left the Jesuits, had he renounced his vow of poverty in order so that he could support himself. And if you're trying to make your way in a world, especially at an advanced age, if you can get some big names behind whatever you're working on, you don't have to approve of them, but it's only going if it's only going to be to the benefit and helps your genuine cause, why not? Now, even if Martin had come out and said that, oh, he thoroughly respected them and viewed them as equals, etc., that still would not change my mind.
There's not enough evidence to show that they had the, at least throughout their career, maybe in the beginning, had the best interests of people at heart. So I'll I'll leave it at that.
You know what's crazy is I'm about to bring something up that I'm pretty sure we touched on the last time Chris and I talked about the Warrens. Because we ended up invariably we ended up at the same point that we're ending up at now, which is there aren't just you can't just like pool everybody together. Like if you believe in a group, right?
If you believe in a way of life, if you're a a reasonable person, you can't just say that everybody in that group is good and everybody in that group is infallible, even if you believe the following is infallible or great, like you know, religion or whatever. So it's like kind of one of those situations where like, well, you don't really know what the the flow of thought through the priests who are associated with the Warrens, who who were supporting the Warrens or believing in them or whatever. You don't really know what the flow of thought and justification was.
It could be that I we've seen instances of this before, people in other religions justifying an action or a belief or a stance just to support what they believe is the ultimate ends to a good, which is, you know, we need to get people to follow Christ, we need to get all the believe we need we need to get people to believe in demons in order for them to skip be scared to go follow Christ. I'm not saying that's what happened, but we know that people across different religions, not just Catholicism, have arrived at that belief. It's documented.
The weird thing is I just watched a reel that I haven't seen or thought about in many, many years. I think it's from like the late 90s. Do you guys remember that story about that one young lady who claimed that she got a flu vaccine and then like a week later she could only walk backwards normal? Like she could only walk normal if she was walking walking backwards. Yeah. Like you can go look this up. It's it's it was a news, it was actually documented on a news channel and recorded, and it's like she she's trying to walk forward and she can't like she's go watch it, it's nuts.
But no, as you're watching it, that was totally fake. It was all faked. It came out later that it was an anti-vaxxer thing back in like the early 2000s, late 90s, where a group got to this girl, convinced her that she needed to put on this elaborate act in front of the whole nation, the world, really, to because they wanted people to believe that taking vaccines was bad for society. They would it would harm kids and all this stuff. Maybe they really believe that, but the way in which they went about getting that out there was completely fake. It was completely fabricated.
This lady did not have any ill effects from a flu vaccine. And what really actually, like, I get to an age where like I, when I was younger, I'd be like, okay, that sucks, that's terrible. But now I'm just fucking pissed off because imagine how many kids, there must have been at least a few. Imagine how many parents stopped giving their kids vaccines. A few of them probably died because they saw that news article, that was fake, and they just decided, uh, maybe I shouldn't give my kids vaccines, and then boom, their kids dead.
And like I kind of liken that to this case where it's like, well, maybe the warrants really were fabricating everything and getting people all in a tizzy, like riled up over this paranormal stuff. But the people who were backing it, maybe they didn't believe that, but they were thinking, like, oh, this could actually benefit my group indirectly. And I'm not saying, you know, it's obviously way more evil. The the the vaccine thing is way more evil than letting people believe that there are spirits and dolls, obviously.
But I'm just I'm not trying to say that they're equal in evilness, but I'm just saying it's the same in the same vein of trickery to to justification to try to get more followers on your side. And I kind of get the feeling that that's what this case is. I don't know. That's the last thing I'll say on this.
No, and I I love that point because I haven't read anything that makes me believe that any goodwill that Ed and Lorne Lorraine War uh Warren had was anything but transactional in nature. I'll get something out of this. So yeah, I'll put up with you. Yeah, if if that's the case, then that is terribly sad. The other thing that I really hate about Annabelle, and I'm not saying it's the 100% root cause, although I think it has a lot to do with it, is the rise of all of these idiotic haunted doll or haunted artifact sellers on Etsy and other platforms. Oh no.
Talking these idiotic things out to people. Yeah. Now, are there cursed objects? Are there haunted objects? Absolutely. Can you go buy them on Etsy from Miss So and So? I highly doubt it. And whenever money gets involved into a particular field, then things can go horribly, horribly wrong. And we are we are seeing that. We are in the find out stage of that particular episode, unfortunately.
That's hilarious. I did not know. Sorry, man, I was just gonna say, yeah, that's hilarious. I did not know that there was an uh a whole back channel of Etsy of like haunted artifacts just being sold. That's really, really funny.
