The rites of  Transcendental Magic are divine and religious rites, and the counsels, spiritual and moral, which are found in its instructions are, in their way, the counsels of perfection, whatever element of puerility may radically obtain in its experiments. It is not to do outrage to God in the interests of diabolism, but to derive power and virtue from above for more successful control of Evil Spirits, and this obtains indifferently whether the purpose of the operator be otherwise lawful or not. One should put all one’s hopes in God before one makes pact with Satan; that, in a word, one should be good in order to do evil. Demons of the Solitudes stand guard over the Winchester Mansion and its secrets even when human ghosts have ceased to walk in the neighbourhood. And little do people know, that the habitual practice of Black Magic at the Vatican can be easily proved. Seemingly insignificant decisions in our lives set us on irreversible courses; that we were born when and where were, that we choose to live here or there, seem to set us on a track from which there is only one detour, only one escape. Sarah L. Winchester paused on her doorstep. Dark had descended on the brilliancy of the afternoon of April in 1888, and the grinding and building of the mansion was at its highest. She turned her back on it, standing for a moment in the old fashioned, marble-flagged vestibule before she inserted her key in the lock. The sash curtain drawn across the panes of the inner door softened the light within to a warm blur through which no details showed. It was an hour when she had most liked to return to that quiet beautiful house. The contrast between the soulful stillness of Santa Clara Valley, and the mansion with its devouring blaze of lights, always stirred Mrs. Winchester profoundly. In the very heart of this 600 room labyrinth she found her joy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

In the hall hung Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, Artemisia Gentilechi, Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, Sanford R. Gifford, October in the Catskills, Georges de La Tour, Joseph the Carpenter, Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas and other fine works of art. There was also the grand staircase, and on the right her library, full of books and inviting Victorian Renaissance Revival arms chairs. How Mrs. Winchester loved that room! Then, upstairs, her own drawing room, in which her niece Daisy loved to sit and soak up the sun. The Hall-of-Fires was one of Mrs. Winchester’s favourite rooms because had five fireplaces, and three connecting rooms. In fact, this is where she hastened back at dusk on winter days, where she sat reading by the fire, or answering notes at the pleasant roomy desk. Sometime friends dropped in; sometime—oftener—she was alone; and she liked that best. The housemaid, Hilda, tried her best to ignore the eerie noises that she heard coming from the room that possessed the door-to-nowhere. Each night when she was left alone to mop the floors, she would hear the sounds—dull, heavy treading, like someone slowly pacing back and forth and the door opening and closing. Finally she decided that she had enough of the strange sounds thar so disturbed her. She was convinced that a ghost occupied that room. In a state of nervous agitation, she asked to be discharged from her service in the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester saw no reason why she should attempt to talk the woman into saying with her. She was obviously a highly imaginative woman who had frightened herself by supposing that she was being visited by supernatural beings. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

Through it all, Mrs. Winchester heard Hilda’s soul weeping in agony; it was an echo of her own, soul broken from a course of great hope. It was not before long, however, before Mrs. Winchester and the other servants also heard the sound of heavy feet in the room with the door-to-nowhere. Although puzzled by the treading of invisible feet, Mrs. Winchester and the servants convinced themselves that there was undoubtedly a natural explanation for the strange sounds. In spite of their refusal to believe that there was a supernatural element to the noise, Mrs. Winchester purposely omitted any mention of the disturbed room when she hired a new housemaid. However, it was not before long that Magda realized something was wrong. In addition to the sounds of thudding feet, the ghost has soon acquired fists with which to pound on walls and added bed-lifting to it repertoire of supernatural phenomena. The invisible force manifested under the bed of the Magda and began to raise the mattress higher and higher, until she finally cried out. Next, the thing hoisted the mattress of the bed. Magda described the sensation as feeling as if a large man were underneath the bed, pushing it up with his back. Later, the haunting developed an ability to whistle, talk, and materialize into a number of grotesque phantoms. Mrs. Winchester was awakened one night by a loud shriek that emanated from under her bed. Upon investigating, heard an odd moan coming from somewhere in the room. The bed began to move. Mrs. Winchester switched bedrooms, but her relocation did not spare her the torment of having her bed levitated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

