Vague hopes, threatening fears, promises of reward, and dread of punishment have been so thoroughly endured. However, from my earliest days, I have always felt that one great unfilled want of this World, undeniable proof that, when we leave it, we shall live again, or rather, that we shall never cease to live. Show us our dead! Give us some sign that they still live, and that we shall live with them. Twenty years ago, the proper thing to say when Spiritualism was mentioned was: “Oh! ah! Spiritualists indeed! They are either rouges or fools—the cheaters and the cheated.” Now it is: “Oh! dear, dear! there is no doubt these things you mention take pace, but it is still the work of the devil, and will ruin you, body and soul, so pray have nothing more to do with it.” After twenty-five years’ experiences, I am happy to day I am ruined neither body nor soul…I can prove beyond doubt that Spiritualism is not only rapidly on the increase, but it has penetrated into high places, and into the very heart of our greatest seats of learning. The truth has forced itself into the minds and lives of some of our greatest men and women, and this in spite of continuous opposition from all sides, and in the face of the clergy of all denominations, who long ago perceived that when once the people began to think for themselves and went to the true source of spiritual light to learn for themselves, the power of the Church would be gone forever. New Spiritualism indeed! Old Spiritualism and new Theology, that is the real thing! For Spiritualism has existed from the beginning, and the truth will out. Let us now have fair play and I prophesy that as soon as the public realize there is something in it, Spiritualism will even more rapidly than at present make way.

My great aim has literally been to show what the Lord hath done for my soul by granting to me the Light now poured down upon mankind by the restored power of communion with the unseen, in yet fuller measure than had ever hitherto been granted. I held my séances every day, and had much good advice respecting some business matters. One Sunday, as we were walking home from church, Daisy said she was afraid that it might be a wrong thing; that persons might be led to think more of the spirits than of God, and she likewise feared that such power might be an engine of much mischief if wrongly employed. I combatted both notions, saying that I thought, far from withdrawing our thoughts from God, it would be likely to lead us closer to Him, in gratitude for the blessing; and with reference to the second objection, I did not believe it could be applied to evil purposes, for that the power was not our own, but letn to us, and if misemployed could be taken away by the hand that bestowed it. She then agreed that we would question the spirits themselves as soon as we got home, and if my husband William, or the spirit of my mother should say it was right, Diasy would be content. We accordingly in the Blue Séance Room, and William came immediately; I asked, “Is this communion wrong?” and the answer was “No. More by God’s grace, for the winning of the souls.” That was the sweet message that dispelled her doubts, but the other fact was also proved—namely, that the power is not in our own control to do as we will with it, for that time she lost the gift of mediumship, and never had another message. However, it was no annoyance for my own gift had been received.

Bretha Haas and I set fairly to work to gain the happiness for ourselves, and every evening at dusk sat in the Blue Séance Room for about half an hour with our hand on a small table, in quiet talk on spiritual matters. However, consistency was severely tried, for nearly three months had elapsed, when, on December 28, 1890, the table was gently tipped, and this the communication was opened by what might now seem the slow process of the alphabet, but then each word was gladly spelt out, nor did we feel any impatience for a quicker method; and we gradually received short messages from the very many dear ones who were as anxious as ourselves that they might make their presence known to us who had mourned them. They gave us sound advice as to our intercourse with them, cautioning us not to sit too often—once a week being deemed sufficient—and the Sunday was selected, as we should thus be more protected from the intrusion of untoward influences. During one séance, there was a large triangle scratched into the table. Inside the triangle were three circles. Bertha gasped. I looked around the room, and that is when I spotted a bloodstone. “Someone has summoned Satan,” I said. “How do you know, Sarah?” questioned Bertha. “This magic circle and the use of the blood stone tells me that someone knew the proscribed method of summoning Satan,” I answered. “Who would be trafficking with the Devil?” asked Bertha. I sat silent for a moment. “Bretha, I think we have to think about what form the Devil has taken.” In the middle of the night, I awoke much oppressed with the feeling that something like a large animal appeared to be lying on my bosom, and that I had a difficulty in breathing.

Arousing myself at once, I sat up in bed, recovering my breath immediately; when, in the dimness of the gloom, I thought I saw the bent figure of a person, clothed in a long dressing gown or similarly flowing garment, slowly gliding backwards and forwards around the room. Upon this, I struck a light and lit the candle by my bedside. Even in the glare of the candle I still continued to see the gliding shadowy form moving as before, though it was obscure in outline and dim in colour. Calm, cold eyes stared back at me. It soon began to fade away, thought its motion was continued. My curiosity being greatly excited, kept the light burning for at least half an hour; but the figure did not reappear. I lay awake a little unnerved until morning began to dawn; and then, being weary, fell asleep. When I went down for breakfast, somewhat late, they housemaid, noticing that I was looking pale and fatigued—as indeed was the case—enquired, with some obvious nervousness, if I had slept comfortably. I hesitatingly replied in the negative; but without giving the why and the wherefore, or appearing to be at all disconcerted. Later in the day, when the subject was again mentioned by her, I learnt that a carpenter had previous committed suicide in that room—which, as a rule, I never used because there was always a bone chilling coldness in there. The housemaid informed me that she and other servants had seen the indistinct form of the restless apparition gliding backwards and forwards round the large bedstead. At other times a constant tramping across the floor of the room was heard; and reports existed that piercing shrieks sometimes came therefrom in the stillness of the night.

After that night, I cast sleep from me like the cloak of all reason. Bounds of mystery weaved betwixt links in this lost World. However, I still felt as a knee sense of imminent marvels in my unfathomed mansion. Ture, I had become visually familiar with the incredible secret concealed by its towers. Llanada Villa was nonetheless awesome and potentially terrible in its implications of cosmic abnormality. However, the stories of hauntings continued to get more terrifying as the days went on. One evening a farmer was passing through the fruit orchard and he was followed. At least, pursued and overtaken, and either torn to pieces or somehow made away with, by a horrible hopping creature in white, which I had seen dodging about among the trees, and gradually appearing more frequently. It gave me one of the worst nightmares I ever remembered, and what it must have meant to the farmers does not bear thinking of. One evening, Dr. Volk came to my home to tell me he had decided to withdrawal from medical care due to some terrible and unforeseeable consequences and he did not want to shake his father’s faith. “Two things I must have from you,” I said. “One is the bill of health that we spoke of when we began. The story of my disappearance has of course filtered out along the academic grapevine so that even two thousand miles from here people will want evidence of my mental soundness. Your evidence. Please prepare a letter to the desired effect, addressed to these people.” He drew something white from an inside pocket and held it out. I advanced and took the envelope from his extended had. It was from the Western anthropology department. I put my purse down on the seat of a chair and crossed my arms. I felt reckless—the effect of stress and weariness, I thought, was an overwhelming feeling. “Is this your new job, Dr. Volk?” “Why, yes, Mrs. Winchester,” he replied. He pointed. “I’ve been in your study. You have an ink well and you have stationary with your letter head. I will produce your bill of health,” Dr. Volk said.

 “Dr. Volk, you have encountered nothing like me and my home in your entire professional life, and never shall again. Perhaps you hope to produce an article someday, even a book—a memoir of something impossible that happened to you one summer. You are an ambition man.” He took folded papers from his pocket: some of my thrown-aside notes, salvaged from the wastebasket. “I found these. I think there must be more. Whatever there is, give it to me please.” I turned away and sat down by the coffee table, trying to think beyond my fear. I breathed deeply against the fright trembling in my chest. “I see,” he said dryly, “that you won’t give me the notes; you don’t trust me to take them and go. You see some danger.” “All right, a bargain,” I said. “I will give you whatever I have if you promise to go straight to your new job and keep away from my home and offices and anybody connected with me.” He was smiling slight as I rose from the seat and stepped soft footed toward him over the rug. “Bargains, promises, negotiations, Mrs. Winchester. That is what I came for.” I looked up at him. “But how can I trust you at all? As soon as I give you what you want—” “What is it that makes you afraid—that you can’t render me harmless to you? You are the one who led me to take chances in our work together—to explore the frightful risk of self-revelation. Didn’t you see in the air between us the brilliant shimmer of those hazards? Mrs. Winchester, I thought your business was not to smoothing the World over but adventuring into it, discovering its true nature, and closing valiantly with everything jagged, cruel, and deadly.”

“All right, Dr. Volk, no bargains. I will give your freely what you want.” Of course I could not make myself safe from him anymore than I could protect Daisy from the dangers of life. Like Dr. Volk, some dangers are too strong to bind or banish. “My notes are in the workroom—come on, I will show you.” He handed me the letter. After hours in the workroom, he dispatched. There was the most dreadful trouble in the village afterwards. Of course the mothers threw a good part of the blame on poor Dr. Volk for he had brought out a History of Witchcraft. Weeks later, I was at breakfast. One of the housemaid’s asked me, “Mrs. Winchester, have you heard from Dr. Volk.” “No, Iola,” I replied. “I do not think I have seen or heard anything of them between the time he departed and the day I read the account of the inquest on him.” “Inquest? said Iola. “What has happened to him?” “Why, what happened was that he fell out of a tree and broke his neck. But the puzzle was, what could have induced him to get up there. It was a mysterious business, I must say. Here was this man—not an athletic fellow, was he? and with no eccentric twist about him that was ever noticed—walking home along a country road late in the evening—no tramps about—well known and liked in the place—and suddenly begins to run like mad, loses his hate and stick, and finally shins up a tree—quite a difficult tree—growing in the hedgerow: a dead branch gives way, and he comes down with it and breaks his neck, and there he is found next morning with the most dreadful face of fear on him that could be imagined. It was pretty evident, of course, that he had been chased by something, and people talked of savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries; but there was nothing to be made of that. That was in ’89, and I believe his brother Otto (whom I remembers as well as Cambridge, but you probably do not) has been trying to get on the track of an explanation ever since. He, of course, insists there was malice in it, but I do not know. It is difficult to see how it could have come in.”

Standing in the center of the pentagram, I now called unto you, in the name of Satan, from the kingdom of darkness. You disembodied spirits, from long ago, from the Pre-Adamite World. The World that then was. I call to you spirit beings, who perished in that first flood of Genesis. You spirit beings that joined in league, with the Light Bearer. The evil one through out the ages, who is named Lucifer, he is also known as Satan. I summon you, your demonic minions, to have left again in the Earth. I have created the ultimate host, for your spirit and souls. These bodies are far more superior, to that of mortal men. Bodies far more organized. Lucifer, show to us that there is life after death. Bring forth spirits that walk this Earth. Make them manifest here tonight. May all things be made subject to your will. Emperor Lucifer, Master of all the revolted Spirits, I entreat thee to favour us in the adjuration which we address to thy mighty minister, LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE, being desirous to make a pack with him. I beg thee also, O Prince Beelzebuth, to protect us in our undertaking. O Count Astarot! be propitious to us, and grant that tonight the great LUCIFUGE may appear to us under an attractive human form, and with pleasant scent, and that he may accord us, in virtue of the pact which we propose to enter into, all the riches which we need, O grand LUCIFUGE, we pray three to quit thy dwelling, wheresoever it may be, and come hither to speak with us and bestow upon us great wealth, clairvoyance and spirits to assist us in astral travel. Please guide our thoughts, words, and deed in this place to gain strength and power within the astral body. Strengthen our sorcery as well.

The Winchester Mystery House

Many stories in that take place in The Winchester Mystery House concern the activity of the lovely spirits generally known as poltergeists. They are similar, on to one another, in ways that suggest a genuine distinctive phenomenon. Their presence is reported in the nineteenth century, in the chronicles of Mrs. Winchester, when certain spirits threw objects and cut holes in clothes. Precisely the same activities are described in modern poltergeists. One other curious resemblance can be found between the various accounts. It is often remarked that the flying objects, when they hit human beings, do not injure. They land softly. Yet when they hit walls or doors, they do visible damage. Do ghost smell? In The Winchester Mystery House rooms suddenly fill with the scent of roses, lavender, fresh laundry, and citrus. Floating perfumes issues from no visible source.  And there are fugitive smells, of leather-working or brewing, that seem to hover in premises that were once devoted to a particular trade.

In the kitchen, there is the odour of herbs, which were said to heal because of their healing spirits. However, the scent of thyme is supposed to be an indication of murder. There are cases involving the care takers being overwhelmed by the sudden fragrance of flowers. Ghosts are sometimes seen at the moment of the death of the person. There are also ghosts of the living, often seen many miles from the location of the human being, which happens on occasion in Mrs. Winchester’s home. Ghosts of the living also appear when the living subject is asleep or dreaming. Other ghosts come to Mrs. Winchester’s home because they have not properly been buried. There are ghosts who have returned to correct a wrong, or to fulfil a pledge. But the vast majority of ghost seem to be without purpose. The ghost is normally seen by one person rather than a group of people. They can touch you, but you cannot touch them.

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