The True Stories of Raggedy Annie. The Story of the Possessed Annabelle Doll The Beginning of an Unusual Career

Translation Rosemarina - website

The Conjuring, released in 2013, is based on the heartbreaking story of the Perron family, whose members encounter an evil entity and seek help from American paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film brought its creators tens of millions of dollars and gave rise to countless nightmares around the world. “The Conjuring” is a true story about the doll Annabelle, which is possessed by a demon. Her image left an indelible mark in the memory of everyone who watched the film, subsequently turning into a pop cultural phenomenon...

Let me be frank from the start: I hate dolls. And I always hated it.

It all started at the house of my slightly eccentric elderly cousin. She lived in a large estate with many long corridors, dusty furniture, shabby wallpaper, the acrid smell of mothballs and rooms, each of which had at least one old porcelain doll with a cracked face and an evil look. No matter what part of the room I was in, her eyes always looked piercingly at me.

As I grew older, I began to reject my childhood fears. I convinced myself that it was stupid to be afraid of inanimate objects, but I still felt an inexplicable disgust for dolls, especially old ones.

In thrift stores and antique shops, I always felt uneasy when I noticed a doll or puppet staring at me with its glassy, ​​dead eyes. My whole body instantly froze. I tried to calm myself down, but something inside me told me that my fear was justified. I was convinced of this after watching the aforementioned film “The Conjuring”.

Annabelle - a doll possessed by the devil

As with many cinematic depictions of supposedly true stories, The Conjuring's filmmakers took some liberties with their interpretation of the source material. The nasty, pink-cheeked Annabelle doll from the film was actually just a regular rag Annie.

Raggedy Annie is a cute doll with a triangle nose and red hair. She was originally a fictional character in a series of children's books created by author (and marketing genius) Johnny Grewal. After the tragic death of his little daughter (she died as a result of vaccination), who helped him with the image of Raggedy Annie, Gruel decided to patent his “invention”. In 1915, the first toy Raggedy Annie was born.

Birthday gift

The doll, which inspired James Wan, the creator of The Conjuring, was purchased at an antique store in 1970 by a woman looking for a unique gift for her daughter, Donna.

A woman whose name is lost to the annals of history decided that a large, old rag doll would be the perfect gift for her daughter who was graduating from medical school. She brought the doll to the apartment where Donna lived with her friend Angie. The girl thanked her mother for the gift and, throwing Raggedy Annie on the bed, forgot about her, at least for a few days.

Over time, Donna began to notice that the doll was changing its position. However, she did not attach much importance to this, thinking that she just imagined it. As the weeks passed, the doll's strange movements began to seriously bother Donna and Angie. One day, when the girls returned home, they saw Raggedy Annie standing on her feet in the dining room, leaning on a chair, as if she had frozen in mid-stride when she heard the front door open.

Donna later turned to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. She wrote to them:

“Every morning, after making the bed, I sat the doll on the bed. When we returned home in the evening, we noticed that she was not sitting in the position in which I had left her. For example, she crossed her legs or folded her hands in her lap. It started to look suspicious to us.”

Sometimes Donna would leave Raggedy Annie on the bed, only to find her sitting cross-legged on the couch when she returned home. On other occasions, Donna would sit the doll on the sofa, only to discover in the evening that it had moved into her bedroom - and had locked the door! Angie also noticed that something strange was happening with the doll:

“The doll moved around the apartment on its own. One day we came home and she was sitting in a chair by the front door. Sometimes we found her on her knees. The strangest thing is that when we tried to get her on her knees, she immediately fell. Sometimes we would find her in the living room on the sofa, although Donna would leave her in her room with the door closed!”

Messages from the other world

The girls, outraged by this strange turn of events, decided to tell their friend Lowe about everything. According to the young man, when he saw the doll, he immediately realized that evil had entered into it. Donna and Angie were not ready to believe that something insidious was afoot.

After Donna and Angie talked about Lowe's strange doll, strange messages began to appear throughout their apartment. The girls found strips of parchment paper with the words “HELP US” or “HELP LOW” scrawled on them. Donna recalled in bewilderment:

“She left us little messages. The handwriting looked like a child's... Lowe was not in danger. And we didn’t understand who this “to us” was. The strangest thing is that the messages were written on parchment with a pencil, but we had neither parchment nor pencils in our apartment!”

Donna and Angie began to think that someone had a key to their apartment, and this person decided to make fun of them. The girls turned into amateur detectives and began making notes on the windows and adjusting the carpets under the doors to find out if anyone was visiting them while they were away. Much to their chagrin, all the “traps” were untouched, and the doll continued to walk around the apartment.

Over time, Donna and Angie came to terms with the fact that they had a “living doll” in their home that seemed to have no nefarious intentions. One Christmas, the girls found chocolate on the stereo that neither of them had bought. They realized it was a gift from Raggedy Annie.

Unfortunately, harmony did not reign in Donna and Angie's apartment for long:

“One day we witnessed how a figurine that was standing on a table suddenly rose into the air, turned over and fell to the floor. None of us touched her. We were actually on the other side of the room. This incident gave us a lot of fear."

From that moment on, the situation began to deteriorate.

Doll bleeding

Two months after this incident, Donna and Angie returned home from school to find that the doll had again moved from the living room, where it had been left, to the bedroom. However, according to Donna, something else shocked them: an inexplicable negative energy was emanating from Raggedy Annie.

The girls hesitantly approached the doll and saw that blood was oozing from its hands and chest. This scared my friends a lot.

Shocked by what was happening, the neighbors decided to turn to a medium for help.

