Conjuring House Game

[Lorin Cupples]

InJanuary 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron, along with their five daughters, moved into a house built over 200 years ago in Harrisville, Rhode Island. During their time there, each family member allegedly experienced mounting supernatural phenomena; Carolyn claimed she was possessed by a demonic entity. The family eventually turned to famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help, but they were unable to end the supposed haunting.

Immediately upon entering the home, I felt like I was in a space where time stood still. The house was built in several stages, with the oldest part dating back to the 1730s. Exposed wood beams line the ceiling, and gaps in the floorboards make the second floor visible from below. Even the decor is creepy. The home is filled with Victorian decorations that conjure up an eerie aesthetic. The most disturbing bit of bric-a-brac is a replica of the famed Annabelle rag doll that lies in a glass case where the coffee table should be.

I turned off all of the lights in the house and headed into one of the upstairs bedrooms in an attempt to communicate with whatever spirits might be there. I pulled out a set of L-shaped metal dowsing rods (aka spirit rods), which are a kind of mobile Ouija board that are purported to respond to supernatural energies by moving in one direction or another. I gripped the rods tightly, one in each hand, and asked if there were any spirits in the room with us.

Without hesitation, both rods, which originally were pointed directly in front of me, simultaneously spun to my right and pointed towards a dark, small and windowless attic space. Naturally, this would be the spot where the spirits like to hang, right?

Guided only by the light on my phone, my heart was racing and my clammy hands were trembling as I submerged deeper into the abyss of the pitch-black basement and down the very hallway where Cory warned us that a spirit liked to get handsy.

We were staying on the second floor in the bedroom located in the oldest part of the house. During our tour, Cory explained that our room once belonged to the youngest Perron daughter. She claimed that while trying to get to sleep one night, a spirit told her there were bodies buried in the wall. Her parents were suspicious of her story, given that the walls are made of thick solid plaster, but recent property surveys revealed human-sized burial sites located near a stone wall in the backyard in view of the bedroom window.

The whispering stopped. The house fell silent. I whipped out my phone and began recording in case any sounds started up again. My eyes darted from the floor to the ceiling as I surveyed every inch of the room, but I constantly felt my gaze pulled back to the rocking chair in the corner.

Alex Aronson is a pop culture junkie, host and entertainment writer. His work has appeared in Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Elle, and more. You can find him on Instagram and TikTok at @AlexVee_TV.

Some believe it was the spirit of Bathsheba, who was born in 1812 and would later marry a farmer named Judson Sherman, and the couple had a baby boy, Herbert.

It was claimed that she was later caught sacrificing her son to Satan with a sewing needle and cursed all who would dare live on her land, before climbing a tree on the property and hanging herself. No historical records have been found to support this though.

Andrea has since written numerous books about her traumatic childhood and while there are those who say that the Warrens are mere profiteers of the unexplained, Andrea has always insisted her story is true. Her father Roger and herself are regular visitors to the farmhouse, which usually leaves her overcome with both the emotional burden of what happened to her family there, and the memories it inevitably brings with it.

When the film came out in 2013, the home was lived in by an elderly woman whose husband had recently passed away. The property became too much for her to maintain, and she put it on the market. Maine couple and paranormal investigators Cory and Jennifer Heinzen bought it in June 2019, and moved in with their family.

Thankfully a buyer came along who was also as committed as the Heinzens to keeping the home open for visitors, Jacqueline Nunez. According the house website, Jacqueline has dedicated her career to creating distinctive, high quality and sustainable residential development projects in the metropolitan Boston area.

You can tell Madison has much empathy for Andrea and what the Perron family went through, and being very intuitive, she also a very healthy respect for the entities, or residual energy from those entities, that remain at the house. Our investigation was also hosted by Jen, who is now also inextricably tied to the house, and its energies.

We then moved upstairs where Jen filled us in on the findings of other investigators which was just fascinating. Maddie and her group joined us to continue investigating the middle room. Jen set up the music box in the small and very creepy area next to the room, and Maddie used the spirit box to open communication. We got a lot through the spirit box thanks to Maddie, and most of us felt an entity move from one side of the room to the other, made obvious by a very cold, intermittent breeze in the very warm room.

Last year, yours truly went with a friend to the real Conjuring House in Rhode Island. For those unfamiliar with the 1736 colonial home, it's among the most famous allegedly haunted places in the country. The consistent paranormal activity tormenting the Perron family, who lived there in the 1970s, was the inspiration for the Conjuring film.

The Conjuring House was, is, and continues to be a hot spot for paranormal phenomena. Although no one currently lives there full-time, a devoted (and brave) staff run tours, investigations, and GHO events which are open to the public. You can learn more about these happenings here.

We experienced several strange things during our two-hour extended day tour of the home. Some of these occurrences could potentially be debunked. Others, not so much. We'll let you be the judge. Here's what we saw and heard during our time in the Conjuring House.

Before the tour began, everyone was standing together in a room on the main floor. As our tour guide Marie started talking, this writer heard what sounded like someone moving around in one of the other rooms. These bumps were more than just creaks from an old house. When Marie was asked if another staff member was in the home, she stated that she was the only one there. Throughout our visit, we never saw another staff member anywhere on the property.

Upon entering the dining area, we saw bundles of dried herbs dangling from the ceiling. All of them were still except for one, which was mysteriously swinging on its own. We looked around and observed that there wasn't a breeze, as none of the other bundles were moving. Later on, two of us went into one of the children's bedrooms and saw a blue beaded necklace hanging from a doorknob...and also swinging in a similar manner.

In the home's basement, we saw what appeared to be a small, white ball of light appear on a metal chair. This could've been a phone reflection, but as a friend pointed out, those tend to move quickly and sporadically, whereas this light anomaly traveled slowly and lingered for several seconds. Even Marie seemed surprised.

Marie showed us a cat toy that lit up when you pushed a button on it. While trying to communicate with the home's spirit(s), the toy, which had been turned off and placed on a table, randomly lit up on its own. No one had touched it.

With the help of ghost hunting equipment such as an EMF detector, radio (used as a spirit box), and rem pod (a device that makes noise when it detects changes in the surrounding energy field), we all tried to make contact with whatever spirit(s) were present. Although we didn't always get responses, the ones we did receive were fascinating. When the spirit box was first turned on, we heard multiple "hi"'s or "hello"'s.

The activity surrounding the rem pod was particularly interesting. Most of the time, when we encouraged the spirits to respond by triggering the device, the rem pod would go off. Not only that, but when we then asked them to make the device stop beeping, it would almost always stop. At one point, this writer asked "if there are any female spirits here, could you please turn the rem pod on?"

Getting to explore and possibly communicate with spirits in the real Conjuring House was one of the coolest experiences ever. This writer highly recommends visiting, as long as you're willing to enter the home with a respectful disposition and open mind. As the property's website says, "our energy, attitudes, and beliefs are amplified here, whether our end goal seeks frightful or peaceful experiences...the impact can be transformative."

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