That was because I liked horror and supernatural. That was the crap that was being pushed out to me. All of these haunted dolls shops. And I'm just like, oh god. Okay. Look, anyway, okay, like, dude, here's the thing.
Like, here's what really irks me about the nature of society and humans and all this crap. Like, like, okay, so me speaking personally, I want to have enough money to give my family security and my kids education and maybe go on a couple trips for you. Like, all the great stuff you get out of life.
But I feel like like we're all smart enough, all three of us are smart enough to start some venture and do something like this, but I just don't have it in me to be like, okay, well, let's just put, let's put down, uh, let's let's borrow $250,000 from a bank and we'll go start our own factory, and we'll we'll uh you know start some kind of like uh IP where we reserve some name for a doll, and then we'll just claim like, oh, this is associated to the same concept as the Ouija board. You could be buying something that has uh a spirit entangled with it.
We're not saying it is, but it'd be fun to like if it was, and then you just start mass producing this like Chucky-esque doll, and then people would just buy that shit up and you'd become a millionaire overnight. But to do that, you would have to be okay with selling people what you know that a lot of people believe in that you yourself don't believe in, and like that, I just can't do that.
Like, I I don't have that in me, and I don't know, some people might call that a weakness in the sense of capitalism and stuff, some might call it a strength in the sense of morality, but like I just think that like you tie that back to the Warrens, and like that's oh man, you have empathy, right? I know who who would have thought who would have thought that I had any empathy.
Um even in our even in our particular little circle where we create things and put them out on the internet, yeah. What we don't do is put out complete bullshit about, oh, did you see these bones? They're giant bones, or oh my god, the pyramids were built by aliens. We don't yeah, we don't put that shit out there. Does that stuff work? Yes, they those videos get viewed millions of times. I'm sure they have monetized them to the moon. I don't care. I could never stoop so low as to begin to peddle conspiracy theories in the hopes of getting money.
Gotta love those. Everything is the fucking Effa Lean. Yeah.
It's why we're never that's not we're not we're not that's why we're not gonna be rich. That's why we're not gonna be that's why we're not gonna be rich.
Well, we'll be alright. We'll be right.
We'll be okay, but we're we'll be alright. We're not gonna be Zach Bagan's alright.
Look, see, I know okay. Whatever Zach is doing in his personal life, like whoever he's screwing, I I don't care. That has nothing to do with me. I think people like to focus too much on who people are fucking and what they're doing in their marriage as opposed to what they do professionally.
Zach Begins, you can say some of his show is probably scripted, but when they were doing shit early on where it was just the three of them going to like fucking Paveglia Island and like I don't agree with this, but provoking things and all these different things, yeah, and to the point where like it affected his fucking eyesight, like it started affecting his health. I commend you for doing that, but like it's one of those things, like, okay, yeah, it became popular, he made a shit ton of money out of it, but you still run the risk of something bad happening to you.
Like JJ, you've talked multiple times of how talking about this shit, and I've even mentioned it when I tell my stories, like I go on different podcasts telling my stories. I'm talking about something infernal, probably. You feel like that shit's watching you. So I mean, there you you run a risk to it, and people like Zach Bagans, I know, like I said, people care more about the drama aspect of it, but I view him with more credibility than I do with a lot of other people, because there are people that have been to his haunted museum, and it's like there's some shit really in there.
We had a guest that went to the museum that had a shit ton of paranormal experiences early on in their life, if you rem recall, Dean. I think it was Riley, and then who had the ability to like see things and experience stuff throughout his life, and he went to the museum and he saw this like figure tailing them, and then he asked about it afterward, and he's like, Yeah, we norm like people normally report seeing a shadow figure here. So I get it, like when money gets involved, like we're all human beings here, like we all gotta eat, we all gotta live.
I think it's up to you to you know draw your own conscious slash moral line with how you plan to operate. What I wanted to circle back to, Dean, with what you were saying of how like the Warrens probably use this, and you know, some of the church figures to different types of denominations of churches were like, okay, maybe we can use this to gain people to gain followers. If you're using a fear tactic to gain followers, that's that says more about you as opposed to what you're trying to do to reach those people.
Because when you think of religion, the first thing you should not fucking think of is the demonic Satan, Jinn, the negative aspects of it. You should not lead with the negative aspects. And I I don't know.
I'm gonna get off my soapbox because you're speaking to a person who grew up on a healthy, unhealthy, steady diet of hellfire. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But but I digress. I I think the last thing I'll say about the Annabelle case in general, I I think it's a little bit muddy because you involve the publ publicity, you have high-profile individuals, because when you become that type of person, it doesn't matter what you do. There's some sort of thing that comes along with it. It's like, oh, you went to the Warrens, oh, you just want fucking attention. Oh, you went here, you just want X, you want that. You're trying to monetize, you're trying to do this, you're trying to do that. So I think that aspect of it, you know, can cast some doubts.
Do I think the doll might be haunted? Maybe. It's currently on like a tour, and I don't you guys could call bullshit on this, but every location that it goes, something odd fucking happens. Like that plantation burnt down.
Then that's great advertisement if they can do that. Not plantation.
But do you think they would fucking burn down the audacity to burn down something that massive for the sake of publicity?
No, I do not somebody might think that at all.
Somebody might.
Who knows?
Yeah, imagine that timing, huh? Oh man, that'd be dude. Crazy shit like that happens all the time, man.
Like, people are smart in the sense that they'll do something that it that is really dumb that they'll get caught, but it's kind of smart in the sense, like, when they try to do it in the moment, like, oh, oh, okay, what if I do this, this, and this, and then they don't think far enough, and they just end up with um going to jail like a month, like someone's gonna get arrested for this arson like six months later, we're never gonna hear of it because all the story of an is gonna die down, and and the only thing that's left over is like, did you hear about the Annabelle place that burned down?
Like, I don't know. All I can say is that I lose zero tears over a plantation getting burnt, have having been burned down.
Right?
And that comes from a southerner, so you know yeah, you heard it from him.
I ain't say shit. Just kidding. I'm a huge Civil War buff, so I'll digress on that. But now we wrap it up. Take us home, Mr. JJ.
Alrighty, so we greatly appreciate you joining us for this. We realize that there are probably more hot takes in this episode than normal. Not trying to piss people off, but just trying to throw some healthy skepticism into something that has been in the cultural zeitgeist for a while now. As always, I am your host, JJ. You can find Southern Demonology for those who are coming from the wandering road at uh southerndemonology.com, which has all of our links and episodes and even how to contact me. And for you, Kristen Dean.
Uh, you can reach us at our email address of twroadpodcast at gmail.com. We are on Facebook, we are on Instagram, we are on TikTok. So if you want to reach out to us on our email or any of the social media platforms, just search for the wandering road, and we'd be more than happy to interface with the community. And also, if you would like to be on the show, please reach out to us. Please send us your opinions, please send us your stories. Like I said, we love talking with the community, it's a fun time.
That's how we get our guests on the show, and that's how we keep the show running for you all.
To add to that, just real quick, if you want to say hi, if you want to interact with us, feel free to because I'm telling you, yeah, I I've I've met people in which they they responded to something I've said, and we sit there and start having a good conversation, and they're like, Wow, I never thought that you would talk to me. And I'm like, Why? The the number one thing that we love as podcasters is having interactions with everyone out there. That's why we do this. We want to hear from you, we want, and we don't get nearly enough of it.
So if you have that inkling to reach out and even just say hi, do it. Because we're not going to bite your head off. We love that shit. So, you know, go ahead, D.
And uh, I was gonna say, uh, and if you are a super rich billionaire, here he goes again. Who wants to run a social who wants to run a social experiment out of trading out of trading places with uh Dan Ackward and Eddie Murphy, uh please send five million dollars to uh blah blah blah blah blah. Just kidding. Okay. That's my that's my little joke, like tying it into the Warrens and making money and like saying, like, well, we're legit, so if we ever made the money that we want to make, we'd hard stop, keep doing this shit, and we wouldn't chase money anymore.
Keep delivering you the same truthful, logical progression of interesting stories, and we're not chasing money, we're just trying to make a living off of this because like this is what we love to do, and so that's my uh trading places pitch, uh, which is a really great movie. I'm probably gonna go watch because I just remembered it existed.
So go watch Trading Places Pitch. And by the way, I'm yeah, I would do more at that money than they would.
So yeah, hell yeah. And let's get can we get Dan Aykroyd on? Let's get Dan Aykroyd on. I want to get Dan Aykroyd on the show, that'd be fucking awesome.
Oh God, I would absolutely love that. I have loved him ever since I have first seen a movie of his. And yeah, yeah. He's a great, great guy.
All right, folks. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. Tune into Southern Demonology. Keep listening to The Wandering Road, reach out to us, come on the show. If you think we're stupid for our opinions on this topic, go ahead. Tell us. I don't give a shit. Unload. Or if you want us to cover topics like this even more, you know, this type of platform where we talk about it and then we just have a debate, let us know. Thank you all for listening. Yep.
Take care.
Thank you all.
Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com, which offers links to all of our social media and episodes. Southern Demonology is solely owned, produced, and edited by myself, and the intro and outro music are composed by me as well. If you have a moment, please rate, like, and share this podcast, as it is the best way to help support my work. As always, I am JJ, and it has been a pleasure to speak to you today.