If you've already checked out the latest edition of The Conjuring, which features Ed and Lorraine Warren investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding the Enfield Poltergeist case, one of the most famous instances of documented paranormal activity of all time. In the movie, the pair come face to face with a very specific demon, but is Valak just a Hollywood invention, or is it based on a real entity?

If you know anything about Enfield's real-life investigation, you should know that the film adaptation of the famous case took some liberties, the most obvious being our introduction to the demon Valak. Well, it turns out that Valak is actually a real demon, — according to Goetia — that the creators of The Conjuring franchise added into the mix, as a way to link Enfield's story with that of Amityville.

While it's true that the Warrens investigated Amityville, and it's also true that they spent a few days interviewing the real investigators in the Enfield Poltergeist case, as far as we know, none of these cases have anything to do with Valak in real life.

So who, exactly, is this demon, and why in the movie does he look like Marilyn Manson dressed as a nun?

According to the caster's guide, The Lesser Key of Solomon, —a 17th-century spellbook that acts like a sort of yellow pages from hell, containing the description of 72 demons as well as how to summon and subdue them— Valak (or Ualac, Valac, Valax, Valu, Valic, VOLAC), the devil number 62 is none other than the great president of hell.

Overall, he's one of the "coolest" demons in the infernal world. Often depicted as riding a two-headed dragon and commanding 38 legions of other possessive and obsessive demons, he takes on the face of a small child with angel wings, nothing quite like a nun-with-min-anchor cosplay. At first sight it even looks innocent.

Valak's real-life abilities are also much broader than making a bunch of LEGO bricks float around the room and reversing crosses upside down. According to Goétia, its function is to discover hidden treasures and reveal snakes and snake hideouts that it will bring to the Magician if desired. He is also known to be quite strong and is not opposed to sharing that strength with those worthy who invoke him.

He discovers poisonous snakes for the mage and reveals hidden treasures. It can help for a good job and a supportive friend. It also provides lucky numbers. It moves quickly. It flies very fast and usually goes through the roof.

Not worth it? Well then, I would hate to be you, because Valak will probably ruin your life, which would happen much more slowly than in the movies, according to Judeo-Christian mythology.

But the biggest question of all is: why is Valak presented to us in the film as a demonic nun?

You can thank James Wan and real-life Lorraine Warren for that. While the name of "Greater Evil" had been decided early in the process, Wan still hadn't settled on the demon's actual project until the end of the process. One day, commenting on this to Lorraine in passing, she mentioned that she had once encountered a vortex with a dark hooded figure in the center. That bit of information was translated into a demonic nun, who, believe it or not, was added to the story in a series of remakes.

"I had a strong vision for the entire movie, but the only thing I wasn't sure of was the demon's design," James Wan explained to io9. "I felt like I was still figuring it out. And believe it or not, I always knew I was going to do additional footage. So I was looking forward to finding out what that thing would look like to put together the film in post-production."

Synopsis of Nun's solo film (which in my opinion was already more than deserved, and Crooked Man deserves a spin-off too).

“When a young nun from a reclusive abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novice about to take her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they discover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives, but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun who terrified audiences in "The Conjuring 2" as the abbey becomes a terrible battleground among the living and the cursed."

The mightiest wind demon of the lost cities of Assyria and Babylon can be regarded as the most malevolent elemental force in the world of mythology. Like Pazuzu, this Middle Eastern demon reached popular attention in William Peter Blatty's sensational 1973 novel The Exorcist, an absolute classic. The film inspired by this novel brought the subject of demonic possession into a popular context, but that was left misunderstood, for an atmospheric sequel, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, directed by John Boorman, to play the malefic forces of Pazuzu in an authentic, mythological context as a sweeper of the desert, causing desolation and plague. This was effectively imagined in the film as a swarm of lacusts, reporting an apocalypse of famine.

In this scholarly book, The Domain of Devils, Eric Marple describes the wind demon as the most terrifying of all demonic entities, having the power to spread loathsome diseases with its fiery, dry breath. The devil has "for a head many skinless dog skulls."¹ Representing death, disease, and as without flesh, brain death, the desert sweeper, famine. Significantly, Willian Woods explains in his "History of the Devil":...In Mesopotamia the horned demon, Pazuzu, rode in the wind and spreading malaria..."² thus accentuating [the] destructive power of the mounted demon as "lord of all fevers and plagues.” Perhaps referring to Pazuzu as the devouring dragon, Typhon, “angel of the fatal winds”, equated with the disease Typhoide.

