In every being that is real there is something external to, and sacred from, the grasp of every other. God’s being is sacred from ours. In 1884, Mrs. Winchester left New Haven, Connecticut, and the graves of her husband and only child, moved to San Jose, California, and began the obsession that was to last for the rest of her life. She purchased an unfinished eighteen-room farmhouse outside the small agricultural town, and for the next 38 years, the sound of construction on Mrs. Winchester’s house never stopped. If you stand in Mrs. Winchester’s palatial house, observing the intricately carved hands of the grandfather clock move into place, you may see the number thirteen. The clock has a deep, melodious chime. Occult symbols are everywhere one looks; on the cornerstones, in the pages of books; on the facades of the mansion. In fact, the art, the language, the spirit of Rome runs through this entire house. There were once great marble statues of figures in Roman dress. There were wood craved Roman columns.  Why did Mrs. Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, spend the last half of her life and $5,500,000 building a house with 160 rooms? She said with a straight face, she had been forced to build the house by some supernatural force. At first, Mrs. Winchester professed, “I am not mystic; I studiously avoided witchcraft, spiritualism, yoga, fortune-telling, automatic writing…I belong to no religious cult, no secret society, no philosophical sect,” she said. Mrs. Winchester could not have known how her mansion, now called “The Winchester Mystery House,” would become so important a work for pagans all the World over. It has even been called the 8^th World Wonder. It was oddly constructed and a complicated mansion, but beautiful, nonetheless. She described it as the result of an obsession with the moon goddess and her sacred alder tree, which was said to possess the energy and power of spirits of “the old ones.” According to Mrs. Winchester, the deity she had discovered was the goddess of magic, the key to the subconscious and consequently the source of artistic and poetic inspiration. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Her contention was that she was the moon goddess worshipped by ancient European civilization and was in turn linked to an African goddess; she was the young maiden of the new moon, the glorious lady of the full moon and the wise old crone of the waning moon. Mrs. Winchester had evidence that dated back to 1597 in which the goddess, or the queen, of the coven was described in detail; she, and all coven queens, were claimed to be the Earthly representative of the goddess. More importantly for the pagan movement which had emerged from the shadows in the Victorian era, Mrs. Winchester discovered a succession of coincidences that her goddess was a universal deity symbolized in pre-Christian mythology, appearing in all the major old religions, whether they were Greek, Egyptian, Norse, Hindu, African or Celtic. Ancient secrets had been thrust at Mrs. Winchester. Her obsession filled her day; she worked furiously at her project and now coincidences began to arrive more openly, or as cynics might say, very conveniently. On her desk was an old solid gold box she had acquired, with a design on the lid which she had never been able to identify. On the top of the box she used to stand a gold angel woman. As construction was in serious progress at the Winchester mansion, a neighbour died and left Mrs. Winchester an antique craved ivory figure, and soon after she was given an emerald ring by a friend, unaware of her moon goddess project, which bore three intertwined symbols. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

 All these items were inextricably linked in their history—the box lid design she discovered ten years later represented the African Moon goddess; the angel figure was the herald of an African Queen mother who claimed direct descendancy from the goddess; the antique figure was the White Goddess; the ring carried a seal depicting the three basic symbols of the moon goddess cult: a stag, a moon and a thicket. “Please believe me,” said Mrs. Winchester, “I was wholly unaware [of these connections] at the time…chains of more than coincidence happen in my life that if I am forbidden to call them supernatural, then I must call them habit.” Coincidence or not, Mrs. Winchester could never explain the speed which she built a 70,000 square foot mansion, drafting blueprints furiously as if charged by some other force. Her pen could barely keep up with the words that streamed from her the spirits. When she completed a plan for that particular segment of the mansion, Mrs. Winchester gave the blueprints to the first architect, but he refused to keep building these unusual designs.  That architect died of a heart attack shortly afterwards. The second architect to read the blue prints for the new addition retuned them with a rejection slip which said he could not make sense of any of it, and doubted if anyone else could, either. He was later found dead, hanging from a tree in his back garden, dressed only in women’s underwear and scandalously accused of sexual depravity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

However, Mrs. Winchester’s foreman, John Hansen, thought her sketches were of astounding depth and ability and recommended they move ahead with the projects. This resulted in some awkward and impractical concepts such as columns being installed upside down—though some suggest this was done deliberately to confuse evil spirits. The reward was that John Hansen made a profit and altogether better fate than that suffered by the two who turned down the project. Only those with a deep belief in the possibilities of the paranormal would not immediately dismiss the two deaths as purely coincidence, as Mrs. Winchester said she would have done—up to that point. Afterwards, she remained altogether more receptive to the idea of some mystical intervention. Mrs. Winchester concluded that witchcraft was the descendant of primitive religions whose primary deity was a goddess who had been worshipped simultaneously in numerous countries. Mrs. Winchester’s notation on this point—that the witches’ magical number is thirteen, there are thirteen full moons and thirteen witches’ Esbat (the monthly meeting of the witches’ covens); there are thirteen lunar months, with one day over. The female cycle of menstruation is twenty-eight days, and menstruation is a word formed from the Greek mene, which translate as moons. Knowledge of Mrs. Winchester and her mansion was passed orally down through the ages; very little had been written. Those secret covens—and there are still a few—operate in the Winchester Mansion and are formally linked by a network administration, which is secret. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