The phenomen had begun to leave its domain on the upper floor, venturing to the lower floors during the night. One of the kitchens seemed to be a favorite targe for its nightly forays, and on several mornings the cook would find the kitchen chairs heaped in a disorderly pile, the shutters thrown open, and utensils scattered about the room. One night Daisy was terrified to hear the bolt in her door slide back, the handle turn, and the door open. As an invisible entity moved across the bed, the curtains began to rustle, and the bedcovers were suddenly lifted and thrown off the bed, revealing Daisy trembling in fear. She saw a distinctly dark shadow against the curtains that hung from the bed frame. Mrs. Winchester was disturbed nearly every night, so much so that she would sleep in a different room frequently. She reported hearing the words “never mind” and “come and get” being repeated over and over, without any apparent meaningful application. As she attempted to sleep, she constantly heard footsteps shuffling around her bed, and felt forceful thumps to her pillow and other bedclothes. She must have blacked out. She came to, after what seemed like hours but could surely have only been seconds, brought around by an urgent rapping on her window. The face she saw through the glass startled her. It was a man’s face—a man with eyes so dark and penetrating that her immediate impulse was to close her eyes. The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Winchester sat down at the table, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Her tears flowed freely. “I should be happy,” she signed to herself. “By rights I should be happy.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

Bang! The furnace in the basement made such a loud noise, its note reverberating through the house like a bell and sending Mrs. Winchester’s nerves a-twitching. Bang! Again. Words of the haunts got around. The house received few visitors. No neighbours dropped by for a chat. From one end of the week to another she only saw Daisy and her servants. Jim Hansen, the foreman of the estate, told Mrs. Winchester that he had heard a peculiar noise moving across the lawn in darkness. At first, Mr. Hansen thought it came from the belfry; he suspected that some prankster were ringing it. However, upon pursuing the noise with a lantern in hand, he found that the bell had not moved. Mr. Hansen also told Mrs. Winchester in the strictest confidence that even before this peculiar disturbance, he had on several occasion heard a sound as if someone were walking on a gravel path, but there was nothing but emerald green grass for yards, and when he went to see who it was, he saw no one. Shortly after Mrs. Winchester’s confidential conversation with Mr. Hansen, both Mr. Hansen and a housemaid observed the luminous image of a woman in a tower window of the Winchester Mansion; both parties saw the ghost independently of each other. Mr. Hansen gathered the entire staff to witness the phantasm, which was fully visible for more than 10 minutes. One evening, a few minutes before midnight, Daisy was awakened by a noise very much like that of someone winding a large clock. After this bizarre noise, her bed began to shake, and she clearly heard a sound like that of a heavy sack falling on the floor above. Several strong knocks sounded about her bedstead, and the unmistakable sound of shuffling feet surrounded her bed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

About 1am, Mrs. Winchester was awakened by a piercing scream of terror coming from the fourth floor. Daisy had come face to face with the ghost of a wizened old woman. Mrs. Winchester and Daisy spent the rest of the night drinking coffee in the kitchen. However, they were not alone. The knocking started again. Then an entity resembling a monkey came lurking into the kitchen. The woman screamed and ran upstairs locking themselves in the Blue Séance Room. Suddenly, the monkeylike creature appeared in the window outside of the Blue Séance Room and started banging on the bars covering the window. By The time Mr. Hansen came running to response to their excited cries, he saw what he thought was an oversized werewolf howling and banging on the house. However, no one in the neighbourhood owned a monkey. Mrs. Winchester stay up all night sketching the creature. When she was done, Daisy went down to the library and spent hours reading up on curious monsters in The Hudson Bay Diaries. When she stumbled upon The Windigo.  These documents explained that Windigo’s are flesh-eating demons. They come from the Native American tribes in the northern United States of America and Canada. The Ojibwa, Cree, and Algonquian Indians explained that the Windigo were once humans. Somehow, they turned into possessed cannibals. People feared these demons most during the winter months when food was hard to find. The Windigo supposedly roams frozen northern areas looking for humans to eat. According to legend, the Windigo paralyzes its victims with a scream. Then it kills them and eats them. Blizzards swirl around this giant as it travels from victim to victim. It is said to be as tall as the trees of the forest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

