THE DEMONOLOGIST

The Demonologist was originally commissioned by Prentice-Hall as the followup to its 1977 bestseller, The Amityville Horror, which told a tale about a supernatural attack upon a young family living in a Long Island house. The publisher reasoned that if people were so interested in one case of diabolical phenomena, then they might also be interested in the entire subject of demonology. The publisher was right, and though The Amityville Horror ultimately came and went, The Demonologist has remained in print for some two decades.

The secret to the book’s success lies not in the stories it tells, but rather in the nature of the information it yields. For this is a book that goes a dimension further back, to explain the actual workings behind mystical phenomena. Readers learn, for example, that there is not just one, but in fact two types of spirits that are encountered in haunting stituations. One is human, the other however is inhuman - the latter being a spirit so debased and deadly it is prohibited from taking life in human form. For the priests and other professionals who were required to investigate the Amityville case, it came to be known that it was just such a spirit -- an inhuman demonic spirit -- that was causing the calamity to occur. Thus the connection to demonology.

Back then, many thought the Amityville house was haunted by "ghosts". But that hopeful scenario never proved out. Something else was afoot. Although the Catholic diocese on Long Island steadfastly refused comment on the Amityville case, the tip-off to the press came through the presence of two people in the background, who tended only to be called in to the very worst cases of religious outbreak. These people were the Warrens - Ed and Lorraine Warren. The gravity became real because Ed Warren was a demonologist. And the Warrens were there on business.

The Warrens were in Amityville for two reasons: first because they’d been called in; but second because the priests involved were actively being attacked while working the case for the church. That part of the story never got covered in the original Amityville book, but as time went on The Warrens were brought in with some urgency to bring the phenomena to a stop. Which they ultimately did.

Eventually the Amityville case dropped out of the headlines and the press went away. But Prentice-Hall stayed with the story. Who were these people - the Warrens - the publisher wanted to know? And what did they know? Was this phenomena real, or was it just psychological? Furthermore, had such a thing ever happened to anyone else, or was the Amityville case just a quirk?

These questions were the origin of this book. And by the time they were answered, Amityville quickly diminished in significance. For it soon became apparent that this phenomenon had nothing to do with abnormal human behavior. Instead it was real, it happened to others, it was distinctly religious, and its significance was utterly grave. The Warrens, furthermore, proved to be unique experts on the subject of demonology and exorcism, with some three thousand cases to their credit, stretching back to the early 1950's. Most important of all, they were not bound by the church to silence. They could talk, and in the end the Warrens had a whole lot to tell. And what they told was frightening and real and important. Important enough to be transmitted in print. From all this then was born the book, THE DEMONOLOGIST, the Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren.