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One Feels the Presence within One of the Mysterious Entity which is One’s Soul!
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most humans at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. Emotional expressions, or outward signs of what a person is feeling, are another major element of emotion. For example, when you are intensely afraid, your hands tremble, your face contorts, and your posture becomes tense and defensive. Emotion is also revealed by marked shifts in voice tone or modulation. Such expressions are important because they communicate emotion from one person to another. Emotional feelings (a person’s private emotional experience) are a final major element of emotion. This is the part of emotion with which we are usually most familiar. Happiness—that delicious feeling of well-being and joy. What does it mean for our lives? How can we attain it? Have you noticed how your state of happiness or unhappiness colours everything else? Researchers have found that when we are in a happy mood, we see the World as friendly and nonthreatening. We make decisions easily. We recall the good times and forget the bad. Let our mood turn gloomy and soon enough we will find reasons for it: our relationships, our-self-image, and our prospects for the future suddenly seem depressing. What is more, happy people are helpful people. In experiments, those who have a mood-boosting experience become more generous and compassionate. If made to feel successful and intelligent, they are more likely to volunteer as a tutor. If they have just found some money in a phone booth, they are more likely to help someone pick up dropped papers. If they have just had a great day at work, they are more willing to loan someone money. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
So, being in a good mood triggers happy thoughts and memories and predisposes us to spread happiness to others. How, then, can we find happiness? Well, first of all, when faces with severe adversity or loss, being depressed is a normal and appropriate response. However, sometimes people react even to little problems by doubting and disparaging themselves. Their negative mood now triggers more negative thoughts: “I am no good,” “People do not like me,” “No one appreciates the work I do.” And the withdrawal and complaining that accompany such thoughts irritate others, which further worsens the unhappy person’s predicament. To break this vicious cycle of misery, psychologists often advise people to work at reversing their negative thinking. Keep a diary of daily successes, noting what you did to make them possible. Make negative self-talk more optimistic: not “I will never get this done,” but “One step at a time—I can handle it.” Or keep a gratitude journal. Those who pause each day to write down some optimistic aspects of their lives—perhaps their health, their friends, their family, their freedom, or even just their savouring the wonders of their senses—experience heightened well-being. Forcing ourselves also to act in more beneficial ways—offering a compliment, asserting ourselves—can help, too. When we act as if we are happy and confident, we may become more so. Silly as it may seem, even a smiling expression can sometimes break the cycle of misery. Try it. Make yourself smile. Can you feel the difference? The participants in dozens of recent experiments could feel the differences. When induced to make a frowning expression while electrodes were attached to their faces—“pull your brows together, please,” the researchers might instruct—the people reported feeling a little angry, and their heart rates and skin temperatures actually went up slightly (as if they really were “hot under the collar”). #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Those induced to smile felt happier and found cartoons more humorous. When we put on a happy face, our outlook seems to brighten. A famous author, on calculating the goods and evils of human life and comparing the two sums, has found that the latter greatly exceeded the former, and that, all things considered, life was a pretty poor present for humans. I am not surprised by his conclusion; he has drawn all of his arguments from the constitution of civil humans. Had he gone back as far as natural man, the judgement can be made that he would have found very different results, that he would have realized that man has scarcely any evils other than those he has given himself, and that nature would have been justified. It is not without trouble that we have managed to make ourselves so unhappy. When, on the one hand, one considers the immense labours of humans, so many sciences searched into, so many arts invented, and so many forces employed, abysses filled up, mountains razed, rocks broken, rivers made navigable, lands cleared, lakes dug, marshes drained, enormous buildings raised upon the Earth, the sea covered with ships and sailors; and when on the other hand, one searches with a little meditation for the true advantages that have resulted from all this for the happiness of the human species, one cannot help being struck by the astonishing disproportion that obtains between these things, and to deplore man’s blindness, which, to feed his foolish pride and who knows what vain sense of self-importance, makes one run ardently after all the miseries to which he is susceptible, and which beneficent nature has taken pains to keep from him. Men are wicked; a sad and continual experience dispenses us from having to prove it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Nevertheless, man is naturally good; I believe I have demonstrated it. What therefore can have depraved him to this degree, if not the changes that have befallen his constitution, the progress he has made, and the sorts of knowledge he has acquired? Let human society be admired as much as one wants; it will be no less true for it that necessarily brings humans to hate one another to the extent that their interests are at cross-purposes with one another, to render mutually to one another apparent services and in fact do every evil imaginable to one another. What is one to think of an interaction where the reason of each private individual dictates to one maxims directly contrary to those that public reason preaches to the body of society, and where each finds one’s profit in the misfortune of another? Perhaps there is not a wealth man whose death is not secretly hope for by greedy heirs and often by his own children; not a ship at sea whose wreck would not be good news for some merchant; not a firm that a debtor of bad faith would not wish to see burn with all the papers it contains; not a people that does not rejoice at the disasters of its neighbours. Thus it is that we find our advantage in the setbacks of our fellow-humans, and that one person’s loss almost always beings about another’s prosperity. However, what is even more dangerous is that public calamities are anticipated and hoped for by a multitude of private individuals. Sone want diseases, others death, others war, others famine. I have seen ghastly men weep with the sadness at the likely prospects of a fertile year. And the great and deadly fire of London, which cost the life or the goods of so many unfortunate people, made the fortunes of perhaps more than ten thousand people. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
I know that Montaigne bales the Athenian Demades for having had a worker punished, who, by selling coffins at a high price, made a great deal from the death of the citizens. However, since the reason Montaigne proposes is that everyone would have to be punished, it is evident that it confirms my own. Let us therefore penetrate, through our frivolous demonstration of good will, to what happens at the bottom of our hearts; and let us reflect on what the state of things must be where all humans are forced to caress and destroy one another, and where they are born enemies by duty and crooks by interest. If someone answers me by claiming that society is constituted in such a manner that each human gains by serving others, I will reply that this would be very well and good, provided one did not gain still more by harming them. There is no profit, however legitimate, that is not surpassed by one that can be made illegitimately, and wrong done to a neighbour is always more lucrative than services. It is therefore no longer a question of anything but finding the means of being assured of impunity. And this is what the powerful spend all their forces on, and the weak all their ruses. Savage man, when he has eaten, is at peace with all nature, and the friend of all his fellow-men. Is it sometimes a question of one’s disputing over one’s mean? One never comes to blows without having first compared the difficulty of winning with that of finding one’s sustenance elsewhere. And since pride is not involved in the fight, it is ended by a few swings of the first. The victor eats; the vanquished is on one’s way to seek one’s fortune, and everything is pacified. However, for humans in society, these are quite different affairs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
It is first of all a question of providing for the necessary and then for the superfluous; next come delights, and then immense riches, and then subjects, and then slaves. One has not a moment’s respite. What is more singular is that the less natural and pressing the needs, the more the passions increase and, what is worse, the power to satisfy them; so that after long periods of prosperity, after having swallowed up many treasures and ruined many humans, my hero will end by butchering everything until he is the sole master of the Universe. Such in brief is the moral portrait, if not of human life, then at least of the secret pretensions of the heart of every civilized human. Compare, without prejudices, that state of civilized humans with that of savage humans and seek, if you can, how many new doors to suffering and death (other than their wickedness, their needs and their miseries) the former has opened. If you consider the emotional turmoil that consumes us, the violent passions that exhaust and desolate us, the excessive cause the former to die of their needs, and the latter of their excesses; if you call to mind the monstrous combinations of food, their pernicious seasonings, the corrupted foodstuffs, tainted drugs, the knavery of those who sell them, the errors of those who administer them, the poison of the vessels in which they are prepared; if you pay attention to the epidemic diseases engendered by the bad air among the multitudes of humans gathered together, to the illnesses occasioned by the effeminacy of our lifestyle, by the coming and going from the inside of our houses to the open air, the use of garments put on or taken off with too little precaution, and all the cares that our excessive sensuality has turned into necessary habit, the neglect or privation of which then costs us our life or health. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Furthermore, if you take into account fires and earthquakes, which, in consuming or turning upside down whole cities, cause their inhabitants to die by the thousands; in a word, if you unite the dangers that all these causes continually gather over our heads, you will realize how dearly nature makes us pay for the scorn we have down for the scorn we have down for its lessons. I will not repeat here what I have said elsewhere about war, but I wish that informed humans would, for once, want or dare to give the public the detail of the horrors that are committed in armies by provisions and hospital suppliers. One would see that their not too secret maneuvers, on account of which the most brilliant armies by provisions and hospital suppliers. One would see that their not too secret maneuvers, on account of which the most brilliant armies dissolve into less than nothing, cause more soldiers to perish than are cut down by enemy swords. Moreover, no less surprising is the calculation of the number of humans swallowed up by the sea every years, either by hunger, or scurvy, or pirates, or fire, or shipwrecks. It is clear that we must also put to the account of established property, and consequently to that of society, the assassinations, the poisonings, the highway robberies, and even the puishments of these crimes, punishments necessary to prevent greater ills, but which, costing the lives of two or more for the murder of one man, do not fail really to double the loss to the human species. How many are the shameful ways to prevent the birth of humans or to fool nature: either by those brutal and depraved tastes which insult its most charming work, tastes that neither savages nor animals ever knew, and that have arisen in civilized counties only as the result of a corrpt imagination. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Or by those secret abortions, worthy fruits of debauchery and vicious honour; or by the exposure or the murder of a multitude of infants, victims of the misery of their parents or of the barbarous shame of their mothers; or, finally by the mutilation of those unfortunates, part of whose existence and all of the brutal jealousy of a few humans: a mutilation which, in that last case, doubly outrages nature, both by the treatment received by those who suffer it and by the use to which they are destined. [But are there not a thousand more frequent and even more dangerous cases where paternal rights overtly offend humanity? How many talents are buried and inclinations are forced by the imprudent constraint of fathers! How many men would have distinguished themselves in a suitable station who die unhappy and dishonoured in another station for which they have no taste! How many happy but unequal marriages have been broken or disturbed, and how many chaste wives dishonoured by the order of conditions always in contradiction with that of nature! How many other bizarre unions formed by interests and disavowed by love and by reason! How many even honest and virtuous couples cause themselves torment because they were ill-matched! How many young and unhappy victims of their parent’s greed plunge into vice or pass their sorrowful days in tears, and moan in indissoluble chains which the heart rejects and which gold alone has formed! Happy sometimes are those who courage and even virtue them for life before a barbarous violence force them into crime or despair. For give me, father and mother for deplorable. I regrettably worsen your sorrows; but may they serve as an eternal and terrible example to whoever dares, in the name of nature, to violate the most scared of its rights! #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
If I have spoken only of those ill-formed relationships that are the result of our civil order, is one to think that those where love and sympathy have presided are themselves exempt from drawbacks?] What would happen if I were to undertake to show the human species attacked in its very source, and even in the most holy of all bounds, where one no longer dares to listen to nature until after having consulted fortune, and where, with civil disorder confounding virtues and vices, continence becomes a criminal precaution, and the refusal to give life to one’s fellow-human an act of humanity? However, without tearing away the veil that overs so many horrors, let us content ourselves with point out the evil, for which others must supply the remedy. Let us add to all this that quantity of unwholesome trades which shorten lives or destroy one’s health, such as work in mines, various jobs involving the processing of metals, minerals, and especially lead, copper, mercury, cobalt, arsenic, realgar; those other perilous trades which everyday cost the lives of a number of workers, some of them roofers, others carpenters, others masons, other working in quarries; let us bring all of these objects together, I say, and we will be able to see in the establishment and the perfection of societies the reasons for the diminution of the species, observed by more than one philosopher. Luxury, impossible to prevent among humans who are greedy for their own conveniences and for the esteem of others, soon completes the evil that societies have begun; and on the pretext of keeping the poor alive (which it was not necessary to do), luxury impoverishes everyone else, and sooner or later depopulates the state. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Luxury is a remedy far worse than the evil it means to cure; or rather it is itself the worst of all evils in any state, however, large or small it may be, and which, in order to feed the hordes of lackeys and wretches it has produced, crushes, and ruins the labourer and the citizen—like those scorching south winds that, by covering grass and greenery with devouring insects, take sustenance away from useful animals, and bring scarcity and death to all the places where they make themselves felt. From society and the luxury it engenders, arise the liberal and mechanical arts, commerce, letters, and all those useless things that make industry flourish, enriching and running states. The reason for this decay is quite simple. It is easy to see that agriculture, by its nature, must be the least lucrative of all the arts, because, with its product being of the most indispensable use to all humans, its price must be proportion to their usefulness, and that the most necessary must finally become the most neglected. From this it is clear what must be thought of the true advantages of industry and of the real effect that results from its progress. Such are the discernible causes of all the miseries into which opulence finally brings down the most admired nations. To the degree that industry and the arts expand and flourish, the scorned farmer, burdened with taxes necessary to maintain luxury and condemned to spend one’s life between toil and hunger, abandons one’s fields to go to the cities in search of the bread one ought to be carrying there. The more the capital cities strike the stupid eyes of the people as wonderful, the more it will be necessary to groan at the sight of countrysides abandoned, fields fallow, and main roads jammed with unhappy citizens who have become beggars or thieves, destined to end their misery one day on the rack or on a dung-heap. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Thus it is that the state, enriching itself on the one hand, weakens and depopulates itself on the other; and that the most powerful monarchies, after much labour to become opulent and deserted, end by becoming the prey of poor nations which succumb to the deadly temptation to invade them, and which enrich and enfeeble themselves in their turn, until they are themselves invaded and destroyed by others. Let someone deign to explain to us for once what could have produced those hordes of barbarians which for so many centuries have overrun Europe, Asia, and Africa. Was it to the industry of their arts, the wisdom of their laws, the excellence of their civil order that they owed that prodigious population? Would our learned one be so kind as to tell us why, far from multiplying to that degree, those ferocious and brutal humans, without enlightenment, without restraint, without education, did not all kill one another at every moment to argue with one another over food or game? Let them explain to us how these wretches even had the gall to look right in the eye such capable people as we were, with such fine military discipline, such fine codes, and such wise laws, and why, finally, after society was perfected in the countries of the north, and so many pains were taken there to teach humans their mutual duties and the air of living together agreeably and peaceably, nothing more is seen to come from them like those multitudes of humans it produced formerly. I am very much afraid that something, namely the arts, sciences, and laws, have been very wisely invented by humans as a salutary plague to prevent the excessive multiplication of the species, out of fear that this World, which is destined for us, might finally become too small for its inhabitants. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
What then! Must we destroy societies, annihilate thine and mine, and return to live in the forests with bears?—a conclusion in the style of my adversaries, which I prefer to anticipate, rather than leave to them the shame of drawing it. Oh you, to whom the Heavenly voice has not made itself heard, and who recognize for your species no other destination except to end this brief life in peace; you who can leave in the midst of the cities your deadly acquisitions, your troubled minds, your corrupt hearts and your unbridled desires. Since it depends on you, retake your ancient and first innocence; go into the woods to lose sight and memory of the crimes of your contemporaries, and have no fear of cheapening your species in renouncing its enlightenment in order to renounce its vices. As for men like me, whose passions have forever destroyed their original simplicity, who can no longer feed on grasses and acorn[s], nor get by without laws and chiefs; those who were honoured in their first father with supernatural lessons; those who will see, in the intention of giving human actions from the beginning a morality they would not have acquired for a long time, the reason for a precept indifferent in itself and inexplicable in any other system; those, in a word, whoa re convinced that the divine voice called the entire human race to the enlightenment and the happiness of the celestial intelligences; all those latter ones will attempt, through the exercise of virtues they oblige themselves to practice while learning to know them, to merit the eternal reward that they ought to expect for them. They will respect the sacred bonds of the societies of which they are members; they will love their fellow-men and will serve them with all their power; they will scrupulously obey the laws and the men who are their authors and their ministers. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
They will honour above all the good and wise princes who will know how to prevent, cure or palliate that pack of abuses and evils always ready to overpower us; they will animate the zeal of these worthy chiefs by showing them without fear or flattery the greatness of their task and the rigour of their duty. However, they will despise no less for it a constitution that can be maintained only with the help of so many respectable people, who are desired more often than they are obtained, and from which, despite all their care, always arise more real calamities than apparent advantages. Nevertheless, powerful forces are converging to promote the electronic cottage. The most immediately apparent is the economic trade-off between transportation and telecommunication. Most high-technology nations are now experiencing a transportation crisis, with mass transit systems strained to the breaking point, roads and highways clogged, parking spaces rare, pollution a serious problem, strikes and breakdowns almost routine, and costs skyrocketing. The escalating costs of commuting are borne by the individual workers. However, they are, of course, indirectly passed on to the employer in the form of higher wage costs, and to the consumer in higher prices. Jack Nilles and a team sponsored by the National Science Foundation have worked out both dollar and the energy savings that would flow from any substantial shift of white-collar jobs out of centralized offices. Instead of assuming the jobs would go into the homes of employees, the Nilles group used what might be termed a halfway-house model, assuming only that jobs would be dispersed into neighbourhood work centers closer to employee homes. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The implications of their findings are startling. On average, Americans travel an average of 32 miles a day to and from work. The higher up the managerial scale, the longer the commute, with top executives averaging 44 miles. All told, these workers drove 12.4 million miles each year to get to work, using up nearly a half-century’s worth of hours to do so. At 2021 prices, this costs about sixty cents per mile, or a total of $15,117,610.34—an amount borne indirectly by the company and its customers. Indeed, it was found that the company was paying its downtown workers $2,879.54 a year more than the going rate in the dispersed locations—in effect, a subsidy of transportation costs. It was also providing parking spaces and other costly services made necessary by the centralized location. If we now assume a secretary was earning in the neighbourhood of $55,375.86 a year, the elimination of commuting costs could have permitted the company to hire nearly 300 additional employees or, alternatively, to add a substantial amount of profits. The key question is: When will the cos of installing and operating telecommunications equipment fall below the present cost of commuting? While gasoline and other transport costs (including the costs of mass-transit alternatives to the auto) are soaring everywhere, the price of telecommunications is shrining spectacularly. Satellites slash the cost of long-distance transmission, bringing it so near the zero mark per signal that engineers now speak of “distance-independent” communications. Computer power has multiplied exponentially and prices have dropped so dramatically that engineers and investors alike are left gasping. With fiber optics and other new breakthrough technologies in the wings, it is clear that still further cost reductions lie ahead—per unit of memory, per processing step, and per signal transmitted. At some point the curves must cross. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
However, these are not the only forces subtly moving us toward the geographical dispersal of production and, ultimately, the electronic cottage of the future. The Nilles team found that the average American urban commuter uses the gasoline equivalent of 64.6 kilowatts of energy to get back and forth to work each day. (The Los Angeles insurance employees burned 37.4 million kilowatts a year in commuting.) By contrast, it takes far less energy to move information. A typical computer terminal uses only 100 to 125 watts or less when it is in operation, and a phone line consumes only one watt or less while it is in use. Making certain assumptions about how much communications equipment would be needed, and how long it would operate, Nilles calculated that “the relative energy consumption advantage of telecommuting over commuting (id est, the ratio of commuting energy consumption to telecommuting consumption) is at least 29.1 when the private automobile is used; 11.1 when normally loaded mass transit is used; and 2.1 for 100 percent utilized mass transit systems.” Carried to their conclusion, these calculations showed that, even if as little as 12 o 14 percent of urban commuting is replaced by telecommuting, the United States of America would save approximately 75 million barrels of gasoline—and would thereby greatly reduce the need to import as much gasoline from abroad. The implications of that one fac for the U.S. balance of payments for Middle East politics might also be more than trivial. As gasoline prices and energy costs in general rise in the decades immediately ahead, both the dollar cost and energy cost of operating “smart” typewriters, telecopiers, the Internet, video calls, email, audio and video links, and computer desks will plummet, still further increasing the relative advantage of moving at least some production out of the large central workshop that dominated the Second Wave. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The dawning of the twentieth century saw a major social attack on the formality and excesses of the Victorian era. In architecture, this was reflected in the supplanting of the elaborate Victorian dwelling with the simpler rustic bungalow. The bungalow style stressed efficiency and simplicity. In spite of its name, the bungalow characteristically had a second floor housing a bathroom and all the bedrooms, and a full concrete-floored basement. Compared to the suburban homes of earlier decades, bungalows were generally smaller and constructed without formal features such as entrance halls or parlours. What they did have, however, was a high degree of comfort and convenience. Not unimportant for newlyweds, the bungalow was also a less expensive first home and thus had a particular appeal to young couples. From the standpoint of the housewife, suburban bungalows took far less time and energy to care for than the larger, but far less modern, homes of their mothers. The bungalows had all the technological advances of the day and included luxuries only available to the well-to-do a generation earlier. The homes were built with modern indoor, bathrooms, electric connections, gas connections for kitchen stoves, and central heating. For latter, you could have steam, hot-air, or hot-water systems. Individual wood- or coal-burning room heaters or stoves were no longer seen; they have been superseded by coal-fire central-heating systems. In some cases the furnaces were even automatic oil-fired units. The “fireplaces” in the 1920s bungalow living room was likely to be a faux fireplace with gas-fed logs. (During the 1990s gas-fired fireplaces again returned to favour.) New “scientific” labour-saving devices such as electric laundry machines, electric irons, electric vacuum cleaners, and even electric toasters all made middle-class women’s lives easier. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
No longer did you have to daily strain yourself to feed wood or coal into the kitchen stove or room heaters. No longer did you have to have a washerwoman—or yourself—do the backbreaking work of heating water on the stove and then washing the clothes by hand in huge vats. For hot water you turned on the faucet; to wash the clothes you turned on the washing machine, which was now located in the bungalow’s concrete-floored, electric-lighted, and centrally heated basement. It is all but impossible for us today to imagine jus how much time and heavy physical labour was an everyday part of housekeeping prior o the modern era. The new labour-saving electric appliances and more efficient kitchen designs of the smaller bungalow-style suburban homes of the 1920s did more than reduce heavy labour around the home. They also contributed to the ongoing social revolution in women’s equality by providing middle-class women much more free time. The comparative efficiency of the new electric appliances removed some of the time-consuming drudgery from housekeeping and promoted the possibility of leisure time. Woman’s magazines of the day noted how many modern young women living in such suburban homes now had the “free time” to devote to social activities, charity work, or others activities. They might even have a career. The idea that it was possible to have both a home and a career first came into vogue for the middle-class at this time. Having a job outside the home was not the norm, but it now, theoretically, became an option. Middle-class ideology began to change so that a suburban woman’s working at a career or job was not automatically assumed to be the consequence of the early death of the male breadwinner. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
“Modern” married middle-class women, even those with children, could have a career without automatically being considered negligent wives and mothers. This is not to suggest that the technology of the new housing determined family social and work patterns. Rather, it is to suggest that technological advances, by changing the nature of housework, made it easier for patterns of greater social equality between spouses to develop. A more recent development has been the assumption by adult family members of home repair and improvement activities that were previously done by hired male painters, plumbers, and carpenters. A “do-it-yourself” generation has grown up with the assumption that everything from kitchen cabinets to decks to new bathroom fixtures can be self-installed. TV ads show couples putting in a new ceiling fan or installing new countertops after viewing the hardware warehouse video on how to do it. On the beneficial side, there is a decreasing division between what appropriate men’s work and women’s work. On the negative side, home improvement activities decrease true leisure time. Nonetheless, labour costs all but necessitates that suburban couples who wish to upgrade their homes will do much of their own work. It is taken for granted that they themselves will do much of the work in building a rec room or adding a bedroom. In this respect, the contemporary family unit has a commonalty with early American families, who were expected to physically contribute to the construction and maintenance of their dwellings. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
One thing you should concentrate on is desire, in fact, your alarming number of desires. You should make them conform to My pleasure. That is to say, you should not prefer your own will to Mine, as the Great Matthew recorded in the Lord’s Prayer in his Gospel (6.10); you should fall all over yourself to put My will first in your life. Why? Desires, I have noticed, often rouse you to act before you think. That is nice, but I think you should consider whether you are acting for our mutually agreed upon alliance or just for your own dalliance. If, however, I am the over cause, you will be happy enough, no matter how much I bang you about. However, if you have some covert initiative, something you do not want to reveal to Me, watch your step. It will trip you up and weigh you down. A few things to beware of. First, do not lean too much on these subcutaneous, subterranean desires of yours. Consult Me first. If you do not, it will make you suffer a lot later. One hint. A desire may please you at first, but it does not satisfy for long. It can only lead you to another, seemingly better supposedly greater desire, which itself is just another one in an endless chain of self-devouring desires that can only lead you to spiritual ruin. Second, not every Friendly Affection has to be seized immediately. There can be an interval. Examine it closely. Use restraint. You do not want to distract your mind from your goodly and indeed Godly studies simply because a Friendly Affection suddenly presents itself. Third, not every Unfriendly Affection must be fled from right away. Again, let there be an interval. Instantaneous and negative reaction may result more in Vitus than Virtue. The last thing you want to do is engender scandal in those who look up to you. Worse, you will arouse those who look down upon you; they will whirl you about until your finally fly apart. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
Fourth, sometimes you have to use strength, that is to say, to mount an assault against the Sensitive Appetite. The Flesh will make demands. Counter them; demand unconditional surrender—that was the way the pugnacious Paul handled the problem, or so he said in his First Letter to the Corinthians (9.27). Trouble erupts when the Flesh is unwilling to respond to the wishes of the Spirit. Alas, the Flesh has to be broken and bridled until it is willing to do everything that is required of it. That is to say, until it learns to be content with few things, delight in simple things, and overlook annoying things. My words are tied in one with the great mountains, with the great rocks, with the great trees, in one with my body and my heart. O Eternal, we beseech Thee, please save us now. Save Thy people, and bless Thine inheritance; nourish and sustain them forever. And may my words of supplication before the Lord be nigh unto the Lord our God, day and night, that He maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people America, as every day shall require; that all people of the Earth may know that the Lord is God; there is none else. Save us, we beseech Thee! For Thy sake, our God, do Thou save us. For Thy sake, our Creator, O save us. For Thy sake, our Redeemer, O save us. For Thy sake, O Thou who seekest us, save us, we beseech Thee. It is not merely feeing to which we give ourselves up, but being into which we settle. The conception alone of a peace which is out of this World is simply daring: its realization is utterly gorgeous in beauty and joyous in remembrance. Mostly as a result of prayer, but sometimes during an unexpected glimpse, a mystical experience of an unusual kind may develop. One feels transparent to the Overself; it light passes into and through one. One then finds that one’s ordinary condition was as if a thick wall surrounded one, devoid of windows and topped by a thick roof, a condition of imprisonment in limitation and ordinariness. However, now the walls turn to glass, their density is miraculously gone, one is not only open to the light streaming in but lets it pass on, irradiating the World around it. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror—Afraid to Move Hand or Foot II!
Immediately after I sat down…and did see a black thing jump into the window. And it came and stood just before my face. The body of it looked like a monkey, only the feet were like a cock’s feet with claws, and the face somewhat more like a man’s than a monkey’s. And I being greatly affrighted, not being able to speak or help myself by reason of fear, I suppose, so the thing spoke to me and said, “I am a messenger sent to you. For I understand you are troubled in mind, and if you will be ruled by me you shall want for nothing in this World.” I would have cried out—would have shrieked, if every never had not been paralyzed. I could not doubt the evidence of my sense—if I could have done so the cold, unearthy horror which sicked my very soul would have borne its undeniable testimony that I had behold the impersonation of the hidden curse that rested on this dwelling. I stood there rigid and immovable, as if that blighting Medusa-glance had indeed changed me into stone. It may have been but a very few minutes—it seemed to me a cycle of painful ages, when the light of a brightly burning lamp shone before me, and I heard the cheerful sounds of the new nurse’s voice in my ears: “Come along, cook. Bless your heart, my dear! you need not be nervous; there is no occasion. Mrs. Winchester, ma’am, are you not well, ma’am? “No,” I said faintly, staggering to the woman’s outstretched hands. “Not down there—upstairs to the children.” She turned as I bade her, and supported me up the stairs and into the nursery, the cook following close at my skirts, muttering fervent prayers and chants. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
The sight of the peacefully sleeping little ones did far more to restore me than all the essences and chafing and unlacing which the two women busily administered. I had got suddenly ill when coming upstairs was the explanation I gave, which the cook, plainly perceived, most thoroughly doubted, at least without the cause she suspected being assigned, which, even in the midst of my terror-stricken condition, I refrained from giving, I did not speak to the nurse either of what had happened, but I felt that she knew as well as if she had been by my ide all the time. However, when William returned I told him. Distressed and alarmed on my account though he was, yet he did not, as before, refuse credence to my story. “We must leave the house, William. I should die here very soon,” I said. “Yes, Sarah; of course we must leave if you have anything to distress or terrify you in his manner, though it does seem absurd to be driven out of one’s house and home by a thing of this kind. Someone’s practical joke, or a trick prompted by malice against the owner of the property in order to lessen its value. I have heard of such things often.” “William, it is nothing of the kind,” I said earnestly; “you know it is not.” “No, I do not,” said William shortly and grimly, as he opened his case of revolvers, “and I wish I did.” The night passed away quietly, to our ears at least; but next morning when William had concluded the usual morning prayers, instead of the usual move of the servants, they remained clustered at the door, Jansen with an exceedingly elongated visage standing slightly in advance of the group as a spokesman. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
“Please, sir and ma’am, we cannot tell you what to do.” “Why, go and do your work,” retorted William, with a nervous tug at his moustache and an uneasy glance at me. Jansen shook his head slowly. “It cannot be done, sir—cannot be done, ma’am. Why, no living Christian, not to speak of humble, but respectable servants,” said Jansen with a flourish, quite unconscious of the nice distinction he had made, “could stand it any longer.” “What is the matter, pray?” said my husband. “Ghosts, sir—spirits—unclean spirits,” said Charles, in an awestruck whisper which was re-echoed in the cook’s “Lor” “a” mercy!” as she dodged back from the doorway with the housemaid holding fast to one of her ample sleeves, and the lady’s maid holding fast to the other. The New nurse, quietly dandling the baby in her arms, was alone unmoved. “What stories have you been listening to now?” said their master, what a slight laugh and a frown. “No stories, sir; but what we have seen with our eyes and understanded with our ears, and—and—comprehended with our hearts,” said Jansen, with an unsuccessful attempt at quoting Scripture. “What was it as walked the floors last night between one and two, sir? What was it as talked and shrieked and run and raced? What was it as frightened the mistress on the stairs last evening?” And the whole posse of them turned to me, triumphantly awaiting my testimony. I was feeling very ill, and looking so, I daresay, having struggled downstairs in order to prevent the servants having any additional confirmation of their surmises. “That is no affair of yours,” said William gravely; “your mistress is in delicate health, and was feeling unwell all day.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
“Will you allow me to speak, please, sir?” said the nurse, and, as her maser nodded assent, she turned to the frightened group with a pleasant smile. “You have no cause to be afraid, cook, or Mr. Jensen, or any of you,” said she, addressing the most important functionary first—“not in the least. I am only a servant like the rest, and here a shorter time than any one; but I think you are very foolish to unsettle yourself in a good situation and frighten yourselves. You need not think they will harm you. Fear God and do your duty, and you need not mind wandering, poor, lonely souls—-” “Lor” “a” mercy! ‘ow you talk, Mrs. Lewis!” said the coo indignantly. “I have seen them more times than one—many and many a time, Mrs. Cook; and they never harmed a hair of my head,” said the nurse, “nor they will ever harm your.” “Well, then,” said the cook, packing into the hall, followed by her satellites, “not to be made Cleopatra, nor the Virgin Mary neither, would I stay to be frighted out of my seven senses, and made into a lunatic creature like poor Linda was!” “Please to make better omelettes for luncheon, cook, than you did yesterday,” said William calmly, though he looked pale and angry enough, “and leave me to deal with the ghost—I will settle accounts with them!” The nurse turned quickly and looked earnestly at him: “I would not say that, sir—God forbid,” said she in an undertone, and the next moment was singing softly and blithely as she carried the children away to their morning bath. William and I looked at each other in silence. “I wish we have never come into this house, dear,” I said. “I wish from my heart that we never had, Sarah,” he responded; “but we must manage to stay the season out, at all events. It would be too absurd to run away like frightened hares, not to speak of the expense and trouble we have gone through expanding the mansion to four floors with a nine-story tower.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
“We can may get it taken off our hands with a substantial loss, perhaps,” I suggested. “See the house-agent, William.” “I have seen him, but we have one of the largest, and most expansive estates in the country. No one can afford it,” he replied. “He deeply regretted that we should have any occasion to find fault, especially after our huge investment in expanding the estate, and it is not even completed yet. The agent also said he was happy to do anything in the way of clearing up this little mystery, et cetera. Of course he was laughing at me in his sleeve.” Again, as after our previous alarms, says passed on and lengthened into weeks in undisturbed quietude. William had a good many business matters to arrange; the children looked as rosy and healthy as in their country home, from their constant walking and playing in the airy, pleasant parks. My own health was not every good; and Dr. Winchester, William’s cousin, was kindest and wisest of grave, gentlemanly doctors; so, all thing considered, we stay at the Winchester mansion we have build into a 600 room Queen Anne Victorian mansion from an 18-room farmhouse. Only on my husband’s account, I wished for any change. Something seemed to affect his health strangely, although he never complained of anything beyond the usual lassitude and want of a tone which a gay Santa Clara season might be expected to bequeath him. He was sleepless, frequently depressed, nervous, and irritable; and still he vehemently declared he was quite well, and seemed almost annoyed when I urged him to put his business aside for the present and leave town. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
He had been induced to enter into a large “Highly Finished Arms” promotion and sales of deluxe Winchesters, and had, besides, some heavy money matters to arrange, connected with his sister’s marriage settlements, which he expected would be required about Christmas. So, all things considered, he had some cause for feeling as haggard as he did. “It will be as well for William to leave Santa Clara, Mrs. Winchester, as soon as he can, said his cousin Dr. Winchester at the close of one of his pleasant “run-in” visits. “His nerves are shaky. We men get nervous nearly as often as the ladies, though we do not confess to the fact quite so openly. A little unstrung, you know—nothing more. A few weeks in sea or mountain air will quite brace him up again.” And as I dressed for dinner that evening, I determined that if wifely entreaties, and arguments, and authority, should not fail for the first time in our wedded life, William should have the sea or mountain air without another week’s delay; and, of course I determined, likewise, to back up entreaties, arguments, and authority with the prettiest dress I could put on. I cannot tell why wives, and young wives too, will neglect their personal appearance when “only one’s husband” is present. It is unpolitic, unbecoming, and unloving; and men and husbands do not like neglect—direct or implied, be sure of that, ladies—young, middle-aged, or old. “Your brown silk, ma’am?—it is rather cold this evening for that cream-coloured grenadine,” said Agnus, rustling at my wardrobe. “No, Agnus, I will not have that brown, I am tired of it,” I replied. If so happened that it was this dress which I had worn on the three occasions when I had been terrified by the strange occurrences in this house; and I had acquired a superstition aversion for this particular robe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
So Agnus arrayed me in a particularly charming demi-toilette of pale yellow silk grenadine and white lace; and I felt myself to be a most amiable and affectionate little wife, as I went downstairs to await William’s return for dinner. I never sat in my pretty dressing-room alone. Truth to tell, I disliked the apartment secretly and intensely, and only for fear of troubling and displeasing George I would have shut it up from the first evening I spent in it. He was late for dinner, and I was quite shocked to see how thin and ill he looked by the gas-light; and, as soon as it was concluded, and that by the assistance of excellent coffee and a vast amount of petting, I had coaxed him into his usual smiles and good-humour, I began my petition—that he would leave town for his own sake. He listened to me in silence, and then said, “Very well, Sarah, we will go as soon as we can board up the east wing; I suppose you may come back here. “Oh! yes, I think so,” I replied, “maybe someone attracted these bad spirits and we need to let things cool off again. We shall spend Winter in New Haven, in our dear old house, William.” “Very well,” he said wearily, “though you must know, Sarah, I am not going on account of this one thing. I would hardly quit my house, indeed, because of ghostly or bodily sights or sounds.” He started up from the couch on which he was lying, flushed and excited as he always was when the subject was mentioned, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the flashing scabbard which hung on the wall before him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
“Certainly not, dearest,” I said soothingly. “I wish I could solve the mystery,” he pursued, more excitedly; “I would make somebody suffer for it! One’s peace destroyed, and people terrified, and servants driven away, as if one was living in the dark ages, with some cursed necromancer next door!” “Oh! well, it is some time ago now, and the servants have got over their fright. Pray, do not distress yourself about it, dear William.” “Ah, well—you do not—never mind,” he muttered; “but I mean to have tangible evidence before ever I leave this house—I have sworn it!” He was not easily roused, and I felt both surprise and alar to see him so now, and for so inadequate a cause. I had almost fancied he had forgotten the matter, as we, by tacit consent, never alluded to it. “Do not you allow yourself to be alarmed, Sarah, that is all I care about,” he went on, pacing the floor. “I have been half mad with anxiety on your account, for fear those idiotic servants should manage to startle you to death some dark evening-cowards, every one of them; but I mean to have someone to stay here and sit up—-” He paused suddenly, and listened, then stepped noiselessly to the door, and opening it, listened again intently. “William,” I whispered. He took no heed of me; but rapidly unlocking a cabinet drawer, he drew out a thirty-shooter, loaded and capped, and with his finger on the trigger stole softly to the door and into the hall, whither I followed him. Everything was silent, and the hall and stairs lamps were burning clear and high. I could hear the throbbing of my own heart as I stood there watching. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Suddenly we both heard heavy rapid footsteps, seemingly overhead; and then confused noises, as of struggling, and quarrelling, and sobbing, mingled in a swelling clamour which sounded now near, deafeningly near, and then far, far away; now overhead, now beside us, now beneath, undistinguishable, indescribable, and unearthly. Then the rushing footsteps came nearer and nearer. And, clenching his teeth, while his face grew rigid and white in desperate resolve, William sprang up the staircase with a bound like a tiger. It has all passed in less than half the time I have taken to relate it, and while I yet stood breathless and with straining eyes, William had nearly reached the last step when I saw him stagger backwards, the thirty-shooter raised in his hand. There was a struggle, a rushing, swooping sound, two shots fired in rapid succession, a floating cloud of white smoke, through which I saw the streaming yellow hair and steel-blue eyes flash downward, and then a shriek rang out—the dreadful cry of a man in mortal terror—a crashing fall, beneath which the house trembled to its foundations, and I saw my husband’s body stretched before the conservatory door, whither he had toppled backwards—whether dead or dying I knew not. I remember dimly hearing my own voice in agonized screams, and the terror-stricken servants hurrying from the kitchens below. I remember the kind of face of my new nurse as she bravely rushed down and dispatched someone for the doctor, and made others help her to carry the senseless figure, with blood slowly dripping from the parted lips and staining the snowy linen shirt-front in great gouts and splashes, up to the chamber, where they laid him on his bed, and I, a wretched frenzied woman, knelt beside him with the sole, ceaseless prayer that brain or lips could form—“God help me!” #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
I remember the physician’s arrival, and the grave face and low clear voice of Dr. Winchester, as he made his enquiries; and then another physician summoned, and the low frightened voices, and peering frightened faces, and the lighted candles guttering away in currents of air form opening and shutting doors, and the long hours of night, and the cold grey dawning, the heart-rendering suspense, and speechless, tearless, wordless agony, and the sun rose, gloriously cloudless, smiling in radiance, as if there was not the shadow of death over the weary World beneath his rays, and I hear the verdict—“there was scarcely a hope.” However, God was merciful to me and to him, and my darling did not die. With a fevered brain and a shattered limb he lay there for weeks—lay there with the dark portals half opened to receive him; lay there, when I could no longer watch beside him, but lay prostrate and suffering in another apartment, tended by kind relatives and friends; but at length, when the mellow sunshine, and the crisp clear air of the soft shadowy October days stole into the sick room. William was able to be dressed and sit up for an hour or two amongst the pillows of his easy-chair by the window. And there he was, longing to be gone away from London. “Sarah, darling, weak or strong I must go,” he said in his trembling uncertain voice, and with a restless longing in his faded eyes, “I shall never get better in this house.” And so a few days afterwards, accompanied by the doctor and two nurses, we went down in a pleasant swift railroad journey to our dear, beautiful, peaceful home in New Haven. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
William never spoke of that night of horror but once, when Dr. Winchester told of the story connected with the original 18-room farmhouse we purchased, which morphed into a labyrinth of endless room, twisting and winding tunnels, and catacombs. Thirty years before we bought the farmhouse, the man who was both proprietor and tenant of the estate died, leaving his two daughters all he possessed. He had been a bad man, led a bad wild life, and died in a fit brough on by drunkenness; and these two daughters, grown to womanhood, inherited with his ill-gotten fold his evil nature. They were only half-sisters, and were believed to have been illegitimate also. The elder, a tall, masculine, strongly built woman, with masses of coarse fair hair, and bright, glitter blue eyes; and the younger, a plump, dark-haired rather pretty girl, but as treacherous, vain, and bold, as her elder sister was fierce, passionate, and cruel. They lived in this house, with only their servants, for several years after their father’s death, a life of quarrelling and bickering, jealousy, witchcraft, and heart-burnings, on various accounts. The elder strobe to tyrannize over the younger, who repaid it by deceit and crafty selfishness and black magic. At length a lover came, who the elder sister favoured; whom she loved as fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by falsehood and deep-laid treachery the younger sister cast a love spell on the man and won his fickle fancy from the great, harsh-featured, haughty, passionate elder one. The elder woman soon perceived it, and there were dreadful scenes between the two sisters, when the younger taunted the elder, and the elder cursed the younger. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
However, as fate would have it, one night and at length—there had been a fiercer encounter of words than usual, and the dark-haired girl maddened her sister by insults, and the sudden information that she intended leaving the house in the morning, to stay with a relative until her marriage, which was to take place in one week from that time—the wronged woman, demon-possessed from that moment, waited in her dressing-room, until her sister entered, and then she sprang on her and screaming and struggling, they both wrested until they reached the staircase, where the younger sister, escaping for an instant, rushed wildly down, followed by her murderess, who overpowered her in spite of her frantic struggles, and with her strong, cruel, bony hands deliberately strangled her, until she lay a disfigured palpitating corpse at her feet. She had several scars that seemed as if they had been long there, and they were done by witchcraft. The officers of justice arrested the murderess a few hours afterwards. The jailers put irons on her legs (having received such a command). [It was the curious theory that chaining the prisoner would prevent her specter from afflicting anyone.] The weight of them was about eight pounds. These irons and her other afflictions soon brought her into convulsion fits so they thought she would die that night. She died by poison self-administered on the second day of her imprisonment. What is now known as the Winchester Mansion had been shut up and silent for many a year afterwards, and when, at length, and when, at length, an enterprising landlord put it in habitable order, and found tenants for it again, he only found them to lose them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Year after year passes away, its evil fame darkening with its massive masonry, for none could be found to sanctify with the sacred name and pleasures of home that dwelling blighted by an abiding curse. “I never told you, Sarah,” William said, “although I told my cousin Dr. Winchester, that from the first evening I led a haunted life in that beautiful house, and the more I struggled to disbelieve the evidence of my senses, and to keep the knowledge from you, the more unbearable it became, until I felt myself going mad. I knew I was haunted, but will that last night I had never witnessed what I dreaded day and night to see. And then, Sarah, when I fired, and I saw the devilish murderess face, with its demon eyes blazing on me, and the tall unearthly figure hurrying down to meet me, dragging the other struggling, writhing figure, with her long sinewy fingers seemingly pressed around the convulsed face, then I knew it was all over with me. If there had been a flaming furnace beside me I think I should have leaped into it to escape that awful sight.” That was over a century ago. Sarah eventually returned to the Winchester all along and made several changes to it over 38 years. It is now a 4 story, 160-room mansion, with over 25,500 square feet, sitting on four acres. It was once up to 600 rooms, likely 95,625 square with as many as 737 acres. The strange thing about witchcraft and legends is many of them are based in truth, and sometimes there are unexplainable continuity errors. Take for example An hysterical fit, from J.M. Charcot, Lectures on the Disease of the Nervous System (London, 1877). Look at the extruded tongue, reported during the seventeenth century in witchcraft cases at Gordon, Boston, Salem, and elsewhere. Notice also the legs crossed in spasm; at one time Mary Warren’s legs could not be uncrossed without breaking them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
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In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror–Afraid to Move Hand or Foot!
The warning came too late to change that course of event. There has been time when many admitted some doubt of the validity of spectral evidence. This story I will tell to you now, as I have promised to do so, and yet I can hardly make you believe in the reluctance with which I even allow my thoughts go back to the times which I spent in my house—my first town residence after I was married. I loved so much my lovely mansion, I suppose. The wide emerald green lawns and quiet, glassy ponds and streams, bordered by luscious, blooming rhododendrons; of silent, mossy avenues, glorious with the flickering light that stole through pale green beech leaves; of rose gardens with grassy paths, jewel-sprinkled with shell-like petals of white, crimson, pink, and cream-like hues; of old-fashioned rooms with narrow, mullioned windows embowered in scarlet japonica and fragrant, starry jessamine. I supposed I possessed a deep love of them all. This was the first house we were sown in the Santa Clara, California. It was certainly a very fine house, both as o exterior and interior appearances. Large, massively built, agreeably darkened in woodwork and masonry by Time’s shading brush, in excellent repair, and the locality all that could be desire. Wide, lofty apartments, staircases, and landings; a handsome dining-room panelled in velvety dark-green “flock” and gold; a handsome drawing-room panelled in pale cream-colour and gold; airy bed-chambers and dressing-rooms—one, in particular, attached to what seemed the principal bedroom, with a vast mirror occupying the whole side of the apartment which was opposite to the door leading into the bed-chamber. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
“What a nice dressing-room! This house is perfect and expansion will be a joy.” I exclaimed, having a weakness, I confess, for large, handsome mirrors in the rooms I inhabit—William says impertinent things about my “wishing to see as much of myself as I can.” I know I am not all, in fact, rather what he should call petite, if he wished to be polite—but that is not my reason for liking a large mirror. As I spoke the words I looked about mechanically for the house—agent’s clerk who had been sent with us—a nervous-looking little man, with a pasty complexion, and orange-colored hair meekly plastered down at each side of his face. He had been untiringly trotting up and down stairs, unlocking doors, answering questions, and keeping up a harmless soliloquy of chatter about the beauties and excellencies of the “mansiond,” as he called it, ever since he entered its doors, but now he was nowhere to be seen. “What door have you open?” I said, speaking aloud to him, for suddenly a cold blast of air swept up the wide staircase and into the dressing-room door, but not entering. His face looked wither than before, and in his accents there was an almost terrified earnestness that puzzled me. The shadows of the afternoon seemed to deepen. The aspect of the suites of rooms and long silent corridors, with their doors ajar, as if unseen inhabitants were stealthily crouching behind them, drearily impressed me with a sense of dull desolation; and it was with a sudden sensation of childish fear and loneliness that I rushed after my husband, and took his arm as he hastily descended the stairs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
“A spacious, handsome staircase, William” I remarked. “Yes; and a spacious, handsome price, you may be sure,” William responded. However, in this particular, he was exceedingly, and I agreeably, astonished. To our surprise, the house was rather affordable. William figured there must be a screw loose somewhere. He mentioned his opinion to the clerk in a more business-like expression, to the effect that the price seemed low, and that he trusted there was no—peculiar—eh? “Drains, gas, water, all right, sir—right as—a—a trivet, sir. However, the 18-room farmhouse is incomplete,” sad the clerk, looking over his shoulder oddly, as he spoke. “But chimneys, ventilators, roof, tiles—everything in the perfect repair and order, sir!” However, wonderful or not, the house seemed all that we could desire; the lowness of the price made it a decided bargain. I planned to expand the house, and make it even more lofty, and handsome; and in three weeks, huge furniture vanes, and a clever upholstered, had carpeted, curtained, and furnished our town mansion from garret to basement, and William and I, our two babies, a nurse, two maids, a cook, and a butler, were installed in what would become the Winchester Mansion. Dear William had been very generous—nay, almost extravagant—in his provisions for the comfort and pleasure of his wife and children; and my dressing-room and their nursery were fitted up so luxuriously and tastefully, that my feeling at the first inspection of them was that of self-gratulation on being such a fortunate woman, in having such a home, such babies, and such a husband. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
I arrayed myself for dinner that evening quite gleefully; standing before my splendid mirror amid the bule drapery, cushions, and couches of my charming dressing-room. I put on William’s favourite dress—a bronze-brown lustrous silk, with sparkling gold ornaments: he invariably kissed me when he saw it on, stroked my brown curls and face, and called me “Mrs. Winchester”—and was still standing before the glass smiling at myself, like the happy, foolish little woman I was, when I perceived to my discomfiture that William was standing in the doorway watching my doings, and grinning very visibly under his moustache. “Do not mind me, my dear, I beg! do not me the least. However, when you have done admiring Mrs. Winchester, perhaps you will be kind enough to let me know”—then, suddenly changing his tone, he exclaimed, “Have you the window open, Sarah, this chilly evening?” “No William,” I replied, glancing at it to make sure of the fact. “Change in the weather, then,” my husband said. “Come, Sarah, there is no use in making yourself any prettier!” He had just uttered the last words when I saw him spring aside suddenly, and look around. “What is the matter?” I said—“William, dear, what is the matter?” For his face had grown quite white, and with his back against the wall, he was staring about him wildly. “I do not know—Sarah—something”—he explained in a low tone; then recovering himself, with a laugh, he cried—“I struck myself against the door, I suppose! I declare one would think I was composed of old china, or wax, or sugar candy, I hurt and stunned me so! Come, dearest.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
He had not struck himself, for I had been watching him going out on the lobby, and I felt an uneasy conviction that he knew he had not done so, and only spoke as he did in order to deceive or satisfy me. why? Why did I think so? As I live I cannot tell why I thought so then—I know now. We had the “babies”—as William always called them—in the dessert, after the time-honoured fashion of making olives as well as olive branches of them; and then, when the lite ones had gone to bed, we sat side by side in he summer twilight, I lazily fanning myself, William bending over me the lover-husband he was. Then came the lamps, and I played for him, and we sang duet and spent as happy an evening in our new home as a married pair could wish to spend. I cannot tell why I felt so disinclined to go upstairs that night, tired as I was, too—for we had had a long journey up from the country. However as eleven struck, I routed William out of the easy chair where he had been indulging in a preliminary doze, and, ringing for my maid went up to my dressing-room. I like gas in my dressing-room, though not in my bedroom, and the globes at either side the great mirror were a blaze of light. As I entered I caught the reflection of a woman’s figure in the depths of the glass, no my maid’s. The glimpse I had was of a tall woman, strongly built, and broad-shouldered, a quantity of light hair hanging in a disordered manner on her neck, and the profile of a white, hard, masculine face, with the keen glittering eye turned watchfully towards the door. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
This may seem an elaborately detailed description for the momentary glance I obtained, but it is well known with what lightning rapidity the organs of vision will, in moments of terror and amazement, convey impressions to the startled brain, impression accurate and indelible. I had taken but one step on entering, the next step the figure had vanished, and the mirror reflected by my own terrified face, and the homely, cheerful one of my maid Agnus, as she stooped over the dressing-table opening a jewel case. I dropped down on the nearest chair, and, in answer to the girl’s alarmed questions, replied that I did not feel very well. I was sick and shuddering from head to foot. Suddenly it flashed across me that it was from a similar cause I had seen my husband’s face grow ghastly, and that strange, terrified look come into his eyes,–he, who had been a soldier and unflinchingly had fought amidst the dead and dying on bloody Indian battlefields, almost boy as he was then! What was it? What had he seen? Nonsense! was I going to believe I had seen a ghost? Nonsense, a thousand times over! I heard my husband’s cheery voice as he ascended the stairs, and, quite angry with myself for giving way to such folly, I threw on my dressing gown, and, snatching up the brush from Agnus, I pulled my hair down and brushed it quite savagely, until my head ached well—for punishment. If the bright morning light disperses sweet illusions formed overnight, as people say it does, it disperses gloomy ones as well. With the warmth and brightness of the unclouded summer’s sun streaming in through softly coloured blinds, brining out the velvety green of soft new carpets and lounges, the rainbow tints of glittering chandeliers, vases, and ornaments, the gilding on bright fresh wallpaper and the spotless folds of snowy window drapery, it was impossible for an instant to connect anything dark or dismal with the Winchester House. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Why, my dressing-room even where I had been so silly last evening, was like a woodland bower, with its deep purple-blue hangings and rose painted china flower-vases filled with bouquets from our country home. Clustering fragrant honeysuckle half-opened moss roses, drooping emerald-green fern, and masses of delicious jessamine dropping its over-blown blossoms on the white toilet cover, lace-flounced and tied with blue ribbons, as Agnus delighted to have it. “I think this such a charming room and such a charming house altogether, William!” I said; “and you have been such a dear, thoughtful old darling!” For I had perceived that the dear fellow had had his own half-length portrait hung over my writing-table. Quite a pleasant surprise for me, for I thought he intended it to be hung in the dining-room, and I delighted in having the dear pleasant brown eyes looking for a me when I was busy writing or sewing. “I am so glad you like everything, Sarah,” said he. “Why, William, do you not?” However, William had walked off whistling, and presently I heard uproarious baby-laughter, and baby-chatter, and thumping, trotting of small fat feet, as William put the tiny nursery into dire confusion by his morning game of romps with his son and heir, and red-cheeked baby-daughter. And it did seem as if I must have been dreaming or delirious, when this day and many a succeeding one passed away swiftly and pleasantly, without the slightest recurring event to remind me of my strange alarm on the night of our arrival. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
We had been in the Winchester House about a fortnight, when one morning I received a visit from Mrs. Ellen Kenna. A very pretty, lady-like person she was, and as we had some common acquaintances we chattered away very freely and pleasantly for half-an-hour or so. As she rose to go she asked suddenly if we like the house. I replied in the affirmative rather warmly. She was opposite the light, and I saw an involuntary elevation of her eye-brows and compression of her lips that puzzled me. I fancied it was because I had spoken so enthusiastically. Yet her own manner was anything but languidly fashionable, being very cordial and decided. “Yes; it is a very nice house, roomy and well-built,” she said, after a moment’s pause; “I am so glad you like it—I live down the road in Oakland.” We took the carriage to have dinner at Bertha Hass’s mansion that for the following evening, and when we returned about three days later, in spite of a yawning remonstrate from William, I tipped off softly to have a peep at my darlings, before I went to bed. The nursey was a large, pleasant room at the end of the long corridor leading from our own apartments, and, gently turning the handle and gathering my rustling silk dress around me, I opened the door and went in. There was a night-lamp burning clearly, shining softly on the tiny cribs with the sweet flushed infant faces, the long golden-brown lashes lying in dimpled apple-bloom cheeks, the waxen hands and little rounded arms thrown above the tossed golden curls, and the Heavenly calm of the little sleeping forms and pure, peaceful breathing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
I wondered would any mother, no matter how cold and careless, have neglected doing what I did, as I bent over my treasures, and prayed God that His angels might keep watch over each cherub head on its little, soft, white pillow? I had looed at and kissed them, and turned to go, when I glanced toward the nurse’s bed. “Are you not well, Linda? What is the matter?” I said in an anxious whisper. She was a very respectable and trustworthy servant, as well as being, a kind, gentle creature with the little ones, and consequently highly valued by me, but her health was never very good, and she was subject to severe attacks of nervous headache and sleeplessness. She was sitting up in bed, her hands grasping the bedclothes, her face and lips ashy white, and her as big as saucers and staring wildly, as if they would start from their sockets. “Linda! Good Heavens! what is the matter?” I gasped. “Ma’am! Oh, ma’am—oh, mistress, I am dying!” We summoned a doctor and administered restoratives, and chafed the half-senseless girl’s damp, cold hands. I could imagine no cause for her sudden illness, and the others servants were very voluble in exclamations and laments. However, when the physician—a pale, kindly, grave-looking man arrived—after a moment’s examination, he demanded if she had been frightened? I replied in the negative, and was proceeding to describe to him the state in which I had found her, when I heard the housemaid and Agnus whispering energetically together. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The doctor was paying tribute to the dramatic affliction of the girl, when he said, “This strikes hard upon me, that you are at this very present charged with unfamiliar spirits. This is your bodily person they speak to. They say now they see these unfamiliar sprits some to your bodily person. Now what do you say to that?” Agnus said that she saw a specter leaving Linda’s body, as she was going into hideous convulsions. The fit was far too violent to be acting. This was terribly “real” and convincing. “What is it? Speak out at once my god girl!” said the doctor sternly to the housemaid; “you know something of this.” Both servants looked apprehensively at me and at William. “Speak up at once, Bethany; the girl’s life may depend on it! Tell the truth, my girl, and do not be afraid,” said her master kindly, but firmly. “I do not know nothing, sir—indeed, no ma’am, said Angus confusedly; “but—I think, ma’am—she seen the ghost, sir!” “That what!” cried William angrily. “She have, sir!” persisted Agnus eagerly, now that her confession was made. “We are all afraid, sir; but she has been worser nor the rest of us. And she says to me only this morning, ‘Agnus,’ she says, ‘if I see it, I will die!’” “What ghost, you fool?” cried William more angrily. “A pretty set you are!—great, grown men and women, afraid of some bogie story you have heard when you were gossiping with the servants on the balcony, I suppose!” “No, indeed, sir,” said Agnus; “I was not gossippin’, sir; but the parlour-maid over the way, sir Mrs. Kenna’s parlour-maid, ma’am—she told me that there was the Devil–” #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
“I thought so!” interrupted William. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves not to have an ounce of brains among you.” “But, sir! Agnus burst out again, unheeding her master’s rather uncomplimentary phrenological verdict, “we did not mind, sir, though we was a bit frightened, until we see it, sir! The butler see it, and he ran, and cook ran.” “And you ran after them?” said William, with an indignant laugh. “I did, sir, for I saw it too—a big woman with fair hair all over her shoulders,” said Agnus, in an awestruck whisper to Harriet, who nodded her head. The doctor looked up, gravely and without a smile. The servants clustered together near the door, and muttered in undertones. William looked at me with a forced smile, which died away in an instant: “You are not so foolish as to credit any of this nonsense, Sarah?” he said. The servants all turned eagerly to hear their mistress’s opinion. I am afraid it was written in my pallid face. Was it true? Was it what I had seen? Could there be any reality in this, that here, in our pleasant, happy home, beneath the roof with out helpless little one, was a dreadful, unblessed presence—a shadowy horror; that that thing with the watchful, cruel eyes had not been a mere vision of imagination, the mere offspring of an active brain, and the unstrung nerves of an overtired frame? Is there conclusive proof that the person represented had been trafficking with the Devil? “Oh! they imagined something from the stories they heard, I dare say,” I faltered. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
The butler shook his head solemnly: “I could swear to it, ma’am.” “And so could I ma’am!” chorused the cook and housemaid. “Hush!” said the doctor, as the nurse, roused, at length, from her stupor, lay quietly, with closed eyes, from which the tears streamed down her face. “Some one must sit up with her now,” said the doctor, looking around. “I will, sir, if my mistress allows me, said Bethany. Certainly, Bethany,” she said at once. He communicated his instructions to her and took his leave, promising to call in the morning. “Did you ever hear anything like this folly, doctor,” said William, as he shook hands with him at the head of the stairs. “Oh! yes, sir, I often hear such stories,” said the doctor quietly, as he bade us both goodnight.” William! what has frightened the girl? What has she seen?” I whispered, clasping my husband’s arm. “Sarah, go to bed, and do not be a goose,” was William’s reply. “William—I saw that thing—that woman, in my dressing-room,” I said, trembling, “and oh! think if the children were to see I and be frightened like poor Mary!” “Well, Sarah,” said my husband sharply, “if you are going to listen to ignorant servants’ superstitions and run out of your house, just as we are comfortably settled in it, on account of a foolish sickly woman fainting from hearing a ghost story—I say—it is a pity you ever came into it.” He spoke very decidedly and sternly, and yet I felt in my inmost heart that the uttered what he wished me to believe, not what he believed himself. I said no more, but went to my bedroom—not into the dreaded dressing-room—and lay awake listening and fevered with nervous anxiety until the next morning dawned. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
The nurse was better and able to speak the next day, though extremely weak and unnerved yet. The doctor forbade much questioning, and all that could be got from her at intervals was that something had come up the staircase and ran through the corridor, that she heard struggling and scuffling outside, and then the nursey door opened and she saw a woman’s face peering in, the eyes gleaming wickedly at her, and it had the yellow hair that “belong to the ghost.” “The woman has had a bad fit of nightmare—that is all, Sarah,” said William, rattling his paper unconcernedly, when I repeated to him the story I had just heard from poor Linda’s trembling lips. It might be so; but why were they all agreed as to what they had seen? Why did they all speak of the tangled fair hair, and the wicked gleaming eyes? Was our house haunted? Was this the mysterious cause of the exceedingly moderate price of the house and land and the house-agent’s profuse civility? The nurse did not recover strength, and being worse than useless in her present weak, hysterical condition, I sent her down to her country home for change of air, and hired another temporarily in her place. The newcomer was a stout, small, cheerful woman of about forty. I liked her face the moment I saw her; for, besides its smiling, honest expression, there was a good deal of decided character in the large firm features. “You appear to be a sensible person,” I said, when giving her her first instructions in the nursey, “and I think I can rely on you. You know my nurse is leaving because of illness, and that illness was caused by her being frightened by—a ghost-story.” I paused; but the woman remained unmoved, listening to me in respectful silence. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“The servants downstairs have got some nonsense of the kind into their head,” I went on; “they will try to frighten you, too, and tell you they have seen—-” I could not go on. For my life I could not calmly giver her the description of that shadowy image of fear. “They cannot frighten me, ma’am, said my new nurse quietly. “I am not afraid of spirits.” I thought she spoke in jest, and smiled. “I am not indeed, ma’am,” she repeated. “I have lived where there were such things seen but they never harmed me.” “You do not mean to say you believe such nonsense?” said I, hypocritically trying to speak carelessly. “Oh yes, ma’am, I do! I could not disbelieve it,” said the nurse, opening her eyes with earnestness, “I know the story of this house, ma’am.” What story” I cried. The woman coloured and looked confused. “I beg your pardon, ma’am—I mean what people say is seen here.” “What do they say? Do not frighten me,” I said, and my voice quivered in spite of me; “I have heard nothing but what the servant said.” The nurse looked deeply concerned. “I am very stupid, ma’am; I beg your pardon for repeating such stores to you—I daresay it is only idle people’s gossip.” She went about her duties, and I went—not into my dressing-room—but down into the drawing-room, where I say by the window looking out until my husband returned. Two or three weeks more passed away. I lay down on my pet chintz-covered couch, near the window, to look at the sky and the starts. Dead silence—and the “ting, ting” of the French clock on the mantelpiece marked the half-hour after eight. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Dear me, how dark it was growing! this brooding storm I supposed, which had been making me feel so languid and restless. I wish it would come down and cool the air—not tonight, though. Dear me, how lonely it is. I wish William were home. Those women are talking very loudly—I wonder nurse would—here I got drowsy, and my eyes ached looking for the stars that had not come. In a few minutes I roused again, my maternal anxiety changing into indignation as I heard the women’s voices growing louder and shriller, and some doors opened and shut violently. What can nurse be thinking of? They will wake the children most certainly, and William was so long in falling asleep—quite fevers my own boy! I shall really reprover her very plainly. I never needed to do so before. What could she be thinking of? Dead silence again. Well, this was lonely; I was inclined to ring for lights, and turn on all the burners in the chandeliers by way of company. Then I remembered there were some wax matches in one of the drawers of a writing-tray just at hand, and thought I would light the gas myself instead of brining the servants down—yes—but I wanted company. It was so dark and dreary, and—and—I was afraid. Afraid to stir—afraid to look at the door! a numbing, chilling tide of icy fear ebbing through every vein—afraid to draw a breath—afraid to move hand or foot, in a nightmare of supernatural terror. At last, by a violent effort, I sprang at the bell-handle, and pulled it frantically, and as soon as I had done so, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my childish cowardice, although I could not have helped it, and it had overcome me as suddenly as unexpectedly. How William would have laughed at me! #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
There were those servants talking again, tramping about and banging the doors as before. Really, this was unbearable; cook must be in one of her fits of temper, and certainly had forgotten herself strangely. And, as the quarrelsome tones grew louder and louder—evidently in bitter recrimination, although I could not catch a word—my own anger rose proportionately, and, forgetting loneliness and darkness in my indignant anxiety lest my children should be waked by this most unseemly behaviour of the servants, I ran hastily out of the room and up the wide staircase. The dime light from the clouded evening sky, still further subdued by the gold and purple-stained glass of the conservatory door, streamed faintly down the steps from the first landing, and by it, just as I had ascended half way, I discovered the short, thick-sett figure of the nurse rushing down—of course, in answer to my ring, I supposed. Involuntarily I stepped aside to avoid coming in violent contact with her as she feld past. No, it was not the nurse; and the woman following her in headlong haste, sweeping by me so that the current of air from their floating dresses struck icily cold on my brow where the clammy dew of perspiration had started in great drops, was—was—-Merciful Heavens! What was that tall figure, with the coarse, disordered, yellow hair, the white face, and glittering, steel-blue eyes, that glinted fiendishly on me for one dreadful instant, and then vanished? Vanished as the pursed and pursuing figures had disappeared in the shadows of the wide, lofty hall, without sound of voice or footstep? #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
If you had a chance to explore areas never before seen within Sarah’s house, would you take it?
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A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
He Covenanted with the Devil Until He Should Arrive to the Age of Sixty Years!
He might be living, or he might be dead. There came no word of him, or from him. I was fond enough of her to be satisfied with this—he never disturbed us. While there were many individual acts of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, there was never an attempt or plot to make witchcraft a formal religion which would supplant Christianity. Yet we need not conclude that William Baker and his fellow-confessors were lying. It is probable that they, like the afflicted girls, were hysterics subject to hallucination. Certainly that is the conclusion to be drawn from Thomas Brattle’s opinion of them in his “Letter”: “my faith is strong concerning them that they are deluded, imposed upon, and under the influence of some evil spirit, and therefore unfit to be evidences either against themselves or anyone else.” Mr. Brattle wrote this in October 1692, when Massachusetts was retuning to stability. However, at the height of the excitement confessions like Mr. Baker’s seemed convincing enough. For one thing, they had a curious precision: he did not say there were about three hundred witches in the country but “about three hundred and sever”; he did not say there were about a hundred young wizards at the mustering of the Satanic militia but “about an hundred five.” However, what made these confessions most believable was that they offered a simple and comprehensive explanation for all the frightening events at Salem, at a time when explanations were not easy to discover. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
There is also some testimony which remains ambiguous even today. Samuel Wardwell, for example, at his preliminary examination confessed himself a wizard. He had begun, he said, with white magic, “with telling of fortunes which sometimes came to pass” And, he said, “he used also when any creature came into his field to bid the Devil to take it, and it may be the Devil took advantage of him by that.” Eventually he had signed a pact: “He covenanted with the Evil until he should arrive to the age of sixty years.” He had renounced this confession at his trial, saying that he had made it, but that he had belied himself. He added that it was all one: “he knew he should die for it whether he owned it or no.” Ordinarily one would simply accept his renunciation. However, there are several puzzling circumstances here. For one thing, it was not all one whether he maintained or renounced his confession. People who maintained their confessions were not being brought to trail, much less executed. For another, at least a part of his confession was true; he had dabbled in the occult for some time, telling a great many fortunes, and boasting that he could make animals come to him when he wished. Finally, Mr. Wardwell was executed. However, in 1693, when the panic had subsided and the climate of opinion totally changed, there were three people who held to their confessions. Two of them were women long thought to be “senseless and ignorant creatures.” The third was Mr. Wardwell’s wife. All of these circumstances are puzzling and some of them are suspicious. However, on the other hand, there is no evidence to support his confessions of having made a pact. The only possible conclusion, it would seem, is that in this case the truth is not obtainable. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
In a situation where the truth was so difficult to find the people of Massachusetts did what anybody else would do—they sought expert advice. In matters of witchcraft the experts were the clergy, and ultimately the advice was sought of the most distinguished clergymen in the colony. Indeed, at least one member of the trial court, Judge John Richards, asked the Reverend Cotton Mather to be present at the first trial. Reverend Mather was too ill to attend, but he did everything he could under the circumstances. He had suggested earlier (the exact date is not known) that the afflicted persons should be separated and an attempt made to cure them with prayer and fasting. He volunteered to take in as many as six of them himself. He had cured the Godwin children, and he might well have cured the Salem girls as well; certainly separation and private care would have been better treatment for hysterical fits than the excitements of a public courtroom. However, unfortunately Reverend Mather’s offer had not been accepted. Now, although he could not attend the first sitting of the court he wrote John Richards a letter offering him his opinions. In the first place, he expected that God would smile upon the labours of the court: “His people have been fasting and praying before Him for you direction, and yourselves are persons whose exemplary devotion disposeth you to such a dependence on the Wonderful Counselor, for his counsel in an affair this full of wonder, as He doth usually answers with the most favorable assistances. Yet he wanted to warn Mr. Richards. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Here is that warning: “And yet I most humbly beg you that in the management of the affair in your most worthy hands, you do not lay more stress upon pure specter testimony than it will bear. When you are satisfied or have good plain legal evidence that the Demons which molest our poor neighbours do indeed represent such and such people to the sufferers, though this be a presumption, yet I suppose you will not reckon it a conviction that the people so represented are witches to be immediately exterminated. It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the shapes of persons not only innocent but very virtuous, though I believe that the just God then ordinarily provides a way for speedy vindication of the persons thus abused. Moreover, I do suspect that persons who have too much indulged themselves in malignant, envious, malicious ebullitions of their souls may unhappily expose themselves to the Judgment of being represented by Devils, of whom they never had any vision and with whom they have much less written any covenant. I would say this: if upon the bare supposal of a poor creature’s being represented by a specter too great a progress be made by the Authority in ruining a poor neighbour so represented, it may be that a door may be thereby opened for the Devils to obtain from the Courts in the Invisible World a license to proceed unto most hideous desolations upon the repute and repose of such as have yet been kept from the great transgression. If mankind have thus far once consented unto the credit of Diabolical representations, the Door is opened! Perhaps there are wise and good men that may be ready to style hum that shall advance this caution a witch advocate, but in the winding up this caution will certainly be wished for.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
Reverend Mather’s third point is that although he believes that Devils have sometime afflicted men on their own initiative, without being called up by witches, in this case he thinks that witches are involved: “there is cause enough to think that it is a horrible witchcraft which hath given rise to the troubles wherewith Salem Village is at this day harassed, and he indefatigable pains that are used for the tracing this witchcraft are to be thankfully accepted and applauded among all this people of God.” Fourth, he points out that although witchcraft is a spiritual matter and therefore “very much transacted upon the stage of imagination,” its effects are “dreadfully real” and therefore criminally punishable. “Our dear neighbours are most really tormented, really murdered, and really acquainted with hidden things which are afterwards proved plainly to have been realities.” In his fifth and six section he suggests what evidence may be used for convictions. The best evidence, he says, is “a credible confession…And I say a credible confession because even confession itself is sometimes not credible.” He was confident Mr. Richards’ ability to judge such matters: “a person of a sagacity many times thirty furlongs less than yours will easily perceive what confession may be credible and what may be the result of only a delirious brain or a discontented heart.” In obtaining confessions he was “far from urging the un-English method of torture,” but he thought that “cross and swift questions” might be used, along with anything else that “hath a tendency to put the witches into confusion” and this might bring them to confession. If the suspect had made threats or boasts which seemed to require occult power and which came true, this was valid evidence. So were such concrete matters as “puppets” (for image magic) and witch marks on the body. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Reverend Mather had never seen a witch mark on anyone, but he thought a surgeon ought to be able to tell if a bodily excrescence were magical. Finally, he was willing to countenance as experiments (but not as full evidence) some witch-finding techniques which themselves partook of the occult: setting a suspect to repeating the Lord’s Prayer; trying to wound a witch through striking her specter; putting the suspect to the water ordeal. Seventh, and finally, he recommended clemency for “come of the lesser criminals.” If such persons were not executed but “only scoured with lesser punishments, and also put upon some solemn, open, public, and explicit renunciation of the Devil” he thought it might discourage the Devils from afflicting those neighbourhoods in which they had been publicly renounced. Reverend Mather’s letter was written within the context of the Puritan method for arriving at the truth, and it can be fully understood only within that context. In dealing with the American Puritans we must remember always that they had rejected the formidable hierarchies of the Medieval and Renaissance church and state, with all their authority of tradition and inherited position. They had replaced these hierarchies with bodies of ministers and magistrates which, if they were not fully democratic in the twentieth-century sense of the word, were nevertheless elected. The clergyman was called to his position by the members of the church; the magistrate was elected by his constituency. Furthermore, the church had no central administration; every congregation was a law unto itself. The state did have a central administration—a governor and lieutenant-governor and their council—but this administration had nothing even faintly resembling the authority of a royal government. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
My brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition and in a popular form. He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at the moment. I looked up at him; his face startled me. He had turned pale. His eyes were fixed on the open page of the book with an expression which puzzled and alarmed me. “My dear fellow,” I said, “what in the World is the matter with you?” He answered in an odd absent manner, still keeping his finger on the open page. “I had almost forgotten,” he said. “And this reminds me.” “Reminds you of what?” I asked. “You do not mean to say you know anything about the Trial?” “I know this,” he said. “The prisoner was guilty.” “Guilty?” I repeated. “Why, the man was acquitted by the jury, with full approval of the judge! What can you possibly mean?” “There are circumstances connected with that Trial,” my brother answered, “which were never communicated to the judge or the jury—which were never so much as hinted or whispered in court. I know them—of my own knowledge, by my own personal experience. They are very sad, very strange, very terrible. I have mentioned them to no mortal creature. I have done my best to forget them. You—quite innocently—have brought them back to my mind. They oppress, they distress me. I wish I had found you reading any book in your library, except that book!” Some people were opposed to prosecuting in any witchcraft case, on the grounds that witchcraft was a spiritual mater, a sin rather than a crime, and thus outside the domain of criminal law. However, the laws of every civilized nation provided the death penalty for witchcraft, and so did the Bible (Exodus xxii, 18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”). #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Another opinion Reverend Mather deals with is that the troubles at Salem were caused by Devils, but not by witches. That is, the idea had already been advanced that the afflicted girls were possessed—infested by Demons—but not bewitched; that the Devils had acted on their own initiative rather than that of witches. This is the idea that was eventually adopted by virtually all of Massachusetts to explain the events at Salem, once it was recognized that most of those executed had been innocent. The basic question, as the seventeenth century understood it, was whether God would permit the Devil to assume the shape of an innocent person. Most authorities, and especially most Protestant authorities, believed that He would, and thus held, like Hamlet, that “the Devil hath power/ to assume a pleasing shape. However, Mr. Richards would not be capable of clearing anybody if he was going to accept the appearance of a person’s specter as conclusive proof of guilt. If such infernal testimony were accepted, nobody could be safe from accusation. Reverend Mather put in forcefully enough. “If mankind have thus far once consented unto the credit of Diabolical representations, the Door is opened!” However, Reverend Mather knew there were people at Salem so committed to the validity of spectral evidence that they were willing to call anyone who challenged it, including himself, a “witch advocate.” All he could do was warn such people that when matters were finished “this caution will certainly be wished for.” And in this he could not possibly have been more right. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Do you believe that the spirits of the dead can return to Earth, and show themselves to the living? Promise me this, that you will keep what I tell you a secret as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what I believe. The World will not be the worse, and may be the better, for knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone. On a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the Temple to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night’s amusement in the Winchester estate. I had taken my degree at Oxford. I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession, in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an excuse for enjoying the pleasures of an American life. The study of Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession accordingly. On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, my patience gave way, and I went into the gardens by myself. I took two or three turns round the mansion, without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time. For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good spirits that evening. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
I saw a woman in the gardens, she was quiet. She invited me into the estate. Her face was saddened; her eyes were dropped to the ground, I begged her pardon. She rose to leave me. I was determined to not part with her in that way. I begged to be allowed to see the Winchester mansion. She hesitated. Then she took my arm. We went away together. A walk of half an hour brought us to the Winchester mansion, the estate was quite large. We went through the beautiful jeweled doors and took an elevator to the 4th floor. She said Mrs. Winchester had been waiting to meet me. She had been suffering from an affection of the throat; and she had a white silk handkerchief tied loosely round her neck. She wore a simple dress of black merino, with a black-silk apron over it. Her face was deadly pale; her fingers felt icily cold as they closed around my hand. “Promise me one thing,” I said, “before I go. While I live, I am your friend—if I am nothing more. If you are ever in trouble, promise me that you will let me know it.” She started, and drew back from me as if I had struck her with a sudden terror. “Strange!” she said, speaking to herself. “He feels as I feel. He is afraid of what may happen to me, in my life to come.” I attempted to reassure Mrs. Winchester. I tried to tell her what was indeed the truth—that I had only been thinking of the ordinary chances and chances of life, when I spoke. She paid no heed to me; she came back and put her hands on my shoulders, and thoughtfully and sadly looked up in my face. “My mind is not your mind in this matter,” she said. “I believe I shall die young, and die miserably. If I am right, have you interest enough still left in me to hear of it?” #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
She paused, for a moment, shuddering—and added these startling words: “You shall hear of it.” The tone of steady conviction in which she spoke alarmed and distressed me. My face showed her how deeply and how painfully I was affected. “There, there!” she said, returning to her natural manner; “don’t take what I say too seriously. A poor girl who has led a lonely life like mine thinks strangle and talks strangely—sometimes. Yes; I give you my promise. If I am ever in trouble, I will let you know it. God bless you—you have been very kind to me—goodbye!” A tear dropped on my face as she kissed me. The door closed between us. The dark gardens received me. It was raining heavily. I looked up at her window, through the drifting shower. The curtains were parted; she was standing in the gap, dimly lot by the lamp on the table behind her, waiting for our last look at each other. Slowly lifting her hand, she waved her farewell at the window, with the unsought native grace which had charmed me on the night when we first met. The curtains fell again—she disappeared—nothing was before me, nothing was round me, but the darkness and the night. In two years from that time, I had returned to the Church. My relatives exerted themselves; and my good fortune still befriended me. I was offered an opportunity of preaching in a church, made famous by the eloquence of one of the popular pulpit-orators of our time. In accepting the proposal, I felt naturally anxious to do my best, before the unusually large and unusually intelligence congregation which would be assembled to hear me. At the period of which I am now speaking, the Santa Clara Valley had been startled by the discovery of a terrible crime, perpetrated under circumstances of extreme provocation. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
I chose this crime as the main subject for my sermon. Admitting that the best among us were frail mortal creatures subject to evil promptings and provocations like the worst among us, my object was to show how a Christian man may find his refuge from temptation in the safeguards of his religion. I dwelt minutely on the hardship of the Christian’s first struggle to resist the evil influence—on the help which one’s Christianity inexhaustibly held out o one in the worst relapses of the weaker and viler part of one’s nature—on the steady and certain gain which was the ultimate reward of one’s faith and one’s firmness—and on the blessed sense of peace and happiness which accompanied the final triumph. Preaching to this effect, with the fervent conviction which I really felt, I may say for myself, at least, that I did no discredit to the choice which had placed me in the pulpit. I held the attention of my congregation, from the first word to the last. On the conclusion of my sermon, my soul was literally shaken. Ordering my horse to be saddled, I rode instantly to the Winchester mansion. When I arrived, my mind was blank. I had no thoughts. I had no tears. The butler, Amon, greeted me. I guessed him to be some two or three years younger than myself. He was undeniably handsome; his manners of a gentleman—and yet, without knowing why, I felt a strong dislike to him the moment he opened the door. While waiting in the parlor, little by little, I became conscious of a chilly sensation slowly creeping through and through me to the bones. The warm balmy air of a summer night was abroad. It was the month of August. In the month of August, was it possibly that any living creature (in good health) could feel cold? It was not possible—and yet, the chilly sensation still crept through and through me to the bones. I looked up. I looked all round me. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
I looked around me again. Yes: I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it. A pillar of white mist—between five and six feet high, as well as I could judge—was moving beside me on my left hand. The white colour of it was the white colour of the fog which one might see over the ocean. And the chill which had then crept through me to the cones was that chill that was creeping through me now. I was awed rather than frightened. There was one moment, and one only, when the fear came to me that my reason might be shaken. The doctrine that the Devil could appear in any shape did come to mind. The slow utterance of these words, repeated over and over again: “Mrs. Winchester is dead. Mrs. Winchester is dead.” But my will was still my own: I was able to control myself, to impose silence on my own muttering lips. And I walked through the mansion. And the pillar of mist went quietly with me. I sat down on the stairs looking at the pillar of mist, hovering opposite to me. It lengthened slowly, until it reached to the ceiling. As it lengthened, it grew bright and luminous. A time passed, and a shadowy appearance showed itself in the center of the light. Little by little, the shadowy appearance took the outline of human form. Soft brown eyes, tender and melancholy, looked at me through the unearthly light in the mist. The dead and the rest of the face boke next slowly on my view. Then the figure gradually revealed itself, moment by moment, downward and downward to the feet. She stood before me as I had last seen her, in her black-merino dress, with the black-silk apron, with white handkerchief tied loosely round her neck. She stood before me, in the gentle beauty that I remembered so well; and looked at me as she had looked when she gave me her last kiss on the cheek—when her tears had dropped on my hand. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
I fell on my knees at the table. I stretched out my hands to her imploringly. I said, “Speak to me—O, once again speak to me, Sarah.” Her eyes rested on me with a divine compassion in them. She lifted her hand, and pointed to the photograph on the desk. It was the butler. I looked up at her again. She lifted her hand once more, and pointed to the handkerchief round her neck. As I looked at it, the fair white silk changed horribly in colour—the fair white silk became darkened and drenched in blood. A moment more—and the vision of her began to grow dim. By slow degrees, the figure, then the face, faded back into the shadowy appearance that I have first seen. The luminous inner light died out in the white mist. The mist itself dropped slowly downwards—floated a moment in airy circles on the floor—vanished. Nothing was before me but the familiar Lincrusta wallpaper, and the photograph lying face downwards on the desk. I went home. The next day, the newspapers reported the discovery of a murder in the Winchester mansion. Mrs. Winchester was the victim. She had been killed by a wound in the throat. The crime had been discovered between ten and eleven o’clock on the previous night. There is conclusive proof that the butler had been trafficking with the Devil. If spectral evidence was convincing to the magistrates, the ministers, and the people at large, it was a nightmare to the suspects. A violent quarrel took place between them. Lastly, that man, variously described by different witnesses, was seen leaving the door of her mansion on the night of the murder. The Law—advancing no further than this—may have discovered circumstances of suspicion, but no certainty. The Law, in default of direct evidence to convict the prisoner, may have rightly decided in letting him go free. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
However, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company issued a statement redacting the news report which was later destroyed: “Protecting Mrs. Winchester’s legacy is, and always will be, our focus. For decades, we have battled behind the scenes, enduring shadowy tactics of deception with unauthorized statements and projects created to tarnish. We have always been betwixted as to why there is such a tenacity in causing more pain alongside what we already have to cope with for the rest of our lives. Now, this unscrupulous endeavor to release a statement without official proof or full accounting to the estate compels our hearts to express a word—forgiveness. Although we will continue to defend ourselves and her legacy lawfully and justly, we want to preempt the inevitable attacks on our company by all the individuals who have emerged from the shadows to leech off of Mrs. Winchester’s life’s work. Ultimately, we desire closure and a modicum of peace so we can facilitate the growth of the Winchester Estate and other creative projects that embody Mrs. Winchester’s true essence, which is to inspire and get people to think critically. We welcome and accept people of all creeds, races and cultures in the Universe and beyond.” The official statement reported that Mrs. Winchester passed away peacefully in her sleep on September 5, 1922, and work on the still uncompleted house stopped. I leave you to draw your own conclusions, but just days before I saw her, she looked no older than 22 years old. My own faith in the reality of the apparition is immovable. I say, and believe Mrs. Winchester is immortal, which would explain a lot. Take up the Trial again, and look at the circumstances that were revealed during the investigation in the court. I persist in believing that the man was guilty. I declare that, he and he alone did it. And now, you know why. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