Medium

A medium, whose name is unknown, agreed to conduct a seance in the apartment of future nurses. Donna said:

“A month (or a little more) after all these strange things started happening, Angie and I decided to contact a woman who was a medium.”

The medium conducted a seance, after which she told Donna and Angie a heartbreaking story about a little girl named Annabelle Higgins, whose body was discovered in the field on which the house where the girls rent an apartment was built. According to Donna:

“We learned that Annabelle Higgins was seven years old. Her spirit said that she often played in the field on which the house where we live was built. Annabelle said these were happy times for her."

The medium was unable to establish the details of the girl's death. Donna explained:

“The medium said that since most of the residents of the house were adults and were constantly at work, Annabelle decided to establish contact with us. She felt that we would understand her, so she began to move the rag doll. All Annabelle wanted was to be loved, so she asked us to accept her. What could we do? We agreed".

Angie explained the logic behind the decision:

“We thought it was pretty harmless. We are nurses and we encounter human suffering every day. We have a feeling of compassion. From then on we started calling the doll Annabelle.”

The girls didn't realize then what a terrible mistake they had made by inviting the spirit of the seemingly innocent Annabelle to live inside a rag doll.

The beginning of a nightmare

Lowe, coming to visit the girls immediately after the medium conducted a seance, and seeing the doll, said that it was fraught with danger and advised Donna to get rid of it.

The girl refused. She said that getting rid of this doll would be like abandoning a child. And although Annabelle remained to live with the girls, she, apparently, was not happy with Lowe's intervention.

Lowe understood that something was wrong with the doll, but he was not ready to meet her at home. The Warrens wrote:

“One night, Lowe woke up from a deep sleep, panic-stricken. He had a bad dream again. He was no longer asleep, but he could not move. Lowe looked around the room and saw the Annabelle doll.”

He recalled with horror:

“I knew for sure that I woke up, but something strange was happening to me. I looked around the room, but didn't notice anything unusual. Then I looked at my feet and saw a rag doll, Annabelle. She slowly began to slide up my body. She crawled to her chest and stopped. The next moment Annabelle began to choke me.”

The Warrens concluded his heartbreaking story:

“Immobilized and suffocating, Low lost consciousness from lack of air. He woke up the next morning with full confidence that it was not a dream. Lowe was determined to get rid of this doll and the spirit that possessed it.”

Lowe was firmly convinced that the night's “nightmare” was a kind of warning to mind his own business. But, fearing for his girlfriends, Lowe refused to stand by. He knew that Annabelle would repeat her attempt to get rid of him.

The next evening, Angie and Lowe prepared for their upcoming trip by looking at cards together in the living room. It was about eleven in the evening. Suddenly, the couple heard a strange sound coming from Donna's room. Angie thought that someone had broken into their apartment, but Lowe thought otherwise.

Plucking up his courage, Lowe began to walk slowly towards Donna's bedroom. He paused near the door, and the strange sounds died down. He opened the door and turned on the light.

The room was empty. Annabelle was lying on the floor in the corner of the room. Lowe approached her carefully. Then he felt a slight tingling sensation in the back of his neck, as if someone was standing behind him. Low explained his feelings to the Warrens this way:

“When I approached the doll, I got the impression that someone was standing behind me. I turned around and...”

At this moment Angie interrupted him:

“He doesn't want to talk about it. When Lowe turned around, there was no one behind him, but he suddenly screamed and grabbed his chest. When I entered the room, he was lying on the floor, covered in blood. He was shaking. He was very scared. We returned to the living room. Lowe took off his shirt and we saw claw marks underneath!”

The Warrens, Donna and Angie claimed that Lowe actually had wounds, but, unfortunately, no one thought to photograph them. Oddly enough, the tracks, which, according to Lowe, were terribly hot and radiated heat, disappeared forty-eight hours after the incident.

Meet the Warrens

Realizing that they were dealing with something much worse than the kind spirit of a lonely child, Lowe, Donna and Angie decided to seek help from an Episcopal Church priest, Father Hegan. Hegan came to the girls’ home and asked them to explain the situation.

Hegan understood the gravity of their situation, but felt that he did not have enough practice to cope with it on his own, so he advised them to contact Father Cook. Father Cook, in turn, referred Donna, Angie and Lowe to his acquaintances - experienced demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The Warrens immediately contacted the girls and Lowe. After interviewing them, Ed Warren (a devout Catholic and also a paranormal investigator) was amazed that the young people believed the words of a ghost speaking through a medium. Ed Warren, after analyzing the situation, came to the following conclusions:

“Let's start with the fact that Annabelle is gone! And it never was. You have been deceived. However, we are indeed dealing with spirit. This is indicated by the movement of the doll in space in your absence, the appearance of notes with messages, three symbolic drops of blood, as well as the doll’s gestures. However, ghosts and human spirits are not capable of causing phenomena of this nature. They have no power."

At this point Lowe stated:

“It's a damn voodoo doll, that's what it is... I told them that from the very beginning. The doll is simply deceiving them. She used them for her own selfish purposes.”

Donna, as if in her own defense, said:

“It was Annabelle's spirit that we cared about! How were we to know that this was not so? Looking back, I realize that we probably shouldn't have trusted the doll so much. We considered her harmless. She never did anything bad to us...at least until that day.”

After talking with the young people, examining the rag doll, the wounds on Lowe's body and confirming that no one had ever seen the ghost of a child in the apartment, the Warrens came to the conclusion that they were dealing with a real demon.

The Warrens admitted that the doll itself was not actually possessed by an evil entity, but rather served as a conduit between the earthly realm and hell.

They also reported that the medium the girls turned to for help was manipulated to gain the trust of the apartment's residents, which led to an "infestation" of the house.

The Warrens also claimed that the demonic spirit played on the students' sympathy by pretending to be a lost child. According to Ed Warren:

“...this place has been taken over by an inhuman entity. Demonic. Usually demonic spirits do not bother people. Your first mistake was that you recognized the doll, it was for this reason that the spirit moved into the doll. Once the evil spirit has gained your attention, it begins to exploit you, instilling fear and horror and even causing you bodily harm. Demonic spirits enjoy causing pain. Your next mistake was calling a medium. After a seance, the demonic spirit received permission to interfere in your life.”

The three friends were shocked to hear this. However, the Warrens continued to insist that after the attack on Lowe, the demon would leave Annabelle and try to possess a person, which would inevitably end in murder. According to Ed Warren:

“Spirits are not interested in things, they need to possess people. What happened to Lowe this week was bound to happen sooner or later. In fact, any of you could become possessed by this spirit. Lowe didn't believe in the spirit's good intentions, so it was a threat to him. In a week or two the spirit would have dealt with Lowe.”

Exorcism ritual

The Warrens came to the conclusion that in order to expel the evil demon from the doll, it was necessary to perform an exorcism.

They contacted an Episcopal priest, Father Cook, who was initially reluctant to get involved, but eventually agreed after the Warrens explained to him how dire the situation was.

Ed Warren said that the blessing of an Episcopal Church priest is different from the Catholic rite of exorcism:

“The prayer for a home blessing by an Episcopal Church minister is a long-winded, seven-page document delivered in a distinctly positive manner. Instead of driving out evil entities from the living space, the emphasis is on filling the home with the positive power of God.”

Unlike most movie versions of the exorcism ritual, the ritual was carried out without any resistance from the demonic doll. After the sacred ceremony, Father Cook blessed Donna, Angie, Lowe and the Warrens and declared that the demon could no longer harm them... However, the Warrens were not so sure.

Consequences

After Father Cook performed the “exorcism” ritual, Ed and Lorraine doubted that the demon had left Annabelle and suggested that the girls remove the doll from the house. Donna and Angie, wanting to quickly get rid of the nightmare entity, willingly agreed to this.

Ed carefully took the hated doll and handed it to Lorraine. Father Cook (who apparently wasn't entirely sure of the effectiveness of the exorcism) told Ed not to drive home on the highway because the inhuman entity might remain in the doll and try to do something to the car.

Lorraine placed the doll in the back seat of the car, buckled up, and Ed started the engine as they began their long journey home. Ed heeded the priest's advice and tried to drive on winding country roads so as not to expose other drivers to the danger that their devilish passenger posed. This decision turned out to be correct.

According to the Warrens, as soon as they approached a sharp turn, their car immediately stalled or its brakes failed. They also nearly collided with a passing car. When Ed's patience ran out, he took a black bag, took out a bottle of holy water and sprinkled it on a rag doll and crossed himself. The doll behaved normally the rest of the way.

Arriving home, Ed (for unknown reasons) placed the doll on a chair next to his desk. He said Raggedy Ann rose into the air once before falling to the floor, lifeless. Everything was fine for a few weeks, after which Annabelle was up to her old tricks.

One day, the Warrens locked Annabelle in a closet and left, and when they returned, the doll was sitting on Ed's chair. After that, Annabelle began to move around the house.

When the Warrens grew tired of Annabelle's unnatural antics, they decided to seek help from Catholic priest and exorcist Father Jason Bradford. Apparently, Father Bradford didn't really want to deal with the "demonic doll."

According to the Warrens, Father Bradford walked up to the inert doll, grabbed it and shouted: "You're just a rag doll Annabelle, you can't hurt anyone!" After that, he threw the doll onto the chair. Ed, in his characteristic caustic manner, said: “It would be better if you didn’t say that.”

Lorraine was also dismayed by Father Bradford's dismissive behavior. She asked the priest to be careful while driving and to call her when he got home. Father Bradford called late at night and said in an alarmed voice that he had been involved in an accident due to a sudden brake failure. He and the other victims miraculously managed to survive.

The Warrens decided that Annabelle was too dangerous for the world, so they placed her in a special sealed box - a kind of glass coffin, on which was written: "WARNING: DO NOT OPEN."

The box containing the demonic doll to this day was left in a locked room with cursed items that the Warrens had seized during other investigations.

Ultimately, the Warrens turned their macabre collection into an "Occult Museum" that is open to the public. Annabelle, imprisoned in a glass coffin, seems unable to move, but this does not mean that she has calmed down.

One day a young couple visited the Warrens' museum. After Ed told Annabelle's story, the arrogant young man, in an attempt to impress his date, began knocking on the glass box and asking the doll to wake up and scratch him.

Ed, his face changing, said that it would be better if the young man left the museum. Ed saw the couple ride off on a new motorcycle.

According to the young man's girlfriend, after leaving the museum, they began to laugh at the doll's stupid story. Suddenly, her boyfriend lost control and crashed into a tree. He died on the spot, and the girl spent a whole year in a hospital bed. Many skeptics considered this incident a sad coincidence, but the Warrens were sure that the guy and girl had incurred Annabelle's wrath.

Ed Warren died in 2006. Lorraine is now over eighty, but she still continues to research paranormal phenomena. According to her, Annabelle is still in the glass box, and she has never managed to escape from it. However, she somehow manages to change her position and sometimes even growls at visitors who speak carelessly about her.

Conclusion

What did the Warrens actually face? Most likely, we will never know about it. I remain skeptical about this and most cases of possession, but I must admit that if I were ever invited to the Warren Occult Museum to come face to face with Annabelle, I would decline.

Deep down I know that dolls are one hundred percent evil, and no one can convince me otherwise.

And forgetting common sense for a moment, I shudder to think that the Warrens were actually right, and Annabelle is simply biding her time, waiting until there is someone to watch over her so she can free herself and unleash her evil power on a world that does not yet suspect anything...

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Is this what you were looking for? Perhaps this is something you couldn’t find for so long?

The names of Americans Lorraine and Ed Warren are known throughout the world for their high-profile stories of investigating paranormal phenomena. For several decades, the married couple has been actively engaged in the fight against demonic creatures, helping people suffering from evil forces. For this, the successful researchers received the honorary title of “ghost hunters.”

Many years of experience and a large number of unusual objects that fell into the hands of the family led to the idea of ​​systematizing their knowledge and telling the whole world about it. This is how the Warren Museum of Occultism appeared and soon became famous.

Let's find out together what this amazing place is like and get to know the brave demonologists.

Family history

Paranormal phenomena have accompanied the lives of future researchers since childhood. Edward Warren more than once discovered the ghost of an elderly lady in his Bridgeport home, coming at night. Her distinct steps and heavy breathing filled the soul of the young boy with horror. Ed's father, a policeman, tried his best to calm his family. He didn't believe in ghosts and believed that everything had a logical explanation.

Little Ed, left alone with his fears, was forced over time to learn to deal with them. The young researcher read a lot, accumulating knowledge about the other world. Gradually he began to recognize ghosts and understand how they could be neutralized. The Warrens' occult museum was still in the foreseeable future, but the young researcher had already begun to take his first steps towards it.

At the age of sixteen, Edward met the lovely girl Lorraine Rita Moran. Having become close to her, the young man learned that his girlfriend was endowed with the unique gift of clairvoyance. She knew how to see the inner glow of people, feel their aura. Common interests brought the young people together, and a few years later they got married.

The beginning of an unusual career

After serving in the navy during World War II, Edward entered art school. However, the talented artist was dissatisfied with the training, believing that he was wasting his time studying unnecessary subjects. After abandoning his studies, Warren bought a small used car and began traveling around the country, selling his own paintings. It was with travel that the spouses’ amazing passion began.

Ed was invariably drawn to places where inexplicable and mysterious phenomena occurred.

Using the talent of an artist, Warren depicted houses where evil spirits were located, and invited their owners to look at the drawing. The homeowners liked it, and they invited unusual guests to their place. The young researcher carefully examined the estate in search of phenomena similar to his memories from his childhood. He analyzed everything that was happening, gave people useful advice, and tried to exorcise evil spirits on his own.

Professional growth

Interest in supernatural events continued to interest the wider society. In 1952, Ed and Lorraine Warren created a paranormal research organization. The voluntary society united many people of various professions: doctors, scientists, police officers, psychologists. Using theoretical knowledge and practical skills, researchers developed new techniques and ways to combat evil spirits.

The Warrens created a training system to help people detect evil spirits and be able to resist them. In their work, they often turned to the help of representatives of the Catholic Church.

For more than fifty years, the Warrens, with their numerous assistants, were engaged in research and practical activities in the field of the occult. They have accumulated vast experience and are rightfully considered the best experts in the paranormal field. The couple claimed to have successfully solved over ten thousand complicated cases. From all the houses in which they had to work, the researchers left themselves memorable objects with which terrible and mysterious events were associated. The Ed and Lorraine Warren Museum is a collection of unique objects, each of which is endowed with dark powers and poses considerable danger to ordinary people. To neutralize the negative impact on others, the priest holds a church service in the museum every day and sprinkles the premises with holy water.

Unusual exhibits

In 2006, Ed passed away, leaving his will to his wife and children to continue his business. Today his family lives in the small quiet town of Monroe, located near New York. A small cozy house and a museum of the Warren family are located at the same address. The residential building was built in 1960 according to Lorraine's own design. The house is built on seven levels in full accordance with the number blessed by Catholic traditions.

The room on the ground floor reserved for the museum is poorly lit, cold and uncomfortable. The humid air is filled with a stench, which is interrupted by a mixture of aromatic essences. The room is filled with many different things, including books, toys, paintings, photos, and furniture. The unusual collection even includes a piano that played itself at night.

Mysterious Ann Doll

The most famous toy from the museum collection is the Anabelle doll. The mysterious story associated with it began back in 1970.

The young girl Donna was in college, preparing to become a nurse. For her birthday, her mother gave her an antique doll named Anne Doll. The birthday girl liked the gift, and the girl often placed the toy on her bed.

Over time, Donna and her roommate began to observe strange things: rag Annie inexplicably regularly changed her position. Each time after returning home, the girls found the doll in a different place than where they had left it the day before. Then notes on scraps of parchment paper began to appear in the house. Requests for help were written on them with an inept child's hand. One day, Donna discovered red spots on the doll’s body that resembled blood. This made the girls turn to the Warrens.

Demon experts found that an evil spirit had settled in the toy, causing harm to others. Magic was performed on her, neutralizing the evil force. Subsequently, the toy took the most honorable place in the collection of occultism. A special locker was created for the doll, which does not allow him to move and does not allow him to touch her. Lorraine is convinced that a demonic force still remains inside Anabelle, waiting in the wings to be released.

Mysterious phenomena on the wide screen

The Warrens created many books about paranormal phenomena, where they described cases from their practice. Hollywood directors could not ignore the mystical topic, so some successful investigations became the basis for the creation of films. “The Amityville Horror,” “The Haunting in Connecticut” and “The Conjuring” are successful film adaptations of the most notorious cases of ghosts and evil spirits.