Another representation of the wind demon can be traced back to the Old Testament, where the devil is depicted as a shaggy black creature, a desert invader from the lost lands. ³

Interestingly enough, in the explanation of Pazuzu's conception of the Beast, we find his number 107. Kenneth Grant explains that this number is the number of Leo's angel, OVAL, the messenger of the Beast.6 Oval literally means "egg", and for that reason it refers to the Aeon of the "son", or Aeon of Set, in which it is still in embryonic form. In many of the world's ancient theologies, this final Aeon is the age of destruction, when the Messenger of the Beast, Pazuzu, will deliver his word: the howl of the pestilential desert wind. The ancients will have recognition of this word [in]the terrible "great dragon" : ATEM, whose number is 440, this is also the number of the "annihilator", "cease", "disappear", and, significantly, "complete" , to which one must refer at the end of the cycle, as ATEM, is also the goddess of periodicity, identical with the terrible Hindu goddess, Kali the destroyer. Interesting also to note that 107+333=440. This formula may represent the ultimatum blow of the wind of devastation from the mouth of the "great dragon", ATEM, the Beast of the Apocalypse.

In the account of these conceptions to the ancient southeast wind demon of the Middle East, we can understand why this symbol was regarded with such awe and terror. As the most cruelly destructive demon in the pantheon of nefarious creatures, the wind demon represents the destruction of human life.

Full Name: Robert
Surname: Secret
Species: Human (probably? could as well be Robot too)
Genre: Male
Age: 30s to 40s
Height:1,81 m
Weight: 78 kg
Religion: Secret
Birthdate: Secret
Nationality: American (probably)
Main Location: The Dark Mansion (Attic)
Sign: Secret (Gemini maybe?)
Occupations: Criminal, Hijacker, Hacker
Accessories & Weapons: Just a laptop, and he can hack to the Pentagon.
Hobby: Hack files and reveal the government's hidden plans
Goals: Reveal everything bad that the government hides (80% complete)
Friends/Allies: Melissa, Jason Brody, Beast, Beatrix, & more
Enemies: The government and politicians
Character Type: Chaotic Neutral
Groups: Anonymous Legion, NUMB3R CR3W, DedSec
Allied Groups: Anonymous Legion, NUMB3R CR3W, DedSec
Rival Groups: New World Order, Illuminati Organization, Bohemian Grove, White House
Side: Neutral (Anti-Hero)
Main Phrase: "Catch the wave... your love is fading!"

(This is my O.C. of Jason Brody from Far Cry)

Jason is an ex-military soldier who was betrayed by ex-friend Matt, who guided him to The Dark Mansion already knowing it was haunted saying it was a "place" actually, and locked him inside the room of the cursed dolls that it was in the second house, "houses" being just simpler adjectives to define the floors of the mansion. The entities drew and decided not to manifest. Do you believe? Not all of them are bad. However Jason managed to make a kind of barricade joining the bed and the wardrobe protecting themselves there until they break. Luckily for Jason, the dolls were possessed by evil forces, but the force hadn't been changed, and that made him win. How many horror movie victims do you see who currently know how to defend themselves? Lately, a lot of doubts and debates have been created if this is not a flashback of Jason, because neither Robert nor Melissa are there anymore. The owner confirmed that no, the two were just exploring the first house (first floor). After 2 days caged in that room, Jason manages to escape without attracting the attention of others, a strategy that everyone believed until then was surreal to do. Matt decided to lock all the doors, thinking it would stop Jason. Jason was forced to break down the kitchen door and run. His hard training done every day in the army helped him in Parkour and reflex, thus making himself able to get out. 2 years later, Jason Derick will finally leave the place for good and chase Matt until the last days of his life. From there, may the best win...

Robert is a professional hacker who helps Melissa and also uses the shed as temporary territory to ultimately achieve his goal of making that land his new company, because he thinks it's big enough. There, he has control of the surveillance cameras he installs, the mine detector he deploys and especially the salt sphere he places around his machines. In the future, a protocol droid created by him will be available in the store, with radioactivity resistant capabilities and layers of armored fabrics under the battery.