O thou wicket spirit Amon that obeyeth not, because I made a law and invoked the names of the glorious and ineffable God of Truth, the creator of all, and thou obeyest not the might sounds that I make: therefore I curse thee in the depth of Abandon to remain until the day of judgment in torment in fire and in sulphur without end, until thou appear before our will and obey my power. Come, therefore, in the 24th of a moment, before the circle in the triangle in this name and by this name of God, Adni, Great Spirit, give us hearts to understand; never to take from creation’s beauty more than we give; never to destroy wantonly for the furtherance of greed; never to deny to give our hands for the building of Earth’s beauty; never to take from her what we cannot use. Give us hearts to understand that to destroy Earth’s music is to create confusion; that to wreck her appearance is to build us to beauty; that to callously pollute her fragrance is to make a house of stench; that as we care for her she will care for us. Tzabaoth, Adonai, Amioran. Come! Come! for it is the Lord of Lords Adni, that stirreth thee up. I stir thee up, O thou fire, in him who is thy Creator and of all creatures. Torment, burn, destroy the spirit Amon always whose end cannot be, I judge thee in judgment and in extreme justice, O spirit Amon, because thou art he that obeyeth not my power and obeyth not that law which the Lord God made, and obeyeth not the Mighty Sounds and the Living Breath which I invoke, which I send: Come forth, I, who am the Servant of the Same Most High governor Lord God powerful, Iehovohe, I who am exalted in power and am might in his power above ye, O thou who comest not giving obedience and faith to him that liveth and trirumpheth. Therefore I say the judgment: I curse thee and destroy the name Amon and the seal Amon, which I have placed in this dwelling of poison, and I burn thee in fire whose end cannot be; and I cast thee down unto the seas of torment, out of which thou shalt not rise until thou come to me eyes: visit me in peace: be friendly before the circle in the triangle in the 24th of a moment in the likeness of a man not unto the terror of the sons of men the creatures or all things on the face of the Earth. Obey my power like reasoning creatures; obey the living breath, the laws which speak. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
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It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves. I hear your words, My dear Devout; now you hear Mine. You will find them not only suasive, but also persuasive. In fact, they exceed in wisdom all the accumulated knowledge of Philosophy since the World began. My particular words for you today are “spirit and life.” My Beloved Disciple recorded them in his Gospel (6.63), but Humanity cannot seem to make any sense out of them. Important words, they should not be exegeted smugly, if I may allude to that hoary Preacher of Ecclesiastes (9.17), but listened to respectfully. That is to say, they should be received with all humility and yet great affection. Our seventeenth-century ancestors differed from us in most ways, but in nothing did they differ more than in their attitude toward the truth. In this they were closer to the Middle Ages than to us. For them a lie—a breaking of one’s faith—was the worst of sins. Today, many do not regard lying as a serious moral wrong. If the word “morality” is mentioned we think immediately of our bodily appetites, especially of pleasures of the flesh, barbiturates, paraphernalia, liquor and contraband. If the word “morality” is mentioned we think immediately of our bodily appetites very seriously—perhaps too seriously—but we do not regard lying as a mortal sin. We are one of the few civilizations in which entire professions (TV news media, for example, and public relations) are seriously devoted to bending the truth. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, divided sins into three kinds: those of lust, those of violence, and those of fraud. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
The sins of lust—those we tend to take most seriously—were those that Dante thought most trivial; the sins of fraud—which we take lightly—were for Dante the worst of all. To create a “credibility gap” as our revealing phrase has it (as though the only relevant issue is whether a statement will compel belief), to lie, was for the medieval humans to break one’s faith, and it was faith which constituted the bonds between humans and their fellow humans, between humans and the state, between humans and God. To lie was to reduce all the most valuable relationships of life to chaos. And the seventeenth-century Puritan, like Dante, was still living by his faith. Just how important the truth was to the seventeenth-century Puritan may be gathered from the fact that all of the innocent persons who were executed—and the majority of those executed were innocent—could have saved themselves by lying. After the first execution—that of Bridget Bishop—took place in June it became obvious to everyone that persons who confessed, like Tituba and Dorcas Good, were not being brought to trial. Thus any suspected person might have one’s life by confessing. Twenty people died, nineteen of them hanged and one pressed for refusing to plead. Bridget Bishop, Mammy Redd, and George Burroughs were three of these. One cannot be at all certain of the guilt or innocence of several more. However, at least a dozen now seem to be clearly innocent. Twelve people, and probably more, chose to die rather than belie themselves. It is impressive evidence of the Puritan’s attachment to the truth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Yet it was not really so simple as that, because the truth was not easy to find in Salem in 1692. The greatest difficulty was created by the genuineness of the afflicted persons’ fits. Their sufferings were so convincing that they often shook the confidence of the accused. One example is William Hobbes, who began by stoutly denying that he had anything to do with the afflicted girls’ convulsions. When he looked at them they fell down in fits, and Hathorne accused him of overlooking them (id est, of he evil eye), yet still he denied it. Abigail Williams cried out that she saw his specter going to hunt Mercy Lewis “and immediately said Mercy fell into a fit and diverse others.” “Can you now deny it?” said Hathorne. “I can deny it to my dying day,” said William Hobbes. However, he did not. Here, after all, were people in hideous convulsions, and saying that his specter was the cause. How could this be? Hathorne suggested that the Devil might be able to use Hobbes’ specter because of Hobbes’ sins; he had not observed either public or private worship. Might not the Devil have taken advantage of that? Hobbes “was silent a considerable space—then said yes.” The girls’ fits shook not only Hobbes’ confidence in himself, but also his confidence in his daughter Abigail, the wild young girl who had boasted that she had sold herself “body and soul to the Old Boy.” Hathorne wanted to know whether Hobbes had not known for a long time that his daughter was a witch. “No, sir,” was the reply. “Do you think she is a witch now?” asked Hathorne. And all that Hobbes could say was, “I do no know.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Abigail Faulkner’s experience was similar. At her first examination, on August 11, she firmly denied that she had anything to do with the girls’ afflictions. When she looked at them they fell down in fits, and Hathorne asked her, “Do you not see?” Yes, she saw. However, she had nothing to do with it. Yet she would not doubt that the girls were suffering, and saw no reason to doubt their word that it was her specter afflicting them. Therefore the Devil must be appearing in her form: “It is the Devil does it in my shape.” However, by August 30 she was no longer so sure of her innocence. It was true, she said, that she had been angry at what people said when her cousin, Elizabeth Johnson, had been arrested. She had felt malice toward the afflicted persons then because they were the cause of her cousin’s arrest. She has wished them ill, and “her spirit being raised she did pinch her hands together.” Perhaps the Devil had taken advantage of that to pinch the girls, thus exploiting her malice. Even those whose confidence was not shaken bore testimony to the impressiveness of the fits. Mary Easty knew that has had not bewitched the girls, and she was confident as well of the innocence of her sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Cloyse. Yet she had to grant that there was something preternatural in the girls’ behaviour. “It is an evil spirit,” she said, “but whether it be witchcraft I do not know.” Even George Burroughs, who had been audacious enough to boast of occult powers, found himself stunned by the girls’ behaviour. “Being asked what he thought of these things he answered it was an amazing and humbling Providence, but he understood nothing of it.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Indeed, these courtroom fits were so convincing that most of the indictments were for witchcraft committed during the preliminary examination rather than for the offenses named in the original complain. The typical order of events in the Salem witchcraft cases was: the swearing out of a complaint for acts of witchcraft; a preliminary examination during which the afflicted persons had convulsive fits; an indictment for acts of witchcraft performed during the preliminary examination; and the trial. The direct cause of these fits, in the courtroom or out of it, was, of course, not witchcraft itself, but the afflicted person’s fear of witchcraft. If fits were occasioned by fear of someone like Bridget Bishop, who was actually practicing witchcraft, they might also be occasioned by fear of someone who was only suspected of practicing it. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! The Winchester Estate had belonged to the family ever since the reign of George Washington, and there was a curious old wing and a cloistered quadrangle still remaining of the original edifice, and in excellent preservation. The rooms at the end of the house were ornate, and somewhat darksome and gloomy, it is true; but, though rarely used they were perfectly habitable, and were of service on great occasions when the Winchester was crowded with guests. The central portion of the Winchester had been rebuilt in the reign James K. Polk, and was of noble and palatial proportions. The southern wing, and a long music-room with thirteen tall narrow daisy-stained glass windows added on to it, were as modern as the time. Altogether, the Winchester was a very splendid mansion with 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, 6 kitchens, and even once had a nine-story tower. It was one of the chief glories of our country. All the land in the Winchester estate, and for a long way beyond its boundaries, belonged to the Winchester family. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The Winchester estate grounds actually expanded all the way down to Steven’s Creek Boulevard. The community church was once within the park walls. The former estate was actually much larger than it is today, it was composed of 500 to 600 rooms at one time, but the 1906 Earthquake brought down the nine-story tower and much of the fourth floor with it. The death of William Wirt Winchester left his son, William Wirt Winchester II, unprovided for, and he was fain to go out into the bleak unknown World, and earn his living in a position of dependence—a dreadful thing for a Winchester to be obliged to do. Out of respect for the traditions and prejudices of his race, he made it his business to seek employment abroad, where the degradation of one solitary Winchester was not so likely to inflict shame upon the ancient house to which he belonged. Happily for himself, he had been carefully educated, and had industriously cultivated the usual modern accomplishments in the calm retirement of the University of Cambridge. He was so fortunate as to obtain a situation at Vienna, in a German family of high rank; and remained there for seven years, laying aside year by year a considerable portion of his liberal salary. When his pupils had grown up, his kind mistress procured for him a still more profitable position at St. Petersburg, where he remained for five more years, at the end of which time he yielded to a yearning that had been long growing upon him—an ardent desire to see his dear old country home once more. He loved the soil from which he had sprung. In all of her letter for some time past, his mother, Mrs. Winchester begged that whenever he felt himself justified in coming home, he would pay a long visit to the Winchester Estate. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“I wish you could come home at Christmas,” she wrote, in the autumn of the year of which I am speaking. “We shall be very gay, and I expect all kinds of pleasant people at the Winchester. When he arrived there, the Old Winchester was in its glory, at about nine o’clock on a clear starlit night. A light frost whitened the broad sweeping lawns, 12,000 boxwood hedges that were winding through the garden, and the other 1,500 plants, trees and shrubs. From the music room at the end of the southern wing, to the heavily framed gothic windows of the old rooms on the north, there shone one blaze of light. The scene was reminiscent of some unusual place in a German legend; and young William half expected to see the lights fade out all in a moment, and long shingled façade wrapped in sudden darkness. The old butler, whom he remembered from his very infancy, and who did not seem to have grown a day older during his twelve years’ exile, came out of the dining-room as the footman opened the hall-door for him, and gave him a cordial welcome, nay insisted upon helping to bring in his portmanteau with his own hands, an act of unusual condescension, the full force of which was felt by his subordinates. “It is a real treat to see your pleasant face once more, William,” said this faithful retainer, as he assisted William to take off his travelling-cloak. “You have not aged a day since you used to live at the Winchester twelve year ago, and you are looking uncommon well; and, Lord love your heart, sir, how pleased they all will be to see you!” They arrived at last at a very comfortable room—a square tapes-tried chamber, with high ceiling support by a great mahogany beam. The room looked cheery enough, with a bright fire roaring in the wide chimney; but it had a somewhat ancient aspect, which the superstitiously inclined might have associated with possible ghosts. “We are in the East Wing, are we not?” young William asked. “This room seems quite strange to me. if I have ever been here before, I doubt it.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
“Very likely not, sir. Yes, this is the old East Wing that your mother once had boarded up. Your window looks out into the old stable-yard, where the kennel used to be in the time of your grandfather, when the Winchester was even a finer place than it is now. We are so full of company this winter, you see, sir, that we are obliged to make use of all these rooms. You will have no need to feel lonesome. There is Captain and Mrs. Foster in the next room to this, and the two Miss Griffins in the blue room opposite.” (Some believe that reopening the East Wing is what upset the spirits and caused the 1906 Earthquake.) Young William admired the perfect comfort of his chamber. Every modern appliance had been added to the ornate and ponderous furniture of an age gone by, and the combination produced a very pleasant effect. As he awoke in the morning and opened the door, Mrs. Winchester sailed in, looking radiant in a dark-green velvet dress richly trimmed with old point lace. Above her beauty, she had a charm of expression which was to most more rare and delightful than her beauty of feature and complexion. She put her arms around her son, and hugged him. “I have only this moment been told of your arrival, my dear William,” she said; “you look just like your father. My dear child, I have been looking forward so anxiously to your coming, and I should not have liked to see you for the first time before all those people. Welcome home. Remember, William, this house is always to be your home, whenever you have need of one.” William, being a hunting man. Had, indeed, a secret horror of the sport; for more than one scion of the house had perished untimely in the hunting-field. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
The family had not been altogether a lucky one, in spite of its wealth and prosperity. It was not often that goodly heritage had descended to the Winchesters or their only son, William. Death in some form or other—on too many occasions a violent death—had come between the heir and his inheritance. And when one pondered on the dark pages in the story of the house, many wonder if Mrs. Winchester was ever troubled by morbid forebodings about her only and fondly loved son. Was there a ghost at the Winchester—that spectral visitant without which the state and plendour of a grand old house seem scarcely complete? Yes, many have heard vague hints of some shadowy presence that had been seen on rare occasions within the precincts of the Winchester mansion. Those whom were questioned were prompt to assure investigators that they had seen nothing. They had heard stories of the past—foolish legends, most likely, not worth listening to. On the property, there was once a stable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, surrounded by the closed doors of stable and dog-kennels: low massive buildings of grey stones, with the ivy creeping over them here and there, and with an ancient moss-grown look, that gave them a weird kind of interest. This range of stabling must have been disguised for a long time. The stables that were more recently used were a pile of handsome red-brick buildings at the other extremity of the house, to the rear of the music room, and forming a striking feature in the back view of the Winchester. According to legend, some believed that spectral entities, had been haunting the Winchester estate for centuries. Several large black dogs, with eyes large as saucers, or something flaming, appear and disappear, often without a trace. In many of the legends, the dogs are malevolent: assaulting guests, frightening livestock to death, attacking other dogs, and heralding death or disaster. Perhaps that is why the heirs of Winchester who have come to an untimely end have all died tragically. Oliver Winchester was killed in a dual. William Winchester I was murdered; and William Winchester II broke his back on his return home to the Winchester Estate. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The butler concealed the death of William Winchester II from Sarah, telling her simply that he was called away and said he would never return. Her heart was so broken that she wrote him out of existence, as if her had never been born. After the heartbreaking news that her only son has abandoned her, Mrs. Winchester was sitting in her blue séance room; half meditating, half dozing, mixing broken snatches of thought with brief glimpses of dreaming, when she was startled into wakefulness by a sound that was strange to her. It was a huntsman’s horn—a few low plaintive noes on a huntsman’s horn—notes which had a strange far-away sound, that was more unearthly than anything her ears ever heard. She thought of the music in Der Freischutz; but the weirdest snatch of melody Weber ever wrote had not so ghastly a sound as these few simple noes conveyed to her ear. She stood transfixed, listening to that awful music. It had grown dusk, her fire was almost out, and the room in shadow. As she listened, a light suddenly flashed on the wall before her. The light was as unearthly as the sound—a light that never shone from Earth or Sky. She ran to the window; for his ghastly shimmer flashed through the window upon the opposite wall. The great gates of the stable-yard were open, and men in scarlet coats were riding in, a pack of hounds crowding in before them, obedient to the huntsman’s whip. The whole scene was gleams of a lantern carried by one of the men. It was this lantern which had shone upon the tapestried wall. She saw the stable doors opened one after another; gentlemen and grooms alighting from their horses; the dogs driven into their kennel; the helpers hurrying to and fro; and that strange wan lantern-light glimmering hither and tither was the gathering dusk. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
However, there was no sound of horse’s hoof or of human voices—not one yelp or cry from the vicious looking hounds with flaming eyes. Since those faint far-away sounds of the horn had died out in the distance, the ghastly silence had been unbroken. As Mrs. Winchester stood at her window quite calmly and watched while the group of men and animals in the yard below noiselessly dispersed. There was nothing supernatural in the manner of their disappearance. The figures did not vanish nor melt into empty air. One by one she saw the horses led into their separate quarters; one by one the redcoats strolled out of the gates, and the grooms departed, some one way, some another. The scene, but for its noiselessness, was natural enough; and had she been a stranger in her own home, she might have fancied that those figures were real—those stables in full occupation. However, she knew that stable-yard and all its range of building to have been disused for more than half a century. Could she believe that, without an hour’s warning, the long-deserted quadrangle could be filled—the empty stalls tenanted? Had some hunting-party from the neighbourhood sought shelter there, glad to escape the pitiless rain? That was impossible, she thought. And yet the noiselessness, the awful sound of that horn—the strange unearthly gleam of that lantern! A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, and she trembled in every limb. Mrs. Winchester was pale as a ghost and trembling. Mrs. Winchester had kept the secret. That evening, the butler came to her. “Mrs. Winchester, there is no use in trying to hide it from you any longer. Your son was killed in the hunting-field, brought home dead one December night, an hour after his father and the rest of the party had come home to the Winchester. He was found by a labouring-man, poor lad, lying in a ditch with his back broken, and his horse beside him staked.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
Shortly after Mr. Winchester Sr. never rode to hounds again, though he was passionately fond of hunting. Dogs and horses were sold, and the north quadrangle had been empty from that day. Some evil have come upon the Winchester mansion, it was not in human power to prevent its coming. Some had beheld the shadows of the dead. Sudden terror overcomes some visitors, even to this day. There are reports of an ominous danger, as people’s hearts grow cold while on tour. Staff have been startled by seeing a man, with is hat in his hand not in evening costume; a man with a pale anxious-looking face, peering cautiously into the room. Their first thought is of evil; but in the next moment than man disappears, and they see no more of him. Sometimes when flowers are placed in the house, people see the drooping moments later and lights dying out one by one in the brass sconces against the walls. It is no wonder Mrs. Winchester shut herself from the outer World, burying herself almost as completely as a hermit in its cell. While great wealth brings some people joy, there is some times a hefty fee. Be careful what you wish for, you never know who or what you might invite in your doors. I invoke and move thee, O thou Spirit Gusion and being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name Beralensis, Baldachinesis, Paumachia, and Apologiae Sedes: and of the mighty ones who govern, spirits, Liachidae and ministers of the House of Death: and by the Chief Prince of the seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee and by invoking conjure thee. And being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name of him who spake and it was, to whom all creatures and things obey. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Moreover I, whom God made in the likeness of God, who is the creator according to his living breath, stir thee up in the name which is the voice of wonder of the mighty God, El, strong and unspeakable, O thou Spirit Gusion. And I say to thee obey, in the name of him who spake and it was; and in every one ye, O ye names of God! Moreover in the names Adonai, El, Elohim, Elohi, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, Zabaoth, Elion, Iah, Tetragrammaton, Shaddai, Lord God Most High, I stir thee up; and in our strength I say Obey! O Spirit Gusion. Appear unto His servants in a moment; before the circle in the likeness of man; and visit me in peace. And in the ineffable name Tetragrammaton Iehovah, I say, Obey! whose mighty sound being exalted in power the pillars are divided, the winds of the firmament groan aloud; the sire burns not; the Earth moves in Earthquakes; and all things of the house of Heaven and Earth and the dwelling-place of darkness are as Earthquakes, and are in torment, and are confounded in thunder. Come forth, O Spirit Gusion, in a moment: let thy dwelling-place be empty, apply unto us the secrets of Truth and obey my power. Come forth, visit us in peace, appear unto my eyes; be friendly: Obey the living breath! For I stir thee up in the name of God of Truth who liveth for ever, Helioren. Obey the living breath, therefore continually unto the end as my thoughts appear to my eyes: therefore be friendly: speaking the secrets of Truth in voice and in understanding. Let it be so, Truefold, whatever ill news has come to us we will hear it together. He put is arm round his wife’s waist. Both were pale as marble, both stood in stony stillness waiting for the bow that was to fall upon them. It is said that perhaps you will see a glimpse of Mrs. Winchester and Mr. Winchester, Sr., while on tour, if you repeat the invocation thirteen times before your visit. Life is broken for her, there hah passed a glory from Earth, and that upon all pleasures and joys of this World she looks with the solemn calm of one for whom all things are dark with the shadow of a great sorrow. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
We’re one week away from Friday the 13th! Missed out on tickets for Flashlight Tours? Don’t worry, we have ghoulishly fun plans All Hallows’ Eve 👻🎃🍿🏠
All Hallows’ Eve:
👉 link in bio. 🗝 winchestermysteryhouse.com
The Earth Remains Jagged and Broken Only to One Who Remains Jagged and Broken!
