My life had become a tale of dark powers and secret treachery. My youth, beauty, and social station all stood at the brink of unimaginable riches. As my husband and I would enter the church, I would scan the room. Zaiss and Renee were always on the edges of their seats, excitement and greed dancing in their eyes. Ruth usually looked hot and bored, and was disappointed when Victoria would show up without Dieter. Aunt Marriam typically had a frown on her face, her mouth puckered with concern. Service was my favourite, but I could not stand the sickly-sweet lemonade which seared by throat. Church service was always followed with it, along with lukewarm tomato soup, and caviar. However, only at the deaths of my infant daughter and untimely death of my husband did I learn the price for this fortune. Ghostly manifestations have been taking place at Llanada Villa ever since I started expansion. Strange phantoms moved in disturbing fashions through the mansion. These ghosts took the form of a peculiar sound and sensation. Many people had heard the swish of a silken gown as the ghosts approached. However, I freely owned that I did not like careless talk about what some call ghost. A woman in my position could not, I found, be too careful about appearing to sanction the current beliefs on such subjects. Of course, my ears were frequently ringing horribly, as if with the residual echoes of some horrible noise heard in dreams. The halls were often haunted by vast leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—and that was not all. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

There had been soft talking too—these voices were almost an inaudible whisper. They welled up from the floor, while no one appeared to be stirring about. I could not imagine what had set these supernatural creatures gossiping, but supposed their imaginations had been roused by the elaborate construction. I heard sounds in the halls and on the stairs at night. The cults to which many of the witches belonged to in Santa Clara Valley possessed guarded and handed down surprising secrets from elder, forgotten aeons; and it was by no means impossible that they had actually mastered the art of passing through dimensional gates. Tradition emphasizes the uselessness of material barriers in halting a witch’s motions. I was determined to gain similar powers for the picturesque possibilities were enormous. Time could not exist in certain belt of space, and by entering and remaining in such a belt one might preserve one’s life and age indefinitely; never suffering organic metabolism or deterioration except for slight amounts incurred during visits to one’s own or similar planes. One might, for example, pas into a timeless dimension and emerge at some remote period of the Earth’s history as young as before. One evening, I was out of the dinning room and halfway across the lobby when an inconspicuous door on the mezzanine opened and a familiar voice called my name. I looked up swiftly, and turned toward the stairs that led to the mezzanine. The door opened onto one of my smaller libraries, which was comfortably furnished in dark-stained wood and substantial Victorian chairs upholstered in leather. There was one person in the room at the moment, and he smiled as I closed the door. When he spoke, it was not in English. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

He propped his elbows on the arms of the chair and linked his fingers under his chin. His hands were beautifully shaped and surprisingly small for a carpenter. “There is part of the trail to the fruit orchard that is going to need reinforcement before winter or we will have a big wash-out,” I said. He nodded, and went right out to fix it. There was an elegance about him that had little to do with his black clothing. I was noticeably pale the next day as I sat by the fire in my tunic with ruffled neck and hem. I gave a wan smile to the housemaid. “Good morning,” Abagail called as she saw me. “I thought you were still asleep.” “No,” I said hastily. “I have not had much rest. So I decided to get up and do some reading.” “Very well, Mrs. Winchester,” she said. “Will there be anything else for you?” “That will be all,” I said in a politely gelid tone. I stood at the bedroom window looking outside while the sounds of footsteps and trunks being dragged across the floor above came to me. It was still pitch-black outside, without the slightest illumination spilling outside from my room. Quite suddenly I felt vulnerable in the most dreadful way as if dissolution was imminent. Layers of ice formed within me; my teeth began to chatter. The gasolier flickered. My mind became totally possessed with the transient nature of life and the certainty of the grave’s final cold embrace. I was utterly lost, drained of every scrap of hope, afraid for my very soul’s existence. A vision of Annie lying downstairs flashed before my mind. The fear of the light going out and leaving me in total darkness up here suddenly overwhelmed me. A tiny, isolated bit of me listened amazedly to someone whimper—myself—before I turned and fled the icy chamber, padded as fast as I could to the head of the narrow flight of stairs and descended, to hasten in mindless terror back to my chamber. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

With no hope of achieving sleep, I tried to relax to control the endless cycling constructs of my overwrought imagination, to wait out the last long hours of darkness. Gradually warm came to me again and I fell into an exhausted, disturbed sleep just before the first gray light of dawn began to filter through the beautiful windows in the Daisy Bedroom. The sound of knocking alerted me. I tried to place the source of the noise. I felt my mind tinged with that vague sense of anxiety so often associated with the brain’s return to consciousness after an unpleasant dream. The knocking was repeated. My oversensitive ears caught a hideous strangled cry. I opened the door and walked down the staircase; halting only when seized and chocked by the waiting shadow. Growing fright and bewilderment overcame me. On the floor were confused, tiny, muddy prints, but oddly enough they did not extend from the door. The more I looked at them, the more peculiar they seemed. I could form no idea of what happened. Where the crying child could be, or where it came from. When I looked in the mirror, I noticed there were dark, livid marks on my throat, as if someone tried to strangle me. I put my hands up to them, and found that they did not even approximately fit. Abagail came down stairs and inquired about the footprints on the floor and confessed that she had heard a terrific clattering overhead in the dark small hours. However, even in daytime was not safe, for after dawn there had been strange sounds in the house—especially a thin, childish wail hastily choked off. A mood of revolting apprehension had seized me. I could not doubt that something hideously serious was closing in around me. Between the phantasmas of the nights and the realities of daytime, a monstrous and unthinkable relationship was crystallizing, and only stupendous vigilance could avert still more direful developments. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

The hall leading back to the kitchen was long and dim. I stood shuffling indecisively. I tiptoed upstairs up to the closed attic door, but I looked in the rooms off the landing. Two of the doors which I opened stealthily showed me nothing but beautiful floors and flurries of colourful light flooding in from the stained-glass windows. Then landing in from of the third was every more pristine. I pulled it toward me, and entered. Most of it did not seem to make sense to me. It was not as I remembered it. There was a single bed with floral sheets. Against the walls were tables and piles of ancient books. There were black candles and several small trunks. On one of the tables lay a single book. I padded across the Persian rug and opened the book in a thin path of sunlight through the shutters. Inside the covers was a page which I slowly realized had been ripped from this Bible. It was the story of Lazarus. Scribbles that might be letters filled the margin. As I flipped through the Bible, I saw a drawing of a corpse sitting up in his coffin, but the book was all in the language we sometimes used in church: Latin. As I walked down the stairs, something was troubling me. I did not know who had been using this room. I reached the kitchen door when I realized what had been bothering me. When I did emerge from the bedroom the attic door had been open. I looked back involuntarily, and saw a woman walking away from me down the hall. I was behind the closed kitchen door before I had time to feel fear. That came only when I saw that the back door was latched. Then I controlled myself. This had to be a new housemaid, I thought. I opened the door minutely. The hall was empty. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

Halfway down the hall I had to slip into the side room, heart jumping in my chest, for she did appear again from between the stairs and the front door. I felt the beginnings of anger and recklessness, and they grew faster and faster when I opened the door and had to flinch back as I saw her passing. The fingers looked famished, the colour of old lard, with long yellow cracked nails. There was no nail on her wedding finger, which wore a plain ring. She was returning from the direction of the kitchen, which was why I had not expected her. Through the opening of the door, I heard her padding upstairs. She sounded barefoot. I waited until I could not hear her, then edged out into the hall. The door began to fall open with a faint creak, and I drew it stealthily closed. I paced towards the front door. If I had not seen her shadow creeping down the stairs, I would have come face to face with her. I was listening behind the kitchen door, and near to panic, when I realized she was aware of me. She was playing a game with me. At once I was furious. This was my house and who was this old woman to be toying with me? Her body beneath the long white dress was sure to be as thin as her hands, she could only shout when she saw me, should could not harm me. I threw open the kitchen door in anger, and walk gently down the hall. The sight of her picking up a knife broke my stride for a moment. Perhaps she was going to kill me? However, she laid the knife down. I halted in a state of confusion. I was still struggling to react when she turned toward me, and I saw her face. Part of it was still on the bone. I did not back away until she began to advance on me, hair nails tearing new strips into the fine Lincrusta wallpaper I imported from England. All I could see was her protruding eyes, unsupported by flesh. I ran into my Blue Séance Room and locked the door. I would be safe here. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

Emperor Lucifer, Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, I adjure thee to leave thine abode, in whatsoever quarter of the World it may be situated, and come hither to communicate with me. I command and I conjure thee in the Name of the Mighty living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to appear without noise and with pleasant scent, to respond in a clear and intelligible voice, point by point, to all that we shall ask thee, failing which, thou shalt be most surely compelled to obedience by the power of the divine ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, JEHOVAM, TAGLA, MATHON, and by the whole hierarchy of superior intelligences, who shall constrain thee against thy will. Venite, Venite! Submiritillor Lucifuge, or eternal torment shall overwhelm thee, by the great power of this Blasting Rod. In subito. I command and I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, as the representative of the might and living God, and by the power of Emanuel, his only Son, who is thy master and mine, and by the virtue of His precious blood, which He shed to redeem humankind from thy chains, I command thee to quit thine abode, wheresoever it may be, swearing that I will give thee one quarter of an hour alone, if thou doest not straightway come hither and communicate with me in an audible and intelligible voice, or, if thy personal presence be impossible, dispatch me thy Messenger Astarot in a human form, without either noise and with pleasant scent, failing which smite thee and thy whole race with the terrible Blasting Rod into the depth of the bottomless abysses, and that by the power of those great words in the Clavicle—By ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, JEHOVAM, TAGLA, MATHON, ALMOUZIN, ARIOS, PITHONA, MAGOTS, SYLPHAE, TABOTS, SALAMANDRAW, GNOMUS, TERRE, COELIS, GODENS, AQUA. In subito. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

The Winchester Mystery House

Present-day scholars of magic—historians, anthropologists, and religion scholars—note that ritual scripts (a category that would include magic books) are sometimes augmented with elements from religious traditions their authors perceive as “exotic.” Such elements can lend authority to magical practice by enhancing what British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, in his famous work on the Trobriand Islanders, called its “coefficient of weirdness.” The vocabulary of Trobriand magic, he observed, was not just any vocabulary, not just any langue. “A spell is believed to be a primeval text, which somehow came into being side-by-side with animals and plants, with winds and waves, with human disease…courage and…frailty.” Why, then, would the idioms of magic “be as the words of common speech”?

Both the potency and the efficacy of magical idioms depend on their being ancient, epic, legendary—and entirely distinct from what their users perceive as ordinary. This is perhaps one reason, among others, that Jewish symbols had so long been perceived in Christian and esoteric history as talismans. Over three late November days in 1956, various experts took the stand to offer their testimony regarding The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses in a trial in Braunschweig, Germany. The star witness for the prosecution was a professor of medicine, forensic pathologist Otto Prokop. Dr. Prokop—who, like Johann Kruse, was a member of DEGESA—reviled magic books as road maps for mayhem and criminality. In court, he referenced a 1954 case in which three men in Westphalia had committed various crimes while using formulas in the Moses book to conjure the Devil. The Moses book in essence represented a historical stage in the development of early modern German science.

For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase.  https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/