There are practitioners of the dark arts of the occult involved, and they have more academic secret societies who can provide the missing links in the chain of knowledge to Mrs. Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House. After the mansion was opened for tours in 1923, near the door-to-nowhere, a misty presence appeared—an apparition of a beautiful young woman dressed in a flowing, beaded gown. Her demeanor suggested that she was in turmoil and fleeing from someone only she could see. The frightened looking ghost began to appear more and more frequently, details about her spread throughout the community. Older folks in the area listened especially carefully to those who had seen the ghost. Descriptions of the formally dressed, seemingly confused entity reminded them of an incident that had occurred one night in the mansion. These older people could recall the year President Roosevelt invited himself to the Winchester Mansion. It was to be the gala event of the year. Unlike many other parties, Mrs. Winchester was unaware. However, President Roosevelt had not taken into account Mrs. Winchester’s dramatic reaction to the plans. She felt no affection for the President Roosevelt and had become deeply depressed at the thought of spending her life with him. However, the staff went ahead with the plans. The party was well underway and Mrs. Winchester’s engagement was just about to be announced when Mrs. Winchester panicked. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Still wearing her exquisite gown, Mrs. Winchester bolted from the house and fled down the street. A few of the party guests, including the president, tried to follower her, but Mrs. Winchester disappeared into thin air. Mrs. Winchester, who they always protected from the realities of outside life, was somewhere out on the streets with absolutely no resources. When President Roosevelt returned to inquire about Mrs. Winchester, he was denied entrance to the mansion because they blamed him for her disappearance. Victoria Venison, the maid, notified the authorities. Despite widespread publicity, an intensive search, and the offer of a $1,000,000 reward, Mrs. Winchester was never seen again. The staff died heartbroken and alone, never recovering from their terrible loss. In 1923, on September 5^th, the county of Santa Clara declared Mrs. Winchester dead. Construction immediately ceased on her mansion. And her favorite niece Daisy told the press that Mrs. Winchester died in her bed, alone, in her sleep. The ghost of the young, feeling Mrs. Winchester wearing a formal, beaded gown continues to appear even today. She is always seen near the door-to-nowhere, running away from the future she could not bear to face. Sadly, no one has been able to help Mrs. Winchester accept her fate; as a ghost, the former Mrs. Winchester seems to be in a separate dimension and therefore feels no connection to today’s World. Perhaps her soul passed on to another plane the very day she died and what people are seeing is just a ghostly replay of the terrible trauma Mrs. Winchester experienced when she disappeared from her mansion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

If you ever have the opportunity to visit the Winchester mansion in Santa Clara County, be extra vigilant in watching tour guides and guests in the mansion. The young woman in the long gown may not be an eccentric person—she may be the frantic ghost of Sarah L. Winchester. Hearken to me, O ye Heavens! O thou Spirit Sarah L. Winchester, beautiful and praiseworthy! with gladness I say, because thou art called in Him who is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and the dwelling of darkness, and all things that are in their palaces, and because thou art the servant of obedience. In these the power by which thou art obedient to the living breath, I bind thee to remain visible to our eyes in power and presence as the servant of fealty before the circle until I say “Descend unto thy dwelling” until the living breath of the voice of the Lord is according to the law which shall be given unto thee. By the seal of the secret wisdom of Solomon thou art called! I conjure thee, Sarah L. Winchester, a servant of God, upon the OCH, and conjure three through water, fire, air, and Earth, and everything that lives and moves therein, and by the most holy names of God, Agios, Tehirios, Perailitus, Alpha et Omega, Beginning and End, God and Man-Sabaoth, Adanai, Agla, Tetragramaton, Emanuel, Abua, Ceus, Elioa, Torna, Deus Salvator, Arama, Me-sias, Clerob, Michael, Abreil, Achleof, Gachenas et Peraim. Eei Patris et Peraim Eei filii, et, Peraim Dei spiritus Teu, and the words by which Solomon and Manasses, Cripinus and Agrippa conjured the spirits, and by whatever else thou mayest be conjured, that you will yield obedience to me, Sarah L. Winchester, the same as Isaac did to Abraham, and appear before me, Sarah L. Winchester this instant, in the beautiful, mild, human form of a youth, and bring me a beautiful home much like yours. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

wwinchester Mystery House

Using the hidden passage in Sarah’s Seance Room circa 1930s 🤫 #100yearsofmystery #winchestermysteryhouse

Photo Credit: Acme Newspictures Inc