Faith is the bedrock of our religious foundation. However, what happens when it is shaken to its core? A thinker who suddenly solves a problem has usually experienced insight. Most insights are so rapid and clear that we wonder why we did not see the solution sooner. Insight is based on reorganizing a problem. This allows us to see problems in new ways and makes their solutions seem obvious. What, really, does it mean to have insight? Insight involves three abilities. The first is selective encoding, which refers to selecting information that is relevant to a problem, while ignoring distractions. Insight also relies on selective combination, or bringing together seemingly unrelated bits of useful information. A third source of insight is selective comparison. This is the ability to compare new problems with old information or with problems already solved. How do we avoid being swept along in the strong currents of the adversary’s wind and waves? Let us be grateful for the beautiful Ancient Ship America, for without it we are cast adrift, alone, and powerless, swept along without rudder or oar, swirling with strong currents of the adversary’s wind and waves. Hold tight, brothers and sisters, and sail on within the glorious ship, The Church of Jesus Christ, and we will reach our eternal destination. “Hard saying, all this stuff about Jesus!” wrote the Evangelist John in his Gospel (6.61). “For just once in your life forge yourself, lose yourself, leave yourself behind!” wrote Evangelist Matthew in his Gospel (16.24). “Go on, get on with it. Pick you that cross and follow Jesus.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Yes, har saying these, and harder still, they are not going to go away. Hardest of all will be the words of the Final Sentence, as it is recorded in Matthew (25.41). “Yes, you ended up as moral felons, malefactors and maledictors, and yes, you will depart from this place of judgment for the Eternal Bonfire, where you will spend the rest of your supernatural life!” These words, if I may echo the Psalmist (112.7), will go unheard by those who already follow the word of the Cross, as Paul put it so felicitously to the First Corinthians (1.18). When the Lord comes to pass the Final Judgment, the finger of God will draw the sign of a cross across the Heavenly Vault. A the Endtime all who had planked themselves down on their own crosses during their own lifetimes, at least according to Romans (8.29), will be able to approach Christ the Judge with good humour and happy tread. New Devouts facing the Cross for the first time often toss their victuals right on the spot. They see only death and destruction, theirs and their friends’, and they tend to faint dead away. But why? The Way of the Cross, or so the Great Bernard has it in his Second Sermon for the Feast of St. Andrew, is the most direct route to the Kingdom of Heaven. However, apparently, for a queasy Devout, that is not much of a reason. So let me list, in no particular order, a few of the good things that may be found in the Cross. Life in this World and life in the next. Sanctuary from enemies, natural as well as supernatural. Health of mind, joy of spirit, sweetness of breath. Sanctity at its most attractive. Hope of eternal life and faith in salvation. Do any of these make a difference in your attitude toward the Cross? They should. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
And that is why I am going to say to you now, in the words of the Evangelist Matthew (16.24), “Take up the cross, your cross, and begin to follow Jesus.” The destinations? According to Matthew (25.46), the Heavenly City. It is not that hard, you know. Jesus has already cut the path with His own cross. Just follow His steps, one by one, one after the other, and you are on your way. The cross He carried, according to the Evangelist John (19.17), was the one He died on for you. He wants you to carry on and, eventually, to die on your own cross as He did on His. If you die as He did, at least according to Romans (6.8), so you will rise as He did and enjoy the fruits of the Long Haul. The moral? If you share His ghastly, if you share His ghostly pain, you will share His glorious gain. Behold everything is the Cross! That is to say, the Way of the Cross and the daily task of dying to self. Whether you like it or not, that is the secret of life and genuine peace of mind and soul. Read the map, ask for directions, but you will not find a more smoothly surfaced, bandit-free road than the Way of the Cross. Put your own welfare first, and you will still find you have to suffer in this World, whether you wan to or not. Which is another way of saying, no matter which way you turn, you will always confront the Cross. What is the moral? Inevitably, pain will come to your limbs, and your soul will be stretched to the breaking point, but in the end you will be able to bear up pretty well under the stress. When God stops bothering you, it is your neighbour’s turn, and one will torment you till one gives you the hives. And the latter is usually worse than the former. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Try what remedies or potions you want, but your skill will continue to weep. You will just have to bear up until God sends blessed relief. Why is this so? God wants you to learn to do without, to endure tribulation without consolation. No one feels the Passion of Christ so deeply in one’s hear as the one who is committed oneself to the same holy path as one’s Fair Lord. What is the moral? The Cross is always waiting. No matter which way you turn in the dark, it is there. Run where you will. Flee toward a safe street, search for a safe house, and the Cross will follow. Blithely, it will be there to greet you when you arrive. What is the moral? Change your ways, give yourself a fresh coat of paint, convert yourself. Do all this, and you will find the Cross before it finds you. Internal Peace and Perpetual Crown—that is who you want to come, but when? They will come when they will come. In the meantime, as always, patience. Carry the Cross willingly, and it will carry you all the way to Sufferings’ End. Soon? You ask. Not on this Earth, I reply. Some reasonable advice. Trudge and grudge the Cross in your heart, and you will just make it heavier for yourself. Shake the Cross off, and I know you will try, but you cannot get rid of it. If by some extraordinary circumstance you are able to get that Cross off your back, guess what? You will stumble onto another—and indeed a heavier one—almost immediately. The moral? Flee the Cross, and it only gets worse. Sometimes novices are cunning. They think they can evade the Cross and still remain in good odor. How addled can one get! No other mortal has been able to live without cross and stress. Jesus Christ Himself, our Fair Lord, never spent an hour on this Earth without feeling the pain of His Passion. Why? Luke had an explanation. “It was necessary,” he said in his Gospel (24.46, 26), “that Christ suffer so that He could rise from the dead and enter into His glory.” Seems plain enough to me. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
So why are you new novices, so swift of mind and yet so slow of spirit, spending so much time devising evasive actions? Why are you not out there now on the Way of the Cross with the jubilarians? Christ had to travel it. So did we. And so do you! If the life of Christ means anything at all, it means the cross of martyrs. Yet you New Devout novices seek out a life of quiet amusement in the monastery. What a mistake! If you seek anything but suffering tribulations, what a colossal mistake! Why? you ask for the hundredth time. Because, as Job moaned for the hundredth time (14.1), all of life on this planet Earth is full of misery and wretchedness. That is to say, everything bears the sign of the Cross. The moral? If your cross gets heavier as you go along, know that you are making a modicum of spiritual progress. However, if, after some hours, it weighs about the same, look down. Why? You are standing still. Sometimes there is a soul who enjoys one’s multiple afflictions; that is to say, the more one suffers on one’s own cross, the lighter one’s load seems to become. Every ripple of pain he coverts to one’s spiritual advantage. As much as one’s flesh is torn with the thorn of affliction, one’s spirit is stiffened with grace. I have seen it happen—although I have never encouraged it—that an afflicted soul has received so much consolation from one’s suffering that one never wants the suffering to end; if anything, one wants it increased because it is from and for God. When I see this happen—and thank God it happens rarely—I realize that it is neither virtue nor virility that keeps one going; it is the grace of Christ. The moral? When you are repelled by the grubbiness of the Cross, you should swallow hard, then step up, grab hold with your bare hands, and embrace that holy piece of timber. Carrying the Cross—it is not the sort of thing a novice wants to get mixed up with. That, and some other unpleasantnesses. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
Embracing the Cross. Castigating the flesh. Subjecting oneself to servitude. Fleeing honours. Enduring disgrace with a smile. Despising oneself, and desiring to be despised by others. Suffering the tortures of the Damned. Desiring nothing that smacks of prosperity on this side of the Final Veil. Soberly reflect on yourself as others as see you—that should sober you up. You will quickly see that you are not a pretty sight. All these rigorous practices are beyond your natural powers. What should you do? Confide in the Lord, and He will send your reinforcements from Heaven. The result? You should be able to hold your ground against the assaults of the World and the Flesh. As for that Hound of Hell, that old war dog of a Devil, you really will not have to fear one as an enemy. Armed with the shield of faith and wearing the emblem of the Cross, you will still find one a threat, but no more so than a warm puppy shitting in your lap. Position yourself as a good and faithful servant of Jesus Christ. Wear the cross of your Lord proudly both for your own good and out of a love for the Crucifix as a symbol. Prepare yourself to withstand a whole range of adversities and inconveniences in this wretched campaign. Why all the fuss and bother? Because the miseries never end, at least in this life; you will find them wherever you lay your head. All these evils and pains you suffer for Christ there is really no Earthly remedy for. No matter how bitter the draft of the Lord tastes, down it without making a face, says Matthew (20.23); that is to say, if you want to be a friend of His and fight the good fight besides Him, says John (13.8). Accept what few consolations He has to offer under these battle conditions. What more do you have to do? It is enough to put yourself in harm’s way. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Hold your ground against the repeated onslaughts of adversity and consider each attack a great honour. Why? Because “the present sufferings,” even if you were man enough to handle them without Christ’s help, “cannot be compared with the future glories”; at least that is what Paul said to the Romans (8.18). When you reach that point in the fray when you and Jesus are fighting as one, the bitter turns to sweet; victory is in the air; the Hellhound turns to a lap dog; it is Paradise right before your very eyes. However, when you lose sight of Jesus in the din and smoke of battle, then your wounds weigh heavily upon you, fear invades your vitals, and tribulation tracks you down. If you are where you are supposed to be on the battlefield—that is to say, where the suffering and the dying are—then the tide begins to turn. That is to say, amid the scourge of war, you will find a ray of inner peace. Even if you were rapt all the way to Third Heaven—Paul described the phenomenon in the Second Letter to the Corinthians (12.2)—you still would not be able o escape the wounds of war. “I have not told one yet,” Luke quoted Jesus as saying in Acts (9.16), “how much he will have to bear for My name’s sake.” Apparently, a great deal of suffering remains to be done. What is the moral? Suffering—hat is what a soldier of Christ signs up for; that, and to love Jesus and serve Him forever. Do you have the stuff to do as Acts suggests (5.41), that is to say, suffer for the name of Jesus? I do not really think so. However, fortunately for you, He thinks so. And so do the Saints; they think such behaviour would magnify the Lord. And so do your neighbour on Earth; they might just follow your good example. Why do I raise the question? Everyone, it seems, wants to slow the spiritual life down. Few, sad to say, want to endure the grunt and the grind of the Cross. What is the moral? By rights, considering the Goals of goals, you deserve to suffer a little for Jesus, so why do you squawk at the prospect? Many of your peers in the World are already straining their groins to achieve grubbier goals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
If I may paraphrase and condense a line from Romans (6.8), as you die to self, so you will live to God—that is for certain. No one really likes being stiffed for Christ, but once that happens, one can begin to make a habit of it. Joining Christ in His suffering has some value not only in the next World, but also in this one. Which would you rather choose, to suffer nasty desolations for Christ or just to mess about with recreational consolations? I hope you choose the former. You are a little like Christ, but a lot like the Saints; in either instance, you are living reproach to the laggard. It is not the levities you enjoy that inch your forward in the spiritual life; it is the gravities you suffer. Is there anything better than suffering for the salvation of Humankind? If there were, Christ would have shown us by word or example. For veterans as well as recruits, therefore, Jesus makes it perfectly clear that the Cross must be carried. “If anyone wants to come after Me,” He was quoted as saying in the Gospels pf Matthew (16.24), Mark (8.34), and Luke (9.23), “let one lean into the cross and follow Me.” Yes, on Earth for the sake of Christ you gave up your pleasure, and now the Kingdom of Heaven awaits your pleasure. Power is twofold—namely, passive, which exists not at all in God; an active, which we must assign to Him in the highest degree. For it is manifest that everything, according as it is in act and is perfect, is the active principle of something: whereas everything is passive according as it is deficient and imperfect. God is pure act, simply and in all ways perfect, nor in Him does any imperfection find place. Whence it most fittingly belongs to Him to be an active principle, and in no way whatsoever to be passive. On the other hand, the notion of active principle is consistent with active power. For active power is the principle of acting upon something else; whereas passive power is the principle of being acted upon by something else. It remains, therefore, that in God there is active power in the highest degree. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Active power is not contrary to act, but is founded upon it, for everything acts according as it is actual: but passive power is contrary to act; for a thing is passive according as it is potential. Whence this potentiality is not in God, but only active power. Whenever act is distinct from power, act must be nobler than power. However, God’s action is not distinct from His power, for both are His divine essence; neither is His existence distinct from His essence. Hence it does not follow that there should be anything in God nobler than His power. In creatures, power is the principle not only of action, but likewise of effect. Thus in God the idea of power is retained, inasmuch as it is the principle of an effect; not, however, as it is a principle of action, for this is the divine essence itself; except, perchance, after our manner of understanding, inasmuch as the divine essence, which pre-contains in itself all perfection that exists in created things, can be understood either under the notion of action, or under that of power; as also it is understood under the notion of “suppositum” possessing nature, and under that of nature. Accordingly the notion of power is retained in God in so far as it is the principle of an effect. Power is predicated of God not as something really distinct from His knowledge and will, but as differing from them logically; inasmuch as power implies a notion of a principle putting into execution what the will commands, and what knowledge directs, which three things in God are identified. Or we may say, that the knowledge or will of God, according as it is the effective principle, has the notion of power contained in it. Hence the consideration of the knowledge and will of God precedes the consideration of His power, as the cause precedes the operation and effect. The glimpse often comes unexpectedly and suddenly. If it comes while one is outdoors and walking a city street, one will automatically and consciously slow one’s pace and sometimes even come to a complete standstill. They may come quite abruptly, those intensely lived moments of true vision, those spasmodic glimpses of a beauty and truth above the vest which Earthly life offers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
The mind then rests and there is a gap in its usual activities, a Void out of which these Heavenly experiences come to life as they overcome our ordinary feelings. The neurotic, whose habitual reaction is entirely impulsive and quite unreasoned, may yet be intellectual or cultured or artistic. However, in this matter of reaction one is too dangerously close to the animal level of evolution, with its instinctive passional response to stimulus. The day of the all-powerful centralized network that controls image production is waning. Indeed, a former president of NBC, charging the three main U.S. television networks with strategic “stupidity,” has predicted their share of the primetime viewing public will drop to 50 percent by the end of the decade. For there is a spiritual enlightenment and Third Wave communications media are subverting the dominance of the Second Wave media lords on a broad front with digital streaming and Internet materials. Video games are a hot time. Millions of Americans have discovered a passion for gadgets that turn them into the orthodox political or social analyst. Many are learning to play with the television set, to talk back to it, and to interact with it. In the process they are changing from passive receivers to message senders as well. They are manipulating the set rather than merely letting the set manipulate them. This new generation feels a suppressed rage at the news media. As a result, insatiable readers of disposable paperbacks and special-interest magazines and blogs are gulping huge amounts of information from their preferred source in short takes. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Instead of merely receiving our mental model of reality, we are now compelled to invent it continually reinvent it. This places an enormous burden on us. However, it also leads toward greater individuality, a de-massification of personality as well as culture. Some of us crack under the new pressure or withdraw into apathy or anger. Others emerge as well formed, continually growing, competent individuals able to operate, as it were, on a higher level. (In either case, whether the strain proves too great or not, the result is a far cry from the uniform, standardized, easily regimented robots foreseen by so many sociologists and science fiction writers of the Second Wave era.) Above all this, the de-massification of the civilization, which the media both reflects and intensifies, brings with it an enormous jump in the amount of information we all exchange with one another. And it is this increase that explains why we are becoming an “information society.” For the more diverse the civilization—the more differentiated its technology, energy forms, and people—the more information must flow between is constituent parts if the entirety is to hold together, particularly under the stress of high change. If it is to plan its own moves sensibly, an organization, for example, must be able to predict (more or less) how other organizations will respond to change. The more uniform we are, the less we need to know about each other in order to predict one another’s behaviour. As the people around us grow more individualized or de-massified, we need more information—signals and cues—to predict, even roughly, how they are going to behave toward us. And unless we can make such forecasts we cannot work or even live together. As a result, people and organizations continually crave more information and the entire system begins to pulse with higher and higher flows of data. By forcing up the amount of information needed for the social system to cohere, and the speeds at which it must be exchanged, the Third Wave shatters the framework of the obsolete, overloaded Second Wave info-sphere and constructs a new one to take its place. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The 1950s and 1960 may have seen an emptying out of the cities, but this pattern was largely restricted to European American families. Numerous forms of institutional discrimination insured that racial segregation would persist. Real estate practices, lending policies of banks and savings and loan institutions, governmental policies, and the beliefs of individual homeowners all contributed to practices of legalized segregation in the south and de facto segregation in the south. As African Americans seeking employment moved to metropolitan areas, they were segregated within selected areas and neigbourhoods within the central cities. As European Americans departed the city, more previously European American neighbourhoods were opened to African American occupancy, but although the high-risk neighbourhoods expanded their borders, it remained a segregated area. Government policies also directly encouraged racially restrictive areas. In the suburbs the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) proposed racially restrictive protective covenants that stopped racial integration in order to prevent “declining property values.” The 1947 FHA manual stated that: If a mixture of user groups is founded to exist, it must be determined whether the mixture will render the neighbourhood less desirable to present and prospective occupants. Protective covenants are essential to sound development of proposed residential areas, since they regulate the use of the land and provide a basis for the development of harmonious, attractive neighbourhoods. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Blind faith can lead us toward the light or plunge us into eternal darkness. The elimination of these legal barriers made no difference to the lives of most African Americans. In 1948 the Supreme Court, in Shelley v. Kraemer, ruled that racially restrictive covenants were not unconstitutional, but that they were no longer enforceable through the courts. This had little practical impact, and until 1968 the FHA continued to accept written and unwritten restrictive covenants. The FHA and VA subsidization of mass suburbanization was almost exclusively for European Americans; there were only a handful of postwar suburban African American housing developments. Institutional housing discrimination remained. Realtors would not show suburban housing to African Americans, and homeowners would not sell to them. Additionally, even without explicit racially restrictive covenants, there were a host of exclusionary zoning practices. These included density controls on the number of units on a piece of land, minimum lot and housing sizes, housing codes, prohibitions of trailers, and other policies that were intended to exclude low-income populations in general and African Americans in particular. African Americans did not suburbanize during the 1950s and 1960s generally had as their destinations either long-standing working-class African American suburban communities or spillover communities that occurred when African American high-risk neighbourhoods expanded beyond city boundaries into aging inner-ring suburbs. Prior to the 1970s African American suburbanization occurred overwhelmingly within already African American communities. In effect, the United States of America had a dual housing market in which realtors and financial institutions steered African Americans into suburbs that were no longer desirable to European Americans. The dual housing market was used to contain and control African American suburbanization within less suitable areas. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Further, African Americans purchasing homes in African American suburbs paid a “race tax” that ranged from 10 percent to 25 percent. This was the additional amount African Americans had to pay for comparable housing over what European Americans would pay. Not surprisingly, under these disabilities embedded in the system, the rate of African American suburbanization increased only minimally in the immediate postwar period. As of 1960, census figures indicated that suburbs were 4.6 percent African American; for 1970s, the rate barely changed to 4.7 percent. Moreover, most African American suburbs were far from being the promised land. According to John R. Logan, “The average African American suburb is poor, fiscally stressed, and crime-ridden, compared to other suburbs.” The postwar years were difficult ones for the civil rights movements Civil rights activists of 1940s and 1950s were still battling against lynchings and trying to get African American children access to equal education. The movement did not have the luxury of concerning itself with opening suburban housing. Metropolitan African Americans overwhelmingly worked and lived in the central city, and urban African Americans had more practical survival concerns than seeking to more to affluent, lace curtain, white shoe law firm suburbs. Moreover, with European Americans leaving the cities, more and better-quality urban housing was opened for African Americans. For the average urban African American worker who lived every day with racial discrimination, what happened in the suburbs was more of a theoretical than a practical matter. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
