It is truth that there are evil influences from the other World at work on the people in this World. Witchcraft is not easy to define, because it is not, like the major formal religions, a coherent body of belief. However, in Western civilization since prehistoric times there has been a loosely grouped body of magical lore—charms, spells, and so forth—having to do primarily with fertility and infertility, and with health and sickness, as well as a series of more marginal concerns, including foretelling of the future. Early Christians thought of the Devil as the most abominable of all pagan deities; they have him his attributes, his horns, and cloven hooves. That the Devil is an extraordinarily powerful god cannot be doubted. One night, I was sitting in the kitchen, my housemaid Erna, reveled that I was in the clutches of an evil force, and was being shadowed by it in the form of a person. That very night, Erna said, this evil character could not sleep, and would come around my mansion. Two male servants went outside to have a look. There was indeed someone there, who quickly took off Georg said later. The first degree of witchcraft is white magic—charms or spells used for benevolent purposes. Carrying a rabbit’s foot is white magic. Black magic is the second degree of witchcraft. It is used maliciously—and in the seventeenth century black magic was very serious indeed; it was an appeal to the Prince of Evil in order to accomplish evil. The third degree is pact, where the witch is no longer merely invoking the Devil’s assistants through charms and spells, but actually believes one has made a contract to serve him. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

The following day, I sat in a daze all the afternoon pondering recent events. The papers at my desk formed terrible conjectures. I neither could doubt that something hideously serious was closing in around me. Between the phantasms of nightmares and the realities of the objective World a monstrous and unthinkable dimension was roaring in the twilight abysses. I held back conspicuously from discussing the whole affair, as though I was afflicted by a certain fear. I was well aware that there were evil people who conspired to make their neighbours ill or keep them from getting well. These people were those whose wickedness marked them as “slaves to Satan.” Beliefs that neighbours might secretly conspire to do harm to other neighbour’s (or to those neighbours’ families or farms or livestock) could be found in the valley during these times. Witch beliefs have existed and do exist in many parts of the World, they can take quite different forms, and they often erupt in response to abrupt social change and unrest. What link them is their relationship to matter of intimacy and mistrust. Witchcraft conjures up the danger of treacherous attacks from close by and it warns that seeds of destruction are hidden inside human relationships. They prevail in situations where dramatic change has caused the familiar suddenly to appear strange, and even ordinary occurrences—illness, bad luck, accidents, injuries—to gain graver meaning. A death or injury, coming on the heels of other setback, can be perceived as having been not merely accidental but orchestrated by someone, or a conspiracy of someone’s, in secret, behind the scenes. To be sure, even in times of heightened calamity, not every misfortune will be perceived as resulting from witchcraft. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

However, widespread mistrust may make it more likely. It seemed that someone in my home has been meeting with subterraneous demons, which fueled these attacks. Although, sometimes witchcraft fears can be seen as a cultural idiom of interpersonal and communal conflict, a way of seeing the World and interpreting what happens in it, a search for causes behind causes. Who caused my child to become ill and die? Who is responsible for the death of my husband? Who is responsible for my hogs dying, my cows not giving milk? Accusations of witchcraft are a language of logic for the misfortune cannot be otherwise clarified. While wondering through my mansion, I notice a rectangle of blinding white light. It looked like a doorway into an adjoining World of brightness. I have glimpsed it before. We should remember also that the seventeenth century firmly believed in a dualistic Universe: in a material or visible World, and a spiritual or invisible World. The screaming white abysses flashed before me, and I felt helpless. There was an acceleration of the vague tonal pattern which seemed to foreshadow some unutterable and unendurable climax. However, all this vanished withing seconds. I was again in my library, with cases of ancient books. I heard sounds of something veritably inhuman, and rushed to turn on the lights. On the sofa was a man who had been racked by some torment beyond description. He was withering under the bedclothes, and a great red stain was beginning to appear on the pillows. I scarcely dared to touch him, but gradually the screaming and writhing subsided. I started screaming when a large ghoul suddenly jumped out from beneath the ensanguined bedclothes and fluttered across the room, through the wall. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

When doctors arrived and began to pull down those frightful covers, we discovered one of my carpenters Peter Geschiere was dead. It would be barbarous to do more than suggest what had milled Mr. Geschiere. There was virtually a tunnel through his body—something had eaten his heart out. Besides his death, the worst thing for a while, was that the housemaids were constantly whining and muttering about spectral and terrible things. In my time I had seen soldiers lay dying on the field, fire falling from the sky, and many crushed people. God tests people, to see if evil drags them down or if they are steadfast. God and the Devil are personified beings, dueling cosmic personalities. The Devil can come in through a keyhole. I can see when someone is evil. They are uneasy, and got up to mischief. Whole families, entire villages can be evil; evil people make up a kind of army of the Devil on Earth. Though, we could have Heaven on Earth if we all could just have compassion. However, I am sure if Jesus as the Christ were to come back, people would just crucify him again. In our century and in a country at our cultural standards, a person might appear suggesting that health and wellbeing, sickness and death, accidents and catastrophes occur not in accordance with natural laws but re instead determined by demonic, irrational forces, whose bearers are people in the service of the Devil. Still, often times, there is no evidence of any real mental illness in the sense of a psychosis nor is there any organic illness of the central nervous system. In many of these people who have been bewitched, the doctors have found no evidence of brain trauma or any mental damage, or any change in personality resulting from injury. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

It is not without great vexation that very many persons of both sexes have committed abuses with demons, they have no fear of using their incantations, chants and conjurations and other unspeakable superstitions and acts of sorcery, as well as excesses, crimes and misdeeds to afflict and tore my soul. Workmen found bones—badly crushed and splintered, but clearly recognizable as human in a room that had been sealed from all human access. Careful sifting of the debris also uncovered the mingled fragments of many ancient books from my private library and papers. All, without exception, appeared to deal with black magic in its most advanced and horrible forms. An even greater mystery is the absolute homogeneity of archaic writing found on a wide range of papers whose conditions and watermarks suggest they date back to ancient Egypt. Though, the greatest mystery of all is the variety of utterly inexplicable objects—objects whose shapes, materials, types of workmanship, and purpose baffle all conjecture—found scattered about the room in diverse states of injury. One of these things—which greatly excited me profoundly—is a thin sheet of lead with text scratched on it in tiny letters. The tablet had a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman World. When other walls were torn out, the once sealed spaces between the partition and the house’s east wall were found to contain a ghastly layer of older materials which paralyzed the carpenters with horror. The floor was a veritable ossuary of the bones of small children—some fairly modern, but others extending back in infinite gradations to a period so remote that crumbling was almost complete. On this deep bony layer rested a knife of great size, obvious antiquity, and grotesque, ornate, and exotic design—above which the debris as piled. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

People around the estate and nearby muttered a great deal among themselves, but said very little to the outer World. Many things had taught them secretiveness, and there was now no need to exert pressure on them. I have been willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and uncertain, even thought I have an odd craving to whisper about those frightful details of Llanada Villa, after the evilly shadowed death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties; to reassure myself that I was not simply the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. As bleak and solemn as it is one of the farmers Egon Schmidt often worked at night. He believed that in the third quarter there is decreased gravitational pull and moonlight, and this is considered a resting period for planets. As a result, Mr. Schmidt used the night to fertilize, deeply water, prude, and harvest crops. However, he would often catch renegades and often times would execute them. It is rumoured that Mr. Schmidt, was a very skilled farmer, but as an executioner, he was inexperienced and that it once took him thirteen blows to sever a head with an axe. The ghost of one of his victims now haunts Llanada Villa, carrying his mutilated head. Every since the room was excavated, the ghost has been seen carrying his mangled head under his arm, his face bearing the pain and horror he suffered when the executioner delivered the final blow that took his life. As well, the ghost of a woman has also been reported drifting across the mansion’s grounds. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

According to Mr. Schmidt, this all started when he took a last look before starting homeward. A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving toward the mansion were visible, near the miniature Tower of Babel, the lights of the barn, and the fruit orchards. The wind was bitter from the north. One last look behind, to showed him the prospect of company converging on his walk. There was an appearance of them running after him. So, at least, Mr. Schmidt thought, and decided that he almost certainly did not know them and was in danger. In his own words, “Now I saw some very foul fiends coming over the field to meet me. What should I do not?” he thought, “when I looked back, I caught sight of three black figures, and saw that they had horns and wing. I wondered whether I should stand or run for it.” He decided to take a stand. However, it was with some considerable curiosity that he entombed them in my home. Mr. Schmidt had also been driving bargains with the devil and brining imps out of hell to help him with his farming, or had been involved in some Devil worship and awful sacrifices. In fact, a whole legion of devils is seen sometimes at night in the field—sprawled about, or darting in and out of my mansion. But there was talk of his dealing with daemons. It seems he got a queer crowd within these halls, for I have heard voices in other rooms—though most of them are empty—that gave me the shivers. It was foreign talk, but the voice sounded so unnatural—that I did not dare undress and go to sleep. Just waited up until the morning. The talk would usually go on all night. People are always seeking someone stranger than they are, so that they do not have to deal with their own fears or weaknesses. For several days afterward, I wandered about listlessly, oblivious to the stars and whispers that followed me.  #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

I conjure thee, O Guland, in the name of Satan, in the name of Beelzebuth, in the name of Astaroth, and in the name of other Spirits, to make haste and appear before me. Come, then in the name of Satan and in the names of all other demons. Come to me, I command thee, in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Come without inflicting any harm upon me, without injury to my body or soul, without maltreating my books, or anything which I use. I command thee to appear without delay, or, that failing, to send me forthwith another Spirit having the same power as thou hast, who shall accomplish my commands and be submitted to my will, wanting which, he whom thou shalt send me, if needed thou comest not thyself, shall in no wise depart, nor until he hath in all things fulfilled my desire. I command you, O all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in what part of the World soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been given you by God and our holy Angels over this place, and by the powerful Principality of the infernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both general and special demons, whether dwelling in the East, West, South, or North, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner, by the power of God the Father, by the wisdom of God the Son, by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, any by the authority I derive from our Saviour Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Almighty and the Creator, who made us and all creatures from nothing, who also ordains that you do hereby abdicate all power to guard, habit, and abide in this place; by whom further I constrain and command you, nolens volens, without guile or deception, to open a gateway and act within this World according to my will and purpose! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

The Winchester Mystery House

If they really want to, it is proverbial that anyone can talk to the dead. The difficult part is getting the dead to talk back. Accomplishing that requires specialist skills, or the assistance of someone who has them—someone who can reach through the veil between the living and the dead, and draw the spirits of the departed back to this World. That someone is a necromancer. Necromancy was once a common form of divination in the ancient World, and if done the right way, by the right people, it was not particularly disreputable. Talking to the dead is not easy and even “respectable” rites become more difficult as the deceased becomes more distant in space and time; necromancy is easiest when the corpse is freshly dead and right in front of the practitioner. From the Greek and Roman point of view, being dead is actually the default condition of humanity. The spirits of the dead are worth talking to because they exist outside of time; to them, the future is as clear as the past, making spirits a useful contact for those seeking to know how their own lives on Earth will turn out. Humans, essentially, are like the gods—immortal and indestructible. The body might die (and it frequently does), but the spirit it contains cannot be destroyed. At any given time, most of the human race dwells among the shadows of the Underworld.

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