The Warrens’ Occult Museum

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren operated for decades as the preeminent voices in the believer community, and their strange career of ghost-hunting and demon-busting is on display in their very own Occult Museum.

Open since 1952, when the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, the ever-expanding collection of knick-knacks and artifacts that had been touched by evil is kept in the basement of their own home. When they weren't delving into high-profile cases of demonic mischief as the Amityville haunting (the murderer who claimed demonic possession as his defense) and the exorcism of the witch Bathsheba (a case which was most recently portrayed in the film, The Conjuring, which also featured a version of the museum), the Warrens were popular lecturers in their day. Throughout these cases, the Warrens collected trinkets and totems they claimed were defiled by evil, locking them in the museum to keep them safe from the public.

The eccentric collection contains everything from an alleged vampire’s coffin to a child’s tombstone used as a satanic altar. Death curses, demon masks, and psychic photographs line the museum’s walls accented by a Halloween store’s bounty of plastic props (assumedly for mood). However, the most prevalent item seems to be the cursed Raggedy Ann doll by the name of Annabelle, which was said to have killed a man. Annabelle sits in her glass case, backlit by a haunting red light. 

Looking at the Warrens’ collection, one might begin to think that Hell has a thing for dolls.

Ed and Lorraine Warren have both passed away—Ed in 2006 and Lorraine in 2019—and the museum has been closed since Lorraine’s passing. (The pair are buried less than a mile away at the Stepney Cemetery.) However, in August 2025, comedian Matt Rife and celebrity ghost hunter Elton Castee announced that they have purchased the house and a five-year guardianship over the collection. They rent the house out for oversnight stays and plan to open an exhibit of the Warren belongings in Salem, Mass. in the fall of 2026. Information here.

To watch Atlas Obscura's exclusive tour of the house, join us today as a Member and find it in our event archive.

Whether or not one believes in the paranormal, the Warrens’ Occult Museum may be one of the preeminent chronicles of modern culture’s obsession with the supernatural. And soon, this collection will once again be open to the public.