As Mr. Hansen, Mrs. Winchester, and Ms. Daisy searched the mansion to make sure there were no more intruders, they did not find the Windigo.  However, what they did discover was a floating head. It was a white face of a woman. As if that was not shocking enough, the constant sound of heavy thuds prevented their nerves from relaxing. The house echoed with the sounds of boxed being dragged down the stairs. The trio had no idea what to think of this. Obviously, it was the souls of the slain. Ghostly phenomena were a common occurrence in the Winchester Mansion. When a person dies the bioelectric energy is released from the body into the local environment where it may perform one of two actions. The unconscious energy may dissipate into the local environment and there will essentially be no manifestations thereafter or it may, through covalent bonding, remain in the local environment and attach itself to a certain place or object that the person was attached to in life, or any place that has an electron deficit (this is the theory being “repeat” hauntings). The energy may, upon rapid release from the physical body (such as in accidental death, tragic situations, or a rapid natural release, et cetera) coagulate within the local environment over a short period of time, maybe only a couple of minutes or so, and amass to such a degree that the greater portion that was originally in the body had now become self-aware outside the body. Psychological forces of conscious will may also trigger this type of reaction. When self-awareness occurs, there is generally a degree of confusion because of the new form that the person is in, one of pure energy rather than a physically manifested body. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

 I invoke and conjure, and command thee, O Spirit TETRAGRAMMATON, to appear and show thyself visibly before this circle, in fair and comely shape, without deformity or guile, by the Name of ON; by the Name Y and V, which Adam heard and spake; by the Name of JOTH, which Jacob learned from the Angels on the night of his wrestling, and was delivered from the hands of hi brother Esau; by the Name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; by the Name ANEHEXETON, which Aaron spake and was made wise; by the Name SCHEMES AMATHIA, which Joshua invoked and the Sun stayed upon his course; by the Name EMMANUEL, which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, chanted in the midst of the fiery furnace, and were delivered; by the Name ALPHA and OMEGA, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the Dragon; by the Name ZEBAOTH, which Moses named, and all the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt brought forth frogs, which ascended into the houses of the Egyptians, destroying all things; by the Name ESCERCHIE ARISTON, which Moses named, and the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt were tuned into blood; by the Name ELION, on which Moses called, and there fell a great hall, such as never was seen since the creation of the World; by the Name AEONAI, which Moses named, and there came up locusts over all the land of Egypt, and devoured what the hail had left: by the Name HAGIOS, by the Seal of ADONAI, by those others which are JETROS, ATHENOROS, PARACLETUS; by the three Holy and Secret Names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATION; by the dreadful Day of Judgement; by the changing Sea of Glass which is before the face of the Divine Majesty, mighty and powerful; by the four bests before the Throne, having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by the Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Might Wisdom of God; by the Seal of BADATHEA, by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named make faithful answers unto all my demands, and perform all my desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which I desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice that I may understand thee. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

The Winchester Mystery House

Over many years, cases, and investigations, observers have documented hauntings in the Winchester Mansion that cannot be ignored. To those who wish to condemn these tales because they seem to document happenings after death, it must be remembered that a good 20 percent of the World’s population have built their religion specifically around life after death. They are called Christians. As well, most of the rest of the World’s major religions believe in another World, beyond, or perhaps parallel, with the one which is visible. Looking for a rainy day activity? Bring the family to the iconic Winchester Mystery House! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

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