What Is The Book About?
The Demonologist is a biographical account of the lives of Ed and Lorraine Warren, written by Gerald Brittle. It was originally published in 1980.
The Warrens are also the main characters of the Conjuring movie franchise, which is based on their real lives and careers.
The Warrens were a husband and wife team of paranormal and demonic investigators. Ed was the only non-ordained Catholic demonologist still recognized by the Church, and Lorraine was a psychic medium. Together, they worked on many high-profile cases, including the Amnityville haunting, the Annabelle doll case, and the Enfield poltergeist case.
The Demonologist focuses heavily on cases that the Warrens investigated, as well as their beliefs concerning hauntings, spirits, and demons. It also contains a lot of quotes and commentary from both Warrens.
The Demonologist also extensively explains the stages of demonic infestation and possession, and provides detailed accounts of both. The Warrens have stated that their primary goal in speaking out about their experiences is to educate others and help keep them from making dangerous mistakes, so the book does focus on incidents where a family or person is being harmed or is in danger of being harmed.
Trigger warning: violence, murder, mentions of rape, blood and gore, and explicit language.
What I Liked About It
At the bare minimum, I found this book to be very entertaining. The anecdotes Brittle told were interesting, and it wasn't a struggle to finish the book.
I liked how neatly and precisely it defined and compared human spirits and inhuman spirits. I felt that Ed Warren's definition fit closely to what I've read and learned from various other sources.
I also found this book to be helpful in learning specifically about Catholic beliefs about demons, spirits, and exorcism. There's a lot of information given about the rites and procedures of the Catholic exorcism and blessing. Interestingly enough, a Catholic blessing works by filling the house with positive, not by directly driving out the negative! The concept is that filling the house with the energy and blessing of God will make the dwelling an inhospitable environment for the demonic.
In addition, The Demonologist went very in-depth into the stages and causes of demonic infestation and possession, according to Catholic demonologists. These parts were definitely thought-provoking.
What I Disliked About It
This list is going to be a bit longer, as there were several main themes in this book that I personally disagree with.
First, it presented demons as inherently evil and violent. Of course, this book is from a Christian perspective, so that's to be expected, but it is still a little misleading. Presenting demons as vengeful and disgusting creatures that only seek to harm people is one of the greatest misconceptions of demonology and demonolatry.
Second, this book is full of fear-mongering concerning the occult. Witchcraft is said to be "black magick" and, according to the Warrens, the number one thing you can do to get a negative entity on your tail. There are several stories in the book that involve the victim using a Ouija board, spell book, or "conjuring candles," and then being attacked by a demonic force. I think that this book was probably written, at least in part, out of the Warren's desire to condemn the occult as dangerous and immoral. Beyond that, several of the stories involve very stereotypical, horror-movie style "occultism" taking place, and most of what they are describing is not accurate to what modern witchcraft is (like drinking blood and killing babies).
Third, I find some aspects of the Warren's stories difficult to believe. They describe demons physically and visibly manifesting quite frequently. They also describe demons physically launching huge objects and furniture across the room, as well as teleportation. I find both the frequency and strength of these occurrences to be a little bit unbelievable or exaggerated. In all honesty, I find the extravagant aspects of their stories to be a little discrediting to their reliability as a source.
From a modern demonology standpoint, I got little use out of this book. It's depiction of demons is misleading, and it uses the term demonologist to describe someone who acts against demons, not works with them. However, I am also currently studying Catholicism, and the discussion of Catholic beliefs and rituals was helpful to me in that matter.
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