It is said the great conflicts are not settled by words, but iron and blood. But what is we could revisit those situations, would we still make the same decisions? The civil rights focus on obtaining equal access to education culminated with the landmark 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education ruling. A decade later followed the passage of these acts, the attention of the civil rights movements shifted from education and personal civil rights to a concern over housing discrimination. The 1968 Civil Rights Act, more commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, for the first time, threw the weight of the federal government behind equal housing access. While there is a general consensus that as a result of the act, the level of discrimination against women, poor European Americans, the disabled, and non-European Americans has declined, there is far less agreement that this had been accompanied by substantial reductions in racial segregation. The year 1968 also saw federal attempts to move poverty-level families into the private housing market. The Housing and Urban Development Act provided direct home ownership subsidies to low-income home buyers. Thus, as the 1970s dawned, the possibility of racial minorities achieving suburban home ownership for the first time became a real option. Before experience has shown or knowledge of the human heart had made humans foresee the inevitable abuses of such a constitution, it must have seemed all the better because those who were charged with watching over its preservation were themselves the ones who had the greatest interest in it. For since the magistracy and its rights were established exclusively on fundamental laws, were they to be destroyed, the magistracy would immediately cease to be legitimate; the people would no longer be bound to obey them. And since it was not the magistrate but the law that had constituted the essence of state, everyone would rightfully return to one’s natural liberty. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
The slightest attentive reflection on this point would confirm this by new reasons, and by the nature of the contract it would be seen that it could not be irrevocable. For were there no superior power that could guarantee the fidelity of the contacting parties or force them to fulfill their reciprocal commitments, the parties would remain sole judges in their own case, and each of them would always have the right to renounce the contract as soon as one should find that the other party violated the conditions of the contract, or as soon as the conditions should cease to suit one. It is on this principle that it appears the right to abdicate can be founded. Now to consider, as we are doing, only what is of human institution, if the magistrate, who has all the power in one’s hands and who appropriates to oneself all the advantages of the contract, nevertheless had the right to renounce the authority, a fortiori the populace, which pays for all the faults of the leaders, should have the right to renounce their dependence. However, the horrible dissensions, the infinite disorders that this dangerous power would necessarily bring it its wake, demonstrate more than anything else how much need human governments had for a basis more solid than reason alone, and how necessary it was for public tranquility that the divine will intervened to give to sovereign authority a sacred and inviolable character which took from the subjects the fatal right to dispose of it. If religion had brought about this for good humans, it would be enough to oblige them to cherish and adopt it, even with its abuses, since it spares even more blood than fanaticism causes to be shed. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Psychic intuition examines some of the spiritual intuitions, including claims of communicating with immortal loved ones now living on the other side. Other claims also lend themselves to empirical scrutiny. One set of studies used hypnosis in efforts to “regress” people into intuitions of past lives. These experiments are akin to the “age regression” experiments that invite hypnotized adults to relive their childhood. Alas, age-regressed people act as they believe children would, but they typically miss the mark by outperforming real children of the specified age. How believable are claims of hypnotic regression to past lives? Can the 25 percent of Americans who believe in reincarnation find support in such reports? Were 36 percent of university students correct to agree, in a survey by Scott Brown and others, that certain people can be age-regressed to recall past lives? The late Nicholas Spanos reported that, when hypnotized, fantasy-proned people who believe in reincarnation will offer vivid details of “past lives.” However, they nearly always report being their same race—unless the researcher had informed them that different races are common. They often report being someone famous rather than one of the more numerous “nobodies.” Some contradict one another by claiming to have been the same person, such as King Henry VIII. Moreover, they typically do not know things that any person of that time would have known. One subject would “regressed” to a “previous life” as a Japanese fighter pilot in 1940 could not name the emperor of Japan and did not know that Japan was already at war. The bottom line: intuitions of reincarnation have collided against reality. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The mother is the child’s first skin. In general, the mother is also the first person to participate in processing and organizing and integrating the child’s experiences, deeply influencing the meaning which events have for the child. At first, she does this by facilitating the selfobject state, in which the child’s needs and wishes are taken care of in such a way that the child has an experience of what it feels like to take care of yourself and be an organized person doing things for yourself. Good parenting is the foundation and center of this experience. The mother’s capacity to identity with her baby allows her to fulfil the function of life. Holding is the basis for what gradually becomes a self-experiencing being. The conscious ego is the ego of separation, of doing, of acting, and being acted upon…it must derive its strength from the deepest unconscious core of the self that has never lost the feeling of being-at-one-with the maternal source of its life. The establishment of a strong personality-structure depends in the first place on the extent of which there has been called “indwelling”: the close integration of the most primitive bodily self-regions (the homunculi) and later psychic developments. This integration forms a central core which is potentially dynamic since the biological drives are incorporated there, as are other needs with a bodily base. If a child’s needs are met when it expresses them, then the connections between need and consciousness of need and expression of need and need-satisfaction will be strengthened thereby. Self-imagery will then also be rooted in this central core, and the True Self will be involved in the earliest homunculus-based self-representations. From this point on, the self-image and the True Self can become influential in how later experiences shall be met and organized. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
The best chance of maintaining a personality capable of happiness, altruism, and energy comes from having a central core which has not had to split off unacceptable experiences, and which can therefore integrate distress without too much distortion or denial. Such personalities will be able to integrate later distresses without inevitably involving them in the distortions and denials which earlier splits would impose on experience. Lucky people—for them, later experiences connect straightforwardly with earlier ones, right back to the days when the very earliest body-imagery was being established. There is the central core, the center of True Self. People lucky in these respects must not be assumed to be lucky in every other way. We may imagine a range of people, all able to draw on the strength of a True-Self central core which organizes their experiences. At one extreme are those who had quite simple straightforward relations between their needs and their satisfactions. At the other extreme are those with much more stressful experiences, whose needs got satisfied only after long delays, or only in part, or after great distress. There is quite a range, from bliss to pain, of what people can bear without major distortion, or denial, or splitting. Of course, if there are many painful associations to this early core, quite a lot of good things would also have to happen if a person is to preserve some sense of inner goodness and not be overwhelmed by a sense of misery and worthlessness. It is also possible for a False Self to act as a core. A child may have been disappointed when its expression of what it wanted was not followed by fulfilment. Yet its needs were eventually me. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The question is, to what extent were its needs met on its terms and to what extent was it subject to other people’s? On this criterion depend differences in the extent to which a person’s core hold True and False components. When the mother cannot adapt well enough, the infant gets seduced into a compliance, and a complaint False Self reacts to environmental demands and the infant seems to accept them. Through this False Self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections evens attains a show of being real so that the child may grow up to be just like mother, aunt, brother or whoever at the time dominates the scene. I swear the Earth surely be complete to one who shall be complete, the Earth remains jagged and broken only to one who remains broken and jagged. I swear there is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the Earth, there can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate the theory of the Earth, no politics, song, religion, behavior, or what not, is of account, unless it compare with the amplitude of Earth, unless it face the exactness, vitality, impartiality, rectitude of the Earth. O Lord, please guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile, and to those who slander me, please let me give no heed. May my soul be humble and forgiving unto all. Open Thou my heart, O Lord unto Thy sacred Law, that Thy statues I may know and all Thy truths pursue. Please bring to naught designs of those who seek to do me ill; speedily defeat their aims and thwart their purposes for Thine own sake, for Thine own power, for Thy holiness and Law. That Thy loved ones be delivered, please answer us, O Lord, and save with Thy redeeming power. Despite everything we do, we may never free ourselves from the bonds of fate. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
CRESLEIGH HOMES
Lincoln, CA |
Coming Soom!
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The two car garage boasts ample storage and a covered patio comes included in the home. The den can easily be transformed into a fourth bedroom if needed. https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/residence-one/
The Person Who Desires Eternal Glory is Not Distracted by the Glitter of Time!
Life is full of problems; it is how we deal with them that defines us. Everyone was blessed with the gift of being able to discern what is right and what is wrong. This blessing is called conscience. A person’s conscience is the defense against situations that are spiritually harmful. “For behold, my brethren, it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night. For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every human, that one may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do god, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth humans to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny Him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do no judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged. Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ,” reports Moroni 7.15-19. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
The glory of a good human? Asked Paul in Second Corinthians (1.12). A good conscience. Righteous decisions and obedience to the commandments bring peace of conscience. When we sin, we feel remorse or guilt, just as we feel physical pain when we are wounded. This is the natural response of our conscience to sin, and it can lead us to repent. Repentance and forgiveness renew our peace of conscience. On the other hand, if we ignore our conscience and do not repent, out conscience will be impaired as if it has been “seared with a hot iron,” reports 1 Timothy 4.2. Have a good conscience, and it will show. The good conscience can carry a heavy load; again, from Paul in the same letter to the Corinthians (7.4); even when things go wrong, it has a smile on its face. The bad conscience frowns, frets, fidgets. How sweet it is when your heard hits the pillow at night, expostulated John in his First Letter (3.12), and your conscience is not nagging you to death! We are to learn to follow our conscience. This is an important part of exercising our agency. The more we follow our conscience, the stronger it will become. A sensitive conscience is a sign of a healthy spirit. Unless they are doing good things, good people do not feel happy. Bad people never have a good day, never have a moment’s rest. That is because, as the prophet Isaiah suggested (48.22), “There is no peace for the once and future pious, says the Lord.” According to the prophet Micah (3.11), the impious are always chatting us up. “Who says we are not peaceful?” “Is the sky falling?” “Who would dare lay a finger on us?” #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Do not believe them! The gorge of God will rise suddenly, swallow them up, grind them down, then spit them out. Do not worry! urges the Psalmists (146.4). They will feel the Hellhound’s breath soon enough. To boast in the Lord is one thing, but to boast when one is toast, that is quite another. For to boast in the Lord is, at least according o Galatians (6.14), to toast the cross of the Lord. Fleeting is the sort of glory that is given and taken by Humanity. Melancholy is the constant companion of Worldly Glory. The glory of the Good lies in their conscience; it is not something that burbles from their mouths. The person who desires Eternal Glory is not distracted by the glitter of time. For many, relief and happiness can come by understanding the relationship between peace of conscience and peace of mind and by living the principles upon which both the blessing are founded. God wants each of His children to enjoy the transcendent blessing of peace of conscience. A tranquil conscience invites freedom from anguish, sorrow, guilt, shame, and self-condemnation. It provides a foundation of happiness. It is a condition of immense worth, yet there are few on Earth that enjoy it. Why? Most often because the principles upon which peace of conscience is founded are either not understood or no adequately followed. My life has been so richly endowed from peace of conscience that I would share insight on how it can be obtained. Peace of conscience is he essential ingredient to your peace of mind. Without peace of conscience, you can have no real peace of mind. Peace of conscience related to your inner self and is controlled by what you personally do. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Peace of conscience can come only from God through a righteous, obedient life. It cannot exist otherwise. On the other hand, peace of mind is most often affected by external forces such as concern for a wayward child, economic pressures, real or imagined offenses, deteriorating World conditions, or more to do than sufficient time to do it. An unsettled mind is temporary, transitory. Peace of mind is restored by resolving the external forces that disturb it. No so with a troubled conscience, for it is unrelenting, ever present, a constant reminder of the need to correct your past mistakes, to resolve an offense to another, or to repent of transgression. If you still feel you must have some silver and gold on this Earth, then you have missed the point. You should rather have Jesus than silver and gold. To embrace eternity, you must rid yourself of all temporality. When tranquillity is puddling in your heart, who cares whether praise or blame is raining on your soul? If your conscience is clean, then you can rest easy. Praise will no make you better; blame will not make your worse. This is what you are, and God is the witness to that. If you are your own interior gardener, you will no care a fig what the World says about your virtuous vines. “When they look at you, they see your face; but when God looks at you, He sees your heart”; or so wrote the author of First Kings, or First Samuel, as it is called in the Latin Bible (16.7). A human judge looks a fact, but the Divine Judge weighs intensions. Do good always and always focus on where you are in the spiritual scheme of things—that is the sign of great purity and inner confidence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Anyone who does not require Worldly validation for one’s own existence has already committed oneself wholly to God. Much the same sentiment Paul wrote in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. “The person to be commended is not the wone who has nominated oneself, but the one God had His eye on for some time” (10.18). What should the status of internal humans be? To walk with God on the inward path, as the prophet Micah would say (6.8), and not to be waylaid on the outward path by some brusque, bruising affection. Anecdote and research on prayer’s clinical effectiveness has become big news of late. Physicians and scientists have discovered the healing power of prayer. Although researchers acknowledge that petitionary prayer is not 100 percent effective (imagine if it were), it welcomes the conclusion of the Georgetown University internist and prayer researcher Dale Matthews: “Prayer is good for you.” The medical effects of faith on health are not a matter of faith, but science.” Is prayer good for you? No one denies that prayer by those who believe in prayer’s healing power might indeed calm the soul and relieve stress and thereby lead to reduce hypertension, fewer headaches, and strengthened immune function. A sugar pill might do as much for those who believe in it. Such is the power of positive belief—a fact of life that guarantees some success for the devotees of alternative-medicine, regardless of whether their specific recommendations have any intrinsic healing power. Moreover, no one denies the accumulating evidence that, for a variety of reasons, an active religious faith predicts health and longevity. In these times of Worldwide turmoil, more and more persons of faith are turning to the Lord for blessings of comfort and healing. We use nutrition, exercise, and other practices to preserve health, and we can enlist the help of healing practitioners, such as physicians and surgeons, to restore help. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Modern advocates of prayer’s power have something more in mind than a placebo effect. Prayers of intercession and petition can heal others, they believe. If so, say the skeptics, put up of shut up: put your intuitions about the prayer to the test. Do prayers for healing procedure cures? Faster recovery? Decreased mortality? In 1872, an anonymous British citizen proposed an experiment that might answer these questions. Choose “one single ward or hospital for three to five years of sustained prayer by “the whole body of the faithful.” Will the healing and morality rates there beat those in comparable hospital elsewhere? If they do, so much the better for our belief in intercessory prayer and our associated understanding of God. If they do not, so much the worse for our beliefs. Although the experiment was not conducted, the very idea triggered a national “prayer-gauge controversy” that raged in Britain during 1872-73: Should researchers test the efficacy of prayer as they would test any proposed medical remedy? In the spirit of those Christian founders of modern science, should Christians approach even their cherished beliefs with such humility that they are willing to check them against the realities of God’s creation? Or it the very idea of testing prayer—and God—outrageous? If experimenting with prayer offends you, said the scientist Francis Galton (Charles Darwin’s cousin), then why not scientifically examine the efficacy of spontaneous prayers? Dr. Galton, who loved to quantify everything from intelligence to female beauty, collected mortality data on groups of people who were the objects of much prayer—kings, clergy, missionaries—and found that they lobed no longer than others. Moreover, the proportion of stillbirths suffered by praying and nonpraying expectant parents appeared similar. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
And there things stood until a century or so later, when several American researchers actually experimented with prayer. Although not the first effort—others are recounted by Larry Dossey in healing Words: The Power of Prayers and the Practice of Medicine—the one that did the most to revive interest in such experiments was the physician Randolph Byrd’s 1988 report titled “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population.” Mr. Byrd randomly assigned 393 patients admitted to San Francisco General Hospital’s coronary-care unit to either a prayer or no-prayer condition. The first names of prayer-group patients, along with diagnosis, condition, and occasional updates, were given three to seven “born again” intercessors. In the tradition of double-blind drug studies, neither patients nor staff knew which patients were receiving prayers. The results? For six of twenty-six outcome measures, such as the need for diuretics, antibiotics, and ventilation therapy, the prayed-for patients did better. The widely publicized conclusion? Prayer words. That is good but hardly surprising news to most Americans, 87 percent of whom in survey for Newsweek said that “God answers prayers” and 82 percent of whom said that when praying they “ask for health of success for a child or family member.” In a Gallup survey, three in ten Americans reported having experienced a “remarkable healing,” of whom 30 percent credited their own or others’ prayers. Not so fast, said the skeptics. For twenty of the twenty-six measures, such as length of hospital stay and mortality, there was no difference between Byrd’s prayer and no-prayer groups. Try enough prayer experiments and take enough measures and you can be sure that some positive outcomes—just by chance—will be associated with prayer. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
All these are a prelude to two new prayer experiments—one small, one huge—funded by the John Templeton Foundation. In the smaller experiment, Dale Matthews, in cooperation with S.M. Marlow and Francis MacNutt, assigned forty patients at the Arthritis Treatment Center in Clearwater, Florida, to one of two groups—a control group receiving no treatment, and a group that received healing prayer with the laying on of hands over four days. Half of the patients in this latter group were additionally assigned to receive six months of long-distance intercessory prayers. Patients in both the control group and the two prayer groups were examined periodically over the next year, rating their own pain and being rated by clinicians who were blind to the patients’ experimental group. What effect, if any, would you predict when Matthews compared the arthritic conditions of the control group and the two prayer conditions? Before we disclose the results, consider also the mother of all prayer experiments, one whose size and credibility destines it for discussion and debate for years to come. Our hunch is that this just-completed experiment will trigger—as did the British prayer-test controversy about 150 years ago—much theological and pastoral reflection. At issue will be what people of faith should take to be the essence of prayer and of God’s relationship to the natural World. We call it the Harvard Prayer Experiment, because the primary investigator, the cardiologist Herbert Benson, is a professor affiliated with Harvard Medical School (as well as the author of many popular books on the healing powers of meditation and relaxation, most recently Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief). #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Although enormous, the experiment—a greatly expanded and more tightly controlled replication of the small Byrd study—is elegantly simple. Each of three conditions engaged several hundred patients at five leading medical centers who are about to undergo coronary bypass surgery. (All consented to participation.) Teams of intercessors—people of faith who, one presumes, hoped to show the power of prayer while supporting the seriously ill patients—prayed for individuals in two or three groups of bypass patients. Patients in two groups were either prayed for by the volunteer intercessors or not, but did not know which condition they were in. A third patient group knew it was being prayed for. We know that the prayer of faith, uttered alone or in our homes or places of worship, can be effective to heal the sick. Many scriptures refer to the power of faith in the healing of an individual. The Apostle James taught that we should “pray one for another, that ye may be healed,” adding, “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much,” report James 5.16. When the woman who touched Jesus was healed, He told her, “Thy faith hath made thee whole,” reports Matthew 9.22. Similarly, the Book of Mormon teaches that Lord “worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men,” reports Moroni 10.7. A recent nationwide survey found that nearly 80 percent of Americans believe that miracles still occur today as [they did] in ancient times. 33 percent of those surveyed said they had experiences or witnesses a divine healing. “God manifesteth Himself unto all those who believe in Him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles…among the children of men according to their faith,” reports 2 Nephi 26.13. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
The techno-rebels argue that either we control technology or it controls us—and that “we” can no longer simply be the usual tiny elite of scientists, engineers, politicians, and businessmen. Whatever the merits of the antinuclear campaigns that have erupted in Germany, France, Sweden, Japan, and the United States of America, the battle against Concorde, or the rising demands for regulation of genetic research, all reflect a widespread passionate demand for the democratization of technological decision-making. The techno-rebels contend that technology need not be big, costly, or complex in order to be “sophisticated.” The heavy-handed technologies of the Second Wave seemed more efficient than they actually were because corporations and socialist enterprises externalized—transferred to society as a whole—the enormous costs of cleaning up pollution, of caring for the unemployed, of dealing with work-alienation. When these are seen as costs of production, many seemingly efficient machines turn out to be quite the opposite. Thus the techno-rebels favour the design of a whole range of “appropriate technologies” intended to provide humane jobs, to avoid pollution, to spare the environment, and to produce for personal or local use rather than for national and global markets alone. The techno-rebellion has sparked thousands of experiments all over the World, with just such small-scale technologies, in fields ranging from fish farming and food processing to energy production, waste recycling, inexpensive construction, and simple transport. While many of these experiments are naïve and hark back to a mythical past, others are more practical. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
Some reach out for the latest materials and scientific tools and combine them in new ways with old techniques. Jean Gimpel, for example, this historian of medieval technology, has built elegant models of simple tools that might prove useful in non-industrial countries. Some of these combine new materials with old methods. A surge of interest in the airship provides another example—use of a by-passed technology that can now be made with advanced fabrics or materials that give it much greater payload capacity. Airships are ecologically sound and could be used for slow but cheap and safe transport in regions where there are no roads—Brazil, perhaps, or Nigeria. Experiments with appropriate or alternative technologies, especially in the energy field, suggests that some simple, small-scale technologies can be as “sophisticated” as complex, large-scale technologies when the full range of side effects it taken into account and when the machine is properly matched to the task. The techno-rebels are also disturbed by the radical imbalance of science and technology on the face of the planet, with only 3 percent of the World’s scientists in countries containing 75 percent of the global population. They favour devoting more technological attention to the needs of the World’s poor, and a more equitable sharing of the resources of outer space and the oceans. They recognize that not only are the oceans and skies part of the common heritage the race, but the advanced technologies itself could not exist without the historic contributions of many peoples, from the Indians and Arabs to the ancient Chinese. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Finally, they argue that in moving into the Third Wave we must advance, step by step, from the resource-wasteful, pollution-producing system of production used during the Second Wave era toward a more “metabolic” system that eliminates waste and pollution by making sure that the output and by-product of each industry becomes an input for the next. The goal is a system under which no output is produced that is not an input for another production process downstream. Such a system is no only more efficient in a production sense, it minimizes, or indeed eliminates, damage to the biosphere. Taken as a whole, this techno-rebel program provides the basis for humanizing the technological thrust. The techno-rebels are, whether they recognize it or not, agents of the Third Wave. They will not vanish but multiply in the years ahead. For they are as much a part of the advance to a new stage of civilization as our missions to Venus, our amazing computers, our biological discoveries, or our explorations of the oceanic depths. Out of their conflict with the First Wave fantasizers and the Second Wave advocates of technology uber alles will come sensible technologies matched to the new, sustainable energy system toward which we are beginning to reach. Plugging the new technologies into this new energy base will raise to a wholly new level our entire civilization. At its heart we will find a fusion of sophisticated, science-based “high-stream” industries, operating within much tightened ecological and social control, with equally sophisticated “low-stream” industries that operate on a smaller, more human scale, both based on principles radically different from those which governed the Second Wave techno-sphere. Together, these two layers of industry will form today’s “commanding heights.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
However, this is only a detail of a much vaster picture. For at the same time that we are transforming the techno-sphere we are also revolutionizing the info-sphere. The term “exurb” refers to the type of upper-middle-class settlement that has taken place in outlying semirural suburbia—the area beyond the second ring of densely settled subdivisions. Fringe exurban areas have more widely separated homes, often with woods between, and the homes tend to be large and expensive. Sometimes exurbanites settle around old villages or small towns. Exurbanites, as a rule, are affluent, well-educated professionals. Sometimes these individuals work in fields such as communications, advertising, and publishing, which allow them to work at home and avoid daily commuting. The use of personal computers with WiFi and fax machines means they can remain in touch through offices in their homes. If their base is New York, they may live in Fairfield county, Connecticut, or northern New Jersey; if the office is in Philadelphia, then Bucks County, Pennsylvania; and if in San Francisco, then Marin County, California. The study of exurbia that gave these areas is name, portrays them as hyperactive, upwardly mobile stivers who have left city streets for tri-level houses. The picture is of people desperately trying to find meaning in their lives by moving out of the city. Working in highly competitive industries where the standards for judging performance are subjective and fickle, they seek solace by escaping the city. Basically, exurbanites are displaced cosmopolites living in the twenty-first century version of what two centuries ago were called romantic suburbs. They are urbane seekers of the American Dream who see to reside in rustic settings. They want to move out of the but not away from its advantages and services. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Living such a semi-country life puts a strain on the budget and creates pressure to have a standard of life one cannot afford. According to the stereotype, it also puts considerable pressures on wives, who find themselves locked into a schedule of maintaining the house and providing shuttle service for children and commuting husbands while attempting to maintain their own careers and interests. If the above sounds familiar, it may be because this general outline has served as the plot for dozens of novels, television soaps, and movies. The difficulty is that it is often taken as a scientific reflection of reality rather than inventive fiction. Solid research is scarce; but at least based on demographic characteristics, there does not seem to be support for the belief that exurbanites are significantly different from other same-status suburbanites. In fact, exurbs have a way of turning into reluctant suburbs as more and more people move into the same area, all seeking to escape the urban pace. Even harder to pin down are those places beyond the exurbs that are not oriented toward a major city. While definitionally these areas may still be within a metropolitan area, the orientation of residents may be more rural than urban. Housing in these in-between areas that are not truly rural, but probably never destined to become suburban, is sometimes of marginal quality. Some of these living in such “ruban” areas are barely getting by economically in spite of more affordable housing costs and taxes. It is not uncommon for ruban residents to commute long distance to work at below living wage jobs. They are anything but affluent suburban commuters. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Adding to the confusion over what is suburban are some outlying college towns that census has defined as metropolitan but that are not urban in character. One of these is Centre County, Pennsylvania, which is the home of Pennsylvania State University Because of its population, Centre County is metropolitan area named State College, but it is clearly neither urban nor suburban. The cunty includes a widely dispersed and mixed population having a wide range of interest and occupations. There are 165 acres for every person in the metropolitan area. The consequences are a metropolitan area that is known for is hiking trails, numerous lakes, trout streams, and mountains. In practice, even residential suburbia, to say nothing of the outer cities, has become remarkably diverse. So diverse, in fact, that just calling an area “suburban” does not really tell us much anymore. As suburbia has come to hose and employ the larges segment of the American population, the characteristics that define a “typical suburb” and “typical suburbanites” have become even more attenuated. It is said that man is created in God’s image, but what happens when we alter that image, is our reflection that other thing that changes? Pseduo-practical psychology is a system for turning thoughts into things, mental images into physical realities, and airy nothing into solid somethings—by believing in them. The psychoanalytic methods has only a limited usefulness, as its theory has only a quarter truth. If adopted and followed unrestrainedly it may do as much harm as good, or sometimes even more. It may make the patient so self-absorbed that one is deprived of the broad interest in life necessary to a healthy mind. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
It may cause one to go one seeking for childhood experiences that never existed, for the alleged roots of one’s trouble—a process over which people have sometimes wasted years. One may read extreme intimate meanings into one’s night dreams and one’s day thoughts, and thus come to absurd attitudes towards life. And finally, the patient may become so dependent on the analyst that one is a helpless creature unable to cope with the World by one’s own willed and personal response. The psychoanalyst may do useful work in bringing to the surface an earlier happening which gave a suggestion whose work upon the mind and feelings led ultimately to illness. The psychoanalysts work busily on the ego all the time, thus keeping the poor patient still imprisoned in it. However, reference to the Overself might help one really to get rid of some complexes. To how many persons has the average Freudian psychoanalyst brought true inner peace? If statistics were available, they would be disillusioning. Why is this? It is not for a lack of shrewdness, training, research, and practice on the part of the analysts. The basic answer is that both one and one’s patients are moving in a vicious circle; all their attention is being kept within the ego, that combination of animal and lesser human traits which has yet to discover its greater self. They seek escape, healing, and freedom where there is none. In that greater self alone the good, the true, the beautiful, and the healthy resides. Psychoanalytic practices may be quite right in their place for their purpose, but the technique used has no place in philosophy. We do not consider it necessary to delve into an aspirant’s childhood in order to explain one’s present mental condition. For as we believe that one’s past stretches away into numerous earlier reincarnations, it is obviously insufficient and inadequate merely to take the past of the present reincarnation alone for analysis. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
Nor do we consider it of any use to try to explain one’s repressions and frustrations by attempting to interpret one’s dreams. For we consider most dreams to be merely a worthless mélange of thoughts, events, and experiences of the previous twenty-four hours. The really significant dreams are few. Dr. Freud confessed that he had never had any mystical experiences or mystical feelings. He therefore went on to dismiss all such things in purely materialistic terms, making the silly assumption that because he had never had them, therefore it was not possible for anyone else to have them. Dr. Freud thought by searching in the darkest corners of our souls, by putting the most intimate interpretation upon the most innocent thoughts and dreams, we would develop our personalities and free our souls! This distorted and pseudo-deep psychology is typical of present-day theorists who offer their last surmise as a first discovery. No human who has practiced the profound meditation which philosophic self-knowledge enjoins, will hear without a smile the Freudian psychoanalysts’ doctrine hat human nature is but a bundle of obscenity. Even Dr. Jung new better. Psychiatry takes itself too seriously and so overestimates the worth of its findings. If it could pick up a sense of humour, its results would be more accurate. It is unreasonable to conclude that because so large a part of human activity must be attributed to the impulses of pleasures of the flesh, the whole of human activity is attributed to that same source. Those analysts who do so have something to learn about the unconscious quest of every creature for its own spiritual self-realization. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
The psychiatrists, being always properly qualified doctors of medicine, are expected to be more reliable in diagnoses, prognoses, and treatments than other healers. However, experience shows exceptions. Others have succeeded incurring when the official psychotherapists failed. Others have succeeded in curing when the official psychotherapists failed. Why? It is because the unofficial ones have quite often dropped the materialistic belief that causes mental disease must be so sought in the physical brain alone. The psychiatrists do not reckon with a mind having a consciousness apart from the body. In an age when we are led to believe we can be anything we want to be, what most deludes us is in ourself. It is interesting to note that the author of works on Psychosynthesis, Dr. Assagioli, has dropped use of the word “spiritual” and replaced it by “transpersonal.” However, if we heed their earliest beginnings and do not ignore their smallness, glimpses can be cultivated. They can grow. Look for them in the feelings—these light delicate intuitions—for that is what they mostly are. Let us be united; let us speak in harmony; let our minds apprehend alike. Common be our prayer; common be the end of our assembly; common be our resolution; common be our deliberations. Alike be our feelings; unified by our hearts; common be our intentions; perfect be our unity. Our God and god of our fathers, ay our remembrance and the remembrance of our forefathers come before Them. Remember the Messiah of the house of David, Thy servant, and Jerusalem, Thy holy city, and all Thy people, the house of Israel. Please grant us deliverance and wellbeing, lovingkindness, life and peace on his day. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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The same qualities that make most of us unique also prevent us from changing who we are, even if it might be a change for the better. It is sometimes said that to be more creative, one should try to see the World without preconceptions, as if through the eyes of a child. Any one-year-old child has no trouble turning a metal bowl and a wooden spoon into a rock star’s drum. However, as we get older, knowledge and experience increasingly displace imagination and our ability to see an object for anything other than its original purpose. This is called functional fixedness and while you may not need to build a drum set during your professional career, chances are you do suffer from it and it is impacting your work. Many of us suffer from Functional fixedness. When I was young, I used to sometimes watch the trendy situational comedy Friends. The show was based on young, successful, attractive singles, who were roommates, living in a hip and swinging apartment in New York City. So, it made me believe that is what life in the city would be like and made me think living in a mid-level rise or high-rise building in the city would be cool and I would meet young, attractive people. However, my experience has been anything but that. Living in an apartment house in the city has been a horrible experience. The people are old, unattractive, means, and down right evil. They also smell awful, so bad that it makes people sick. And it nothing like living in the city. It is more like living in a small town in the country side that is not deemed to be very sophisticated. The nearby stores are also expensive, and have a limited selection. So this experience makes me want to move to a beautiful community like Cresleigh Ranch. Where the people are friendly and attractive and care about their reputation. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23
Functional fixedness is a well-known cognitive bias. Companies often struggle to develop breakthrough products because they are hobbled by Functional Fixedness. Technologists, engineers, and designers not only have their own expertise, they have their own way of applying their expertise. Ironically, the more success they have had with their approach to a solution, the harder it is to imagine a different one. If you suspect your Research and Development team will get upset at anything that challenges their abilities, consider setting up a Functional Fixedness SWAT team—a trained group of innovators who embrace the idea of collaborating with solution providers outside their industry specialty. This will allow the Research and Development team to become more creative and please and attract new clients and revenue, instead of being an unfriendly, impenetrable fortress of know-it-alls who are stagnate in their careers and cognitive functions. Functional fixedness is just one of the mental blocks that prevent insight. Here is an example of another: A $20 bill is placed on a table and a stack of objects is balanced precariously on top of the bill. How can the bill be removed without touching or moving the object? A good answer is to split the bill on one of its edges. Gently pulling from opposite ends will tear the bill in half and remove in without topping the objects. Many people fail to see this solution because they have learned not to destroy money. Notice again the impact of placing something in a category, in this case, “things of value” (which should not be destroyed). The list that follows identifies other common mental blocks and fixations that can hinder problem solving. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23
Emotional barriers: inhibition and fear of making a fool of oneself, fear of making a mistake, inability to tolerate ambiguity, excessive self-criticism. Example: An architect is afraid to try an unconventional design of adding a turret and a stained-glass window to the blue prints of a new house scheduled for development because he fears that other architects will think it is frivolous. However, many buyers are looking to get some aspects of Victorian culture in their homes, which is why farmhouse designs are becoming so popular. Cultural barriers: values that hold that fantasy is a waste of time; that playfulness is for children only; that reason, logic, and numbers are good; that feelings, intuitions, pleasure, and humour are bad or have no value in the serious business of problem solving. Example: A corporate manager wants to solve a business problem but becomes stern and angry when members of his marketing team joke playfully about possible solutions. Being too strict can stifle, but playing around and joking too much can be disruptive and waste a firm’s time and money. Learned barriers: conventions about uses (functional fixedness), meanings, possibilities, taboos. Example: A cook does not have any clean mixing bowls and fails to see that one could use a frying pan as a bowl. Being a cook, it is important to find solutions to problems on demand. The restaurant industry is a fast pace business and customers expect perfection for the high prices of the food they are paying for. Perception barriers: habits leading to a failure to identify important elements of a problem. Example: A beginning artist concentrates on drawing a vase of flowers without seeing the “empty” spaces around the vase are part of the composition, too. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23
Being an artist requires one to be visual and open to new interpretations. To pay attention to light, dark, textures, lines, and be creative. Much of what we know about thinking comes from direct studies of how people solve problems. Yet, surprisingly, much can also be learned from machines. Computerized problem solving provides a fascinating “laboratory” for testing ideas about how you and I think. Church sermons sometimes have surprisingly little impact. When the people from twelve churches were interviewed at home shortly before and after they heard sermons opposing racial bigotry and injustice, it was found that during the second interview, only ten percent recalled reading anything about racial prejudice or discrimination even though the material had been presented. When the remaining 90 percent were asked directly whether their minister “talked about prejudice or discrimination in the last couple of weeks,” more than 30 percent denied hearing such a sermon. So it is hardly surprising that the sermons had little impact on racial attitudes! However, there are certain requirements that have to be met for an effect sermon. For a sermon to be effect, one has to make sure the worshipper is paying attention. Then it must be clear that the worshipper comprehends the message, which is why audience participation is advised. Many teachers ask questions to the audