The ordinary fields of psychological inquiry, largely in possession of the pathologist, are fringed by a borderland of transcendental experiment into which pathologist may occasionally venture, but it is left for the most part to the uncharted explorers. Beyond these fields and this borderland there lies the uncharted explorers. The legendary wonder-World of Mysticism, Magic, and Sorcery, a World of fascination or terror, as the mind which regards it is tempered, but in either case the antithesis of admitted possibility. There all para doxes seem to obtain actually, contradictions logically coexist, the effect is greater than the cause, and the shadow more than the substance. Therein the visible melts into the unseen, the invisible is manifested openly, motion from place to place is accomplished without traversing the intervening distance, matter passes through matter. There two straight  lines may enclose a space; space has a fourth dimension, and further possibilities beyond it; without metaphor and without evasion, the circle is mathematically squared. There life is prolonged, youth renewed, physical immortality secured. There Earth becomes gold, and gold Earth. There words and wishes possess creative power thoughts are things, desire realizes its object. Those, also, the dead live, and the hierarchies of extra-mundane intelligence are within easy communication, and become ministers or tormentors, guides or destroyers, of man. There the Law of Continuity is suspended by the inference of the higher Law of Fantasia. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

It was midnight when they drew near the fireplace. The piano tinkled in the den, and the shades of the flickering oil lamps were black with soot. Blixa followed Mrs. Winchester out of the salon, across the hall in which a single candle burned on a far-off table, and past the stairway yawning like a black funnel above them. In the doorway of the mahogany parlor Blixa paused. “Now, then, Blixa!” It was stupid, but Mrs. Winchester’s heart gave a jerk; she hoped the challenge would not evoke the shadowy figure she had half seen that other day. “Lord, it is cold!” Blixa stood looking about him. “Those ashes are still on the hearth. Well, it is all very queer.” He crossed over to the citron wood desk. “There is where Daisy sat for her picture—and in this very armchair—look!” “Oh, do not!” Mrs. Winchester exclaimed. The words slipped out unawares. “Do not –what?” “Try those drawers—” she wanted to reply; for his hand was stretched toward the desk. “I am frozen; I think I am starting a cold. Do come away,” she whispered, backing toward the door. Blixa lighted her out with comment. As the lamplight slid along the walls of Mrs. Winchester’s fancied that the needlework curtain over the farther door stirred as it had that other day. However, it may have been the wind rising outside. “Someone has been here before us—just lately,” Blixa exclaimed. Mrs. Winchester stared, incredulous, and then followed the direction of his downward pointing hand. “Do you wear flat heelless shoes?” he questioned. “And of that size” Even my feet are too small to fit into those foot prints. Luckily there was not time to sweep the floor!” #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

Mrs. Winchester felt a slight chill, a chill of a different and more inward quality than the shock of stuffy coldness which had met them as they entered the unaired attic of her mansion. “But how absurd! Of course when Mr. Magnar found we were coming up here, he came to open the shutters.” “That is not Mr. Magnar’s foot, Mrs. Winchester. Look at how it wanders.” “Ah! I am freezing, you know; let us give this up for the present.” Mrs. Winchester rose, and Blixa followed her without protest; the muniment room was really untenable. “I must catalogue all this stuff someday, I supposed,” Mrs. Winchester continued, as they went down the stairs. “But meanwhile, I would like a cup of tea.” Blixa agreed, and turned back to his room to get some letters he wanted. Mrs. Winchester went down alone. It was a fine afternoon, and the sun, which had made the dust clouds of the muniment room so dazzling, sent a long shift through the west stained glass window of the mahogany parlor, and across the floor of the hall. Certainly the housemaid kept the mahogany floors remarkably well; considering how much else she had to do, it was surp—Mrs. Winchester stopped as if an unseen hand had jerked her violently back. On the smooth oak floor before he she had caught the trace of dusty footprints—the prints of broad soled heelless shoes—making for the mahogany parlor and crossing the threshold. She stood still with the same inward shiver that she had felt on the fourth floor; then, avoiding the footprints, she too stole very softly toward the mahogany parlor, pushed the door wider, and saw, in the short dazzle of the winter light, as if translucid, edged with glitter, an old man at the desk. #RandolpHarris 3 of 6

“William!” A step came up behind her. She turned around and looked up to find William, her late husband’s face, swimming above her own, pale in the semidarkness of the room. “It can’t be,” Mrs. Winchester said. As soon as the words were out, he vanished. Mrs. Winchester moved to the needlework curtain, in which he had detected the same faint tremor as before. She lifted up the curtain with a firm hand. Behind it was a rectangle of roughly plastered wall, where an opening had visibly been bricked up. She could not remember how long it had been since she had part of this room sealed off. “There are a great many things about this house that nobody knows about,” she said. Mrs. Winchester turned back to the desk at which she had just seen—or fancied she had seen—the figure of Mr. Winchester. She hurried across the hall, moving with youthful grace and lack of effort, and could feel the potency of the energy in her limbs. Mrs. Winchester felt a surge of love. What it was like to have a fleeting moment of her husband’s time. She felt a tingling all over her face, but knew something was desperately wrong. A moment later, she heard a mysterious voice. It was speaking soothingly, come from all corners of the morning room, even from the ceiling. “Get out!” it said. “Get out,” it said again, “out of my house do you hear?” Mrs. Winchester screamed, “No!” over and over. Through her own frantic shouts she heard another voice, a male voice which was close at hand. It was derisive, mocking. She heard laughter and words she could not comprehend. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

The morning room was darkening, as though it were sinking slowly to the bottom of a murky pond. Mrs. Winchester felt her body grow heavy, as though it were filling up with water. Mrs. Winchester stumbled from the room, down the stairs, and to the basement. For a moment or two there was silence. Then the laughter started. It erupted from a part of the basement known as steam alley. Hysterical laughter grew louder and louder, until it filled her head and—it seemed to Mrs. Winchester—the house itself. But her ordeal was far from over. She could hear someone dragging their feet up and down steam alley. The heavy boots echoed through the basement. Mrs. Winchester was distraught, wondering where Blixa was and if her could hear the noise, too? She begged and pleaded for the haunting to stop. But it did not. “Oh, William, help me!” she whispered over and over to herself. Whatever it was in that basement seemed to know how to induce the utmost terror in her. She waited—and waited—trembling. All at once, there came a frenetic scratching and scraping at the floor. Like a mason working on bricks and mortar. Mrs. Winchester passed out. Now she meant what it meant by the phrase “I nearly died of fright.” That night she came as close as anyone could have to doing just that. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

Opening her eyes at four o’clock that next morning, she been startled by the silence of the house. And gone at once to Blixa’s room. She knew at the moment she saw him so still on the pillow, and the figure of her late husband sitting at the window, that he was dead. A wretched weakness came over him at the thought of her nephew, as she recalled how he was always in the garden every time she stepped into the yard, up the long central path among the rip and swelling flowers. Hi dark curls flowing down his forehead. Mrs. Winchester felt some impulse to take the boy of twelve into her arms, as if she might then perform some desperate action that would change all of time. Mrs. Winchester had some locks of his hair in her prayer book, for she raised him as her own son. Mrs. Winchester’s home was under siege. She was a refugee in her own mansion. She cursed herself long and hard for being a fool. Her gullibility had exposed her to unknowable danger. She had come to know the nature of the danger. However, for the time being, she was content in wrapping it in terminology that only hinted at the truth. Magic dealing with spirits, was that which made even the peasant tremble, and when the peasant shakes at one’s heath, the king is not secure in one’s palace. Magic, usually includes the Rites for the invocation of Evil Spirits. O Eternal and Omnipotent God, who has ordained the whole creation for Thy paise and Thy glory, as also for the salvation of man, I beseech Thee to send Thy Spirit Sarah L. Winchester, of the Solar Race, that she may instruct us concerning those things about which we design to ask her [or that she may bring us knowledge about her precious estate]. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done, through Jesus Christ, Thine only-begotten Son, who is our Lord. Amen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

The Winchester Mystery House

One of the most convincing symptoms of possession is levitation. This is when a person seems to float in midair. Levitation is a very rare symptom. To believers, it is ultimate proof of possession. Skeptics are not so easy to convince. There may be authentic confirmed cases of levitating at The Winchester Myster House. Why not come by and tour 110 of 160 rooms of this amazing mansion that is haunted by ancient spirits. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Have you purchased March Speaker Series tickets yet? $5 entry! Purchase your tickets before they are all gone! You don’t want to miss this months discussion as we invite you to solve the mystery of the Asian-inspired art and design lurking in Sarah Winchester’s very Victorian mansion. “Japonisme—a Passion for Japan” explores the decorating sensation that swept the western world during the last three decades of the 19th century, and left an indelible mark on Sarah Winchester’s San Jose home. Speakers include Curator at SFO Museum, Nicole Mullen & West Coast Editor for Old House Journal, Brian Colman. #100yearsofmystery

And be sure to check out the online store: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/