The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren Read Online Free PDF Page B

manifests in this way, there tends to be an intense smell of ozone in the room, and the resulting materialization comes across with a bluish glow—quite a spectacle, I assure you. All in all, though, the spirit is liable to manifest before you are aware of its presence, or as you watch. The important point is that in one case the spirit requires a human presence to materialize, while in the other, only Mother Nature is needed. But a ghost certainly does not have to manifest in order to be there, because it is not intrinsically a material entity. The ghost will already be there; it manifests simply to verify its presence to those in the physical realm.”
    How a ghost manifests is one thing—but how it looks to the individual is something else again. Why are some ghosts headless, or disfigured?
    “The spirit’s appearance,” Ed states, “depends entirely on how that particular spirit determines to project itself, or how it sees itself in its own mind. This is why encounters with earthbound spirits are not always easygoing, passive affairs. Tragedy comes in many forms, often accompanied by violence, and an individual’s last thoughts tend to dominate the mind of his spirit after physical death. Thus the ghost will often manifest as a grotesque spectacle, representative of the manner in which it died. Furthermore, a person who meets a tragic end often carries a negative attitude into the afterlife, many times blaming God for his troubles. Consequently, some spirits are mean, and—contrary to what people may think—a spiteful ghost can bring about physical and psychological effects that can lead to illness, injury, or even death. Psychologically, oppression by human spirits can result in unshakeable depression, unpleasant habits like drinking or insomnia, even impulses toward suicide. Physical effects can range from lingering illnesses to jabs of acute pain that have no medical origin in the body.”
    At least half the people who call on Ed and Lorraine Warren each year have never had anything to do with spirits or the occult. Rather, they tend to be normal, everyday people who inadvertently walk into situations where spirits were active before they arrived. This happened in Amityville, where the Lutz family lost a good deal of money and suffered emotional catastrophe as well. Some buy haunted cars, and then find themselves being oppressed to re-create tragic accidents. Still others find themselves being uncontrollably possessed by a spirit of someone or something that is distinctly not them. And often the most unsuspecting of people will fall prey to spirit phenomena. This is precisely what happened at West Point.
    It was October 1972. An officer at the United States Military Academy telephoned the Warrens a day before they were scheduled to present a general lecture to the cadets there. Though the officer’s comments were deliberately vague, he nonetheless told the Warrens that a curious security problem had arisen, and he wanted to know if they’d be willing to help—in a professional capacity—before they lectured the next day at the Point. Without probing, the Warrens agreed to lend assistance. “Good,” the relieved officer said, “I’ll send a car for you tomorrow at three P.M.”
    The following afternoon a shiny black limousine bearing government plates pulled up outside the Warrens’ front door. Ed and Lorraine, dressed in evening clothes for the lecture, slid into the roomy back seat. The chauffeur, an Army staff sergeant, told them the drive would take about one hour, but volunteered no other information.
    Moving north along the Taconic Parkway through occasional snow showers, the limousine nevertheless kept up a steady pace of sixty miles per hour. Travelers along the highway peered into the car while the Warrens wondered what kind of “security matter” had led the government to call them in.
    A little past four P.M., they entered the gates of the United States Military Academy. The sergeant pulled