The flambeaux were already alight. The darting flames cast crisscross patterns down through the bare branches of the trees to the cobbled stones beneath. Mrs. Winchester was in bed, skin alternatively burning and clammy with sweat. She tossed and turned in bed, like flotsam on a storm-wracked sea, plagued by dreams and delusions. Angels and gargoyles, ghostly apparitions, long-since deserted friends waltzed in and out of her head. She oscillated between beauty and horror. The fever broke around two o’clock in the morning. Then a kind of peace fell over the room. In the still and sleeping house, she could hear the whirring and chiming of the clock in the hall downstairs. A ribbon of moonlight made its way between the shutters and painted a line across the floor. She watched the moonbeams dance, slowly shift, as the hours passed and the World continued to turn. Nothing about it gave her a hint of what was going on, darkly and dumbly downstairs. However, her eyes fell for a moment only; then her lids opened again to a monstrous vision. There it was, stamped on her pupils, a part of her forever, an indelible horror burnt into her body and brain. But why into her—just hers? Why had she alone been chosen to see what she had seen? What business was it of hers? Anyone else, thus enlightened, might have exposed the horror and defeat of it; but she, the one weaponless and defenceless spectator, the one whom none of the others would believe or understand if she attempted to reveal what she knew—she alone had been singled out as the victim of this dreadful initiation! #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Suddenly she sat up, listening; she had heard a step on the stairs. Someone, no doubt, was coming to see how she was—to urge her, if she felt better, to go down and have a cup of tea. Cautiously, Mrs. Winchester opened her door—but no one was there. She reached the opposite end of the lower gallery, and beyond it saw the hall by which she had entered. It was empty. The darkness was deep, and the cold so intense that for an instant it stopped her breathing. The impulse to fly still drove her further, but she began to feel that she was flying from a terror of her own creating, and that the most urgent reason for escape into one of the secret passageways was the need to feel safe. Mrs. Winchester had spent long hours walking through her mansion. The cold and fatigue, the absence of hope and the haunting sense of starved aptitude, all these her brough her to the perilous verge over which, once or twice before, her terrified brain had hung. Feeling sure that she had walked for more than a mile, Mrs. Winchester halted and looked back. She saw the gleam of a lantern right beyond the Hall of Fires. As she moved deeper into the darker part of her mansion, an enormous sepulcher with a horrible stench was seen lurking in the shadows. The smell grew stronger. It seemed to ooze from the walls. Mrs. Winchester turned her face down and vomited a thin stream of glittering blood upon the floor beneath her, which vanished as she moved swiftly one. She was descending lower and lower into the depths of the mansion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Flickering light scrape her bare feet on the stone, cob webs brushing her face. For an instant, Mrs. Winchester saw a grinning skull. Then a ton of them creating a catacomb in the wall. She trudged on in silence for a few minutes, but as the labouring steps carried her nearer to the spot she had been fleeing in her nightmare, the reason for this fear grew more ominous and more insistent. No, she was not ill, she was not distraught and deluded—she was the instrument single out to warn and save; and here she was, irresistibly driven, dragging the victim back to her doom! A trail of darkness lay on everything. Mrs. Winchester looked deep down into the abyss. The room has one narrow window. The walls were dark, and the overhead lighting fixture was so dim it left the corners full of hanging shadows like misplaced scarecrows. Her next vision made its presence felt once again. There was a man standing inside of the abyss. Mrs. Winchester was tongued-tied. She had the sense of being held in one spot. The man was tall, about six feet; he looked to be in his thirties and was clad in a black robe. Mrs. Winchester could see his face clearly. He was stern and very pale, with sharp features—long nose, thin lips, and small, narrowed eyes—and he moved his head from side to side as if peering from one corner of the room to the other. He did not look at Mrs. Winchester—at least, not as far as she could tell. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
The most significant thing about him, however, was his right arm. She could not see his hand, nor could Mrs. Winchester see his feet. As she began to scream, the figure disappeared. She knew this ghost had to be the soul of a man who had met violent ends. Blood and water gushed forth from the depths of the abyss. The vision continued to reappear. Along with him, there were five other apparitions. They were holding a thin string of smoke. Mrs. Winchester thought it was dust at first, until without warning it grew denser and thicker, as it formed itself into a rope shape. She watched perplexed, as it leisurely uncoiled in their hands and disappeared. Then up from the abyss cam a man’s chest, cut off at the waist with no arms or a head. It was all a pale colour. Mrs. Winchester jumped over the ghastly torso and ran from the basement screaming. That night Mrs. Winchester slept fitfully. Her mind was replaying over and over the horrid basement scene. Sometime close to midnight, she gave up her attempts at sleep; her darkened bedroom, with its shadows and hints of danger, was making her uneasy. She slipped into the Daisy Bedroom. However, about five o’ clock, she found herself wide awake. Light was peering in at the window and she no longer felt sleepy. Mrs. Winchester eased herself out of bed and walked towards the door. However, she had no wish to return to bed, sensing that danger was nearby. All was quiet, save for the door-to-nowhere opening and closing by itself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
From the windows in the Daisy Bedroom, dawning sun was gradually filling the hall with a golden, green, and blue light, bringing the mansion’s interior to life. Mrs. Winchester felt as if she was safe. She rested in a chair in the front parlor. The varnish of the floor reflected the light. As she was gazing at the floor, something magical occurred. Without warning, a man’s head popped out of the floor, smiled up at her, and disappeared back into the floor. Mrs. Winchester was not scared—she was intrigued. Moments later, the man reappeared. However, this time he stepped out of the floor and came to stand near her chair. Then when Mrs. Winchester looked again, she saw a gaping hole opened in the floor, and it was filled with beautiful rays of colorful light. Then the man jumped into the lights, and all of the beauty disappeared. Mrs. Winchester was saddened by this paranormal departure. This ghost made her feel safe and brought such magical colours along with him. Later that day, Mrs. Winchester was surprised by what could be nothing else but a fairy. A shower of gold mist appeared, and the tiny woman hovered for a moment or two, then vanished. There was nothing evil about these two ghosts. Manifestations typically appear at significant times—for instance, on the anniversary of the death or deaths of those involved. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
Mrs. Winchester’s ghost tended to hover a few inches off the ground, and walk through walls; it might be conjected, then, that they were also the ones supplying the floor plans for the vast mansion. There were also entities that were dangerous and evil, but they had been disbursed for awhile by these beings of light. Ouija boards, horoscopes, séances, tarot cards, fortune-telling, witchcraft, and so on—can sometime server as a portal for spirits to enter an individual’s life. People can make contact with the dead. However, doors have opened in the Winchester Mansion onto many of the regions of paranormal existence. On several occasion, the light would be on in the room of Mrs. Winchester. She often said that something dark would visit her and press down on her chest. And she was always having strange experiences. One several occasion she had awoken in the early morning hours to find a young woman standing by the foot of her bed. She was dressed in clothes from ancient times and was badly disfigured down one side of her face. She was a lost soul. The aspect of Satanism has grown in occultism, especially among young people, so that Worldwide there are dozens of active and well-organized satanic groups. While the mainstream and “official cults deny the charges of sacrificial ritual and blood-lust, there are many less formal covens of worshippers and pseudo-satanic sects, some resorting to a kind of ritual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
The witches of the World and the occult fraternity at large regard themselves as inheritors of traditions based on the pre-Christian beliefs of the ancient pagans and Eastern mysticism and magic, and satanists are basically the creation of the Bible; they originally acknowledged the Christian God, even if they do challenge His existence in biblical terms. They are united only in their contemptuous regard for Gardnerian and Alexandrian witchcraft. Furthermore, it was the Christians themselves who were originally accused for killing babies for sacrificial rites—a charge which has been renewed in the twenty-first century against the satanists. One lovely autumn evening, all blue and silver, Mrs. Winchester had been painting. As the sunset the sky turned crimsoned and the densest night enveloped the Winchester Mansion. There was a wet blackness impenetrable to the glimmer of any lamp. But now and then the pall lifted or its fold divided and passersby could catch a glimpse of the mysterious mansion. However, after each of these projections the darkness grew three times as thick. Night and fog were now one, and the darkness as thick as a blanket. Increased by her sense of irritated helplessness, Mrs. Winchester was groping clumsily about the hall among the angles of unseen furniture when a light slanted along the rough-cast wall of the stairs. She followed it direction, and on the landing standing above her she saw a figure in white shading a candle with one hand and looking down. A chill ran along her spine, for the figure bore a strange resemblance to that of her Husband William Wirt Winchester. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
“Oh, it’s you my love!” she exclaimed in the cracked twittering voice which was at one moment like an delicate woman’s quaver, at another like a falsetto. Mrs. Winchester’s husband came shuffling down in his white garments; but she noticed that his steps on the mahogany stairs were soundless. Well—they would be, naturally! She stood without a word, gazing up at the strange vision above her, and saying to her herself: “Darling, I have been longing for your return. Your eyes, they are so beautiful.” However, there was the candle, at any rate; and as it drew nearer, and lit up the place about her, she turned and caught hold of the doorlatch. For, Mrs. Winchester had seen the candle. “Why, what’s the matter? I assure you, you do not disturb me!” her apparition of a husband twittered; adding, with a faint laugh: “I do not have so many visitors nowadays.” She thought to herself, “Some flash of Heaven in the very pit of hell in his innocent expression, as if the devil still retained the face and form of the angel after the fall.” But something was very wrong. And she realized he was not her husband, but an entombed soul from the abyss—only the others were screaming, screaming for flesh, and screaming for forgiveness and release. Screaming even for the fires of hell. The sound was as unbearable as the stench. In the early days of Christianity, when worshippers gathered in secret for fear of reprisal by the pagan communities, Christian groups were rumoured to be performing horrendous and licentious cannibalistic ceremonies. In Rome, when the early Christians met in secret, their churches were said to be filled with the aroma of blood from sacrificed animals and babies. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
There was apparently no evidence for these accusations, yet very soon after Christianity had become established exactly the same allegations reappeared—this time against the heretics, pagans and so-called devil worshippers. This has been the pattern throughout history, down to the present day when it exploded once again with the unusual vehemence. O thou great powerful governor Amaimon, who reigneth exalted in the power of the only El above all spirits in the kingdoms of the East, (South, West, North), I invoke and move thee in the name of the true God, and in God who thou worshippest: and in the seal of thy creation: and in the mighty names of God, Iehevohe Tetragrammaton, who cast down from Heaven, thou and the spirits of darkness, and in all the names of the mighty God who is the creator of Heaven and Earth, and the dwelling of darkness, and all things and in their power and brightness; and in the name Primeumaton who reigns over the palaces of Heaven. Bring forth, I say, the spirits of William and Sarah Winchester; bring them forth in the 24th of a moment let their dwelling be empty until they visit us in peace, speaking the secrets of truth; I invoke thee. Through the gateway of blood, smoke, and Blackened Fire receive life from the deepest depths of Arezura, in the name of Zohak, and by the power of Angra Mainyu it is done! Awaken to empower the circle in the Winchester Mansion in the 24th of a moment in the likeness of, respectively, a man and a woman, not unto the terror of the sons of men the creatures or all things on the face of the Earth. Obey my power like reasoning beings; obey the living breath, the law which I speak. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Winchester Mystery House
Randolph Harris II International 