It so happens that rag Annie is an honorary member of our family. Ever since a doll along with a set of books about her adventures ( "Raggedy Ann Stories") Relatives brought it to my daughter from overseas.

The cute red-haired creature quickly became my daughter’s favorite when she was still a baby, but as soon as she grew up and was reinforced by book retellings of Annie’s life (translated to the best of my modest capabilities), the doll generally began to live a real life next to us.

The stories about rag Annie and her twin brother Andy are relaxed and full of kindness and love, but the real hundred-year-old story of Reggedy-Ann is somewhat more complicated, but quite fascinating.

It all started when at the beginning of the last century, the daughter of artist John Gruel Marcela found an old rag doll in the attic. The toy was completely disheveled; there was almost nothing left on the faded face. The girl's father corrected the situation and painted the doll new eyes, a nose and a funny smile. After some thought, he gave the find the name Raggedy-Ann, taking as a basis the names of two poems by James Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie.”

Marcela truly fell in love with her rag Annie, especially after her dad started telling all sorts of funny stories about her. With inspiration and inspiration, John Gruel began to write down his inventions and draw illustrations for them, and all this and the rest turned into a series of cartoons that captivated the hearts of little Americans.

Ann's brother Andy soon joined her, and the Gruel family also joined in the production of the corresponding dolls. "Clones" of Raggedy Annie spread throughout the United States and were a great success.

Unfortunately, little Marcella barely lived to be 13 years old. Despite the official version of death from heart failure, the girl’s parents were sure that this was due to the smallpox vaccine, and subsequently positioned Regedi-Ann as a symbol of the anti-vaccination movement. However, this did not at all affect the kind and joyful plots of the books about Annie. She continued to charm and delight young readers as she conquered the world.

John Gruel died in 1938, but books about Reggedy Ann continued to be published, and Annie and Andy dolls appeared in almost every home. In the fifties, collecting them became fashionable, and now dolls made in the 20-30s of the 20th century cost a lot of money. They have a special marking indicating Rag Annie's birthday, or rather the day she was patented - September 7, 1915.

Interestingly, the first versions of Anne had a special candy heart on her chest: a chocolate bar in a shiny wrapper. Now each branded rag Annie also has a heart, but not chocolate, but patchwork or embroidered.

In 1986, the Broadway musical "Raggedy Ann: The Musical Adventure" was created, which is still in the repertoire of The Nederlander Theater today. In May 1999, a museum dedicated to Annie and Andy opened, where you could find rare dolls and even see Marcela's nursery, depicted in the pages of Gruel's works. But ten years later the museum had to be closed due to lack of funding.

Part of the exhibition can be found in the American National Museum of Games "The Strong", and several settled in a theme park in Gruel's hometown of Arcola (Illinois). In 2002, Reggedy-Ann received an honorary place in the US Toy Hall of Fame.

The production of the dolls themselves and books about them has not stopped. Today, "Raggedy Annie's Stories" has hundreds of reprints in dozens of languages ​​around the world. It’s only a pity that there is no Ukrainian version among them - it would certainly take pride of place on our bookshelf.

When ghosts or other supernatural beings refuse to leave after death, they remain in our world, frightening living people. Most people believe that ghosts are usually only houses, spirits, or demons, but they can haunt anything from jewelry to paintings.

1. The Dibbuk Box contains an ancient, evil spirit

The Dybbuk Locker is a wine cabinet in which, according to Jewish folklore, lives a restless, evil spirit capable of possessing living people. One dybbuk cabinet in particular became famous when it was put up for auction on eBay, complete with a grisly backstory.

The story begins in September 2001, when an antique buyer attended a private vintage collection sale in Portland, Oregon. A 103-year-old woman's belongings were being sold at auction, and her granddaughter told an antiques lover about the woman's past when she saw that he had bought a simple, wooden wine cooler. The old woman was Jewish and the only one in her family to survive a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. When she immigrated to the United States, she only took with her a wine cooler and two other items.

The woman's granddaughter explained that her grandmother always kept the closet hidden and said it should never be opened because it contained an evil spirit called a dybbuk. She asked that the closet be buried with her, but this was contrary to Jewish tradition, and her family decided not to comply with this request. When the buyer asked if the granddaughter would like to keep the locker for sentimental reasons, she immediately refused, became angry and said, “You bought the locker and you have to take it with you!”

The man took the item to his antique shop and took it to the basement, to his workshop. Soon strange and terrifying things began to happen. He received a call from a desperate assistant who said that the lights in the store had gone out, the doors had closed, and she had heard terrible sounds coming from the basement. When the store owner went down to the basement, he discovered that it smelled very strongly of cat urine, and all the light bulbs in the store were broken.

The man gave the wine cabinet to his mother, and she soon experienced a sudden attack. In the hospital, she spelled “N-E-N-A-V-I-J-U P-O-D-A-R-O-K” as tears flowed from her eyes. He tried to give the locker to other people, but it was always returned after a few days because people didn't like it or felt there was evil in it. He began to suffer from the same nightmare, and a little later he found out that all the members of his family who were near the locker also had this dream. Then he began to notice some shadows in his peripheral vision.

After he had to admit that something paranormal was happening, he went online to do some research and fell asleep at the computer. When he woke up, he felt someone's breath on his neck, and when he turned around, he noticed a huge dark figure running away from him along the corridor. He decided to put the item up for auction on eBay, along with the story that had happened to him since he bought the cabinet.

Jason Haxton, curator of a medical museum in Missouri, purchased the locker at auction. He later wrote a book that chronicled the strange history of the dybbuk cabinet, and in 2012, a horror film based on the book called The Box of Damnation was released.

2. Annabelle, a doll possessed by the Liar Demon


In 1970, a woman bought a doll similar to Raggedy-Ann from a second-hand store for her daughter, who was in college at the time. Her daughter liked the doll and left it in her apartment, but soon both she and her roommate began noticing strange things about the doll. She moved on her own, often ending up in another room, although no one touched her. They found small scraps of parchment, although they did not have any, and various messages were written on the scraps in children's handwriting. One day they discovered a doll standing on its two rag legs.

The frightened girls contacted a psychic who told them that the doll was possessed by the spirit of a little girl who had died in the house. "Annabelle" said she liked the students and wanted to stay with her, and they allowed her to. Unfortunately, after they allowed the spirit to remain, the paranormal activity in the apartment only increased - one of the students' friends was injured by a doll, which left many scratches on his chest and back.

The students' patience ran out, and they turned to the famous psychic investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The married couple soon discovered that the doll was not possessed by a child, but by a demon who had deceived the girls in order to be closer to them and, after some time, possessed one of them. The students gave Annabelle to the Warrens, who placed it in a glass cabinet in their Occult Museum in Connecticut. The sign next to the cabinet reads: “Attention: Do not open under any circumstances.”

3. “Deranged painting from eBay” causes fear and illness

In 2000, an anonymous seller auctioned Bill Stoneham's painting "The Hands Resist Him" ​​on eBay. The painting is currently considered one of the most obsessed creations in the world.

The painting shows a boy and a creepy doll standing in front of a glass door. The painting was painted in 1972 and sold to Hollywood actor John Marley. It was then purchased by a family from California, after which it was put up for auction on eBay, accompanied by a warning about the dangers associated with owning this painting.

According to the married couple, the boy and the doll walked around the painting at night, sometimes disappearing from the canvas entirely. The boy in the painting was able to move into the room in which the painting was located, and everyone who saw the painting felt sick and weak. Small children threw hysterics at one glance at the picture. Adults sometimes felt as if they were being grabbed by invisible hands, while others experienced a blast of hot air as if there was an open oven in front of them.

Even those who looked at the picture on their computer monitors experienced anxiety, fear or despair. One person even claimed that his new printer did not print a photo of a painting, although everything else was printed normally.

The painting was purchased by an art gallery from Grand Rapids, Michigan. When the gallery contacted the artist who painted the painting, he was surprised to learn that his creation was the subject of a paranormal investigation, but said that the two people who first saw and critically reviewed the painting died within a year.

4. Myrtles Plantation Mirror is home to the souls of a woman and her children

Myrtle's Plantation is a haunted inn that is widely considered to be home to the largest number of ghosts in the United States, as well as one of the most famous haunted houses in the world. The hotel was built in 1796 on the site of a Native American cemetery. In addition, according to rumors, at least ten murders have occurred here, and paranormal events are a common, everyday occurrence.

Perhaps the most obsessed item here is the mirror, which was brought into the house in 1980. Hotel clients have reported people wandering around in the mirror, as well as children's handprints on the mirror. According to legend, the spirits of Sara Woodruff and her children live in the mirror. The Woodruffs were poisoned and although, according to tradition, mirrors should be covered after death so that souls do not become trapped there, this mirror was not covered, so superstitious people believe that the souls of the Woodruff family still reside in this mirror.

5. The possessed wedding dress dances on its own.

In 1849, a girl from a wealthy family named Anna Baker fell in love with a poor metal worker. Anna's father, Ellis Baker, forbade her to marry her lover, kicked the young man out of their hometown of Altoona, Pennsylvania, and condemned his daughter to the life of an old maid. Anna was so angry that she never fell in love or married anyone, remaining angry and disappointed until her death in 1914.

Before her father drove her true love away, Anna chose a beautiful wedding dress in which she wanted to appear in front of her groom. When the wedding was cancelled, another wealthy woman from a local family, Elizabeth Dysart, wore this dress to her wedding, which she did not fail to brag to Anna about. A few years later, the wedding dress was donated to a historical society, and the Baker mansion was later turned into a museum. The wedding dress was displayed in Anna Baker's former bedroom. After her death, visitors said that the wedding dress moved on its own, especially during the full moon. The dress swings from side to side, as if an invisible bride is showing off in front of a mirror.

Researchers who have tested whether any common phenomena (such as drafts) could cause this phenomenon have not come to a conclusive conclusion. No one knows why the dress moves on its own, but many believe that the offended bride, Anna Baker, was finally able to wear the dress.

6. Chairs push the occupants out of themselves, who then feel ill.


Newport, Rhode Island is one of the oldest cities in the United States. Founded in 1690, the seaport became one of the favorite summer vacation spots for wealthy American families by the early 20th century. Newport's mansions are widely known, as are the many stories of ghosts that reside in the long-standing buildings.

Belcourt Castle was built by Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, a wealthy American politician and socialite, in 1894. There are many accounts of possessed objects in this luxurious house, but perhaps the most famous possessed objects are two chairs, in which, according to legend, spirits live. People who sit on the chairs say they feel cold, uncomfortable and nauseous. Their arms feel as if they are surging with static electricity emanating from the chairs, and many people claim that they feel as if someone other than a living person is sitting in the chair. Some visitors to the castle say they were violently thrown out of their chairs.

7. A possessed doll curses anyone who takes photos of her without permission.

In 1896, this creepy doll belonged to a child named Robert Eugene Otto, who lived in Key West, Florida. The doll was given to him by a servant who practiced black magic and who did not like the boy’s family. The boy adored his doll and often talked to it. However, the servants of Otto's house soon became so worried that many of them could have sworn that they heard a ghostly voice answering the boy, and neighbors said that they saw the doll moving from window to window when Otto was not at home.

Soon the doll began to play pranks, and the frightened child insisted that he had not done anything. Vases were broken, objects in rooms turned over and fell - little Robert was blamed for everything, although he looked very frightened and insisted that a doll was doing all this.

Robert inherited the house and died in 1972, after which the house was purchased by another family. A little girl who had just moved here found a doll in the attic and was very scared of it. She said that the doll was alive and wanted to kill it. Eventually, the doll ended up in the Key West Art Gallery and History Museum, where it remains on display today. Museum visitors claim that they have to ask permission from the doll in order to photograph it. If they do this without permission, the doll will curse them. The museum exhibits letters from “cursed” people who wrote to the doll apologizing for taking photographs of it without asking and asking for the curse to be lifted.

8. The statue of the Woman from Lemb brings death to its owners

The "Woman of Lemb", also known as the "Goddess of Death", is a statue carved from pure limestone, discovered in 1878 in the village of Lemb, Cyprus. The item dates back to 3500 BC and is believed to depict a fertility goddess. The first owner of the statue was Lord Elphont - during the six years of his ownership of this statuette, all seven members of the Elphont family died under mysterious circumstances.
The next two owners, Ivor Manucci and Lord Thompson-Noel, also died along with all members of their families a few years after bringing the statue into their homes.

The fourth owner, Sir Alan Beaverbrook, also died, along with his wife and two daughters. Beaverbrook's two sons survived, and although they did not believe in the occult, they were so horrified by the strange and unexpected deaths of four members of their family that they decided to donate the statue to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, where it still stands.

Shortly after the statue was brought to the museum, the head of the department in which it was displayed died, although none of the museum's curators admit that the statue may have supernatural properties. No one has touched the statue since the museum worker died, and it is currently enclosed in a glass box where no one can touch it.

9. “The Anguished Man”, captured on video

This terrible picture lay in the attic of Sean Robinson's grandmother for twenty-five years until he inherited it. Robinson's grandmother always told Robinson that the painting was evil, explaining that the artist who painted it mixed his own blood with paint and committed suicide shortly after its completion. She claimed that while the painting was hanging in the house, she heard crying and voices, and also saw the shadow of a person, after which she decided to move it to the attic.

When Robinson brought the painting into his home, all members of his family began to experience all sorts of terrible phenomena. His son fell down the stairs, his wife felt someone stroking her hair, and they also saw the shadow of a man and heard crying.

Robinson decided to set up a camera overnight to capture the strange events on video. On Robinson's YouTube channel, you can watch various videos of doors slamming, smoke appearing out of nowhere, and also see the moment when a painting falls from the wall for no reason.

Robinson decided not to risk it and took the painting to the basement, but he does not want to sell it.

10. The cursed “Chair of Death” kills everyone who sat on it


In 1702, convicted murderer Thomas Busby was to be hanged for his crimes. His last wish was to have one last meal at his favorite pub in Thirsk, England. He finished his lunch, stood up and said, “Anyone who dares to sit on my chair will face sudden death.”

The chair remained in the pub for several centuries, and visitors often challenged each other to sit on the damned chair. During World War II, Air Force enlisted men stationed at a nearby base frequented the pub, and locals noticed that the soldiers who sat on the chair never returned from the war.

In 1967, two Royal Air Force pilots were sitting in a chair before crashing their car into a tree. In 1970, a bricklayer tested his fate by sitting on a chair and then died the same day after falling into a sinkhole at work. A year later, a roofer was killed while sitting on a chair after the roof he was working on collapsed underneath him. After a pub cleaner tripped and fell into a chair, she died from a brain tumor.
The list goes on and on, and eventually the pub owner moved the chair to the basement. Unfortunately, even there the chair managed to take another victim with it. After the loader sat down to rest after unloading some boxes for the pub, he died that same day in a car accident.

The pub owner decided to get rid of the chair in 1972 and donated it to the local museum. The museum displays the chair suspended at a height of 1.5 meters so that no one will ever sit on it by mistake. Fortunately, the chair has not taken the lives of innocent people since then.

A couple of years ago, a horror film by John Leonetti was released on the big screens. "Annabelle's Curse" Box office receipts in the United States amounted to several tens of millions of dollars. However, in France the film was soon banned from showing because the audience experienced unmotivated outbursts of aggression during the screening.

Perhaps the reason is that the film is based on real events that occurred in 1970, when Ragdoll became a real nightmare for its owners.

Still from the film "Annabelle". The real doll is nothing like this one

DANGEROUS GIFT

In 1970, Donna, who was finishing her nursing course, was given a rag doll Annie, which she bought in an antique store, by her mother for her birthday. The doll looked quite friendly - eyes wide in surprise, a sweet smile, red hair, and instead of a nose, a triangle of red fabric. In the apartment that Donna rented with her friend Angie, Annie was assigned a place - on the owner’s bed.

After some time, the girls began to notice that the doll was changing position. In the mornings, Donna, having made the bed, sat Annie in a certain position, and when she returned from school, she discovered that if she, for example, left the doll with her arms crossed, then in the evening they were straightened at the seams, and vice versa.

All this seemed strange, but nothing more. The girls were truly frightened when they came home one day and found Annie kneeling on a chair. Moreover, if Donna tried to put the doll on her knees, it fell. The next time the doll was already standing on the floor, leaning on a chair. It seemed as if her movement was stopped by the sound of the front door opening.

And then notes began to appear, written in pencil on parchment in a child’s clumsy handwriting: “Help me,” “Call me,” etc. But the girls had neither parchment nor pencils in the house! The first thing that came to mind was that someone else had access to their apartment and was rummaging through their things.

Donna and her friend set up several traps that were seen in spy films, but it did not work. The traps remained untouched, and the doll continued to live its life.

Gradually the girls got used to the “living doll.” It would seem that Annie was in a friendly mood, and sometimes even sweets were found in the apartment that no one bought - gifts from the doll.

However, peace did not come for long. Two months later, Donna returned home to find Annie had moved out of the bedroom and into the living room again. When the girl approached the doll, she was seized with horror - the toy’s hands and dress were stained with blood oozing from her chest.

SPIRITUAL SESSION

The frightened friends turned to a medium for help, and she offered to conduct a seance. As a result, it was possible to find out that once on the site of the house in which the girls lived there was a vacant lot, and on it they found the body of a seven-year-old girl, Annabelle Higgins, who died under unclear circumstances.

The girl told the medium that she was happy in these places and asked permission to stay, moving into the doll. Donna later said: “We allowed her. We are nurses and we encounter human suffering every day. We have a feeling of compassion. From then on we started calling the doll Annabelle.” But the girls did not even suspect what consequences their agreement to leave Annabelle’s spirit with them in the same house would entail.

ATTACK

The girls were often visited by a friend named Lowe. From the very beginning he did not like the doll; he subconsciously felt the threat emanating from it. The young man repeatedly advised his friends to get rid of Annie, but they just waved him off. And Donna even said that it was like abandoning a child. Looks like Lowe didn't like the doll either.

One night the young man woke up in his apartment, gripped by an incomprehensible panic. Looking around, he didn't notice anything unusual at first. But, turning his gaze to the foot of the bed, Lowe was numb with horror. At his feet sat the Annabelle doll.
Then she began to slowly move up the young man’s body.

The next day, Angie and Lowe were discussing something in the living room when a strange sound was heard in Donna's room. As soon as the young man approached the bedroom door, the sounds stopped. Plucking up courage, he opened the door and saw that the room was completely empty, only a doll was lying in the corner.

Approaching her, Low felt as if someone was standing behind him. But when he turned around, he didn’t notice anyone. Suddenly an unbearable pain pierced his chest, and he screamed. Angie, who came running in response to the scream, found the guy covered in blood lying on the floor in a state of shock. When Lowe returned to the living room and took off his shirt, it became clear that his chest was slashed with claws.

EXILEMENT OF THE SPIRIT

The young people realized that they could not do without the help of specialists, and turned to the priest Father Cook, who introduced them to the demonologist Ed Warren and his wife, the medium Lorraine. Having studied the situation in detail, Warren concluded: “Annabelle is gone! And it never was. You have been deceived. We're dealing with a demon."

According to the demonologist, spirits do not take possession of inanimate objects; they only have power over people. What moved the doll could not be the spirit of a person, it was a demon. It was he who moved Annie, creating the illusion that she was alive. And it was he who introduced himself as the spirit of a little girl, in order, through compassion, to gain permission to stay and interfere in the lives of the girls, and in the future to possess one of them.

Ed emphasized that this something was an evil entity and advised an exorcism. It was conducted by Father Cook. At the same time, the demonic doll did not offer any resistance. After the ceremony, Father Cook assured those present that the demon would no longer ruin their lives. However, the Warrens were not so optimistic, so they put the doll in a bag and took it with them.

AN UNFINISHED STORY

Father Cook, saying goodbye to the Warrens, advised them to take country roads home so as not to expose other drivers to danger, because no one could know what to expect from a demonic passenger. And, as it turned out, he was right. Along the way, the car's brakes failed several times while turning, and a couple of times they miraculously avoided a collision. Finally Ed's patience ran out. He stopped the car, sprinkled Annabelle with holy water and crossed her. We got home without incident.

At first, at the Warrens’ house, the doll behaved calmly, and then it took up its old ways again. She moved independently and rose into the air. Unable to cope with the demon, Ed invited the exorcist Father Bradford to help. He didn’t behave very carefully, grabbed the doll and began shouting at it: “You’re just a doll, you can’t do any harm!” - and threw Annabelle onto the chair.

Ed and Lorraine were worried because Father Bradford was acting provocatively with the doll, which was bound to lead to trouble. And so it happened: on the way home, the exorcist had an accident and miraculously survived.

Deciding that Annabelle posed a mortal danger to people, the Warrens placed her in a sealed glass box with the inscription: “Do not open.” She became an exhibit in their occult museum.

One day a young couple visited the museum. The guy, wanting to impress the girl, began knocking on the glass box and asking the doll to show its claws. Ed told them to leave the museum immediately. On the way back, the young man’s motorcycle crashed into a pole, the guy died on the spot, and the girl spent a whole year in the hospital. And this is not an isolated case of Annabelle's revenge.

Ed Warren died in 2006, but 80-year-old Lorraine continues to run the museum. Until 2014, the doll was not able to leave captivity, but she changed poses while in a glass box.

And over the past two years, strange events have begun to occur at the Lorraine Museum. Annabelle appears to the owner in the mirrors and inspires her with creepy thoughts. Lorraine says that she constantly hears in her head: “Death”, “Kill”.

For 40 years, the Warren couple did everything to ensure that Annabelle remained a simple exhibit of the museum, but now they are not strong enough, and the doll again poses a mortal threat. Lorraine stated that the museum will be closed to visitors until she is satisfied that the demonic doll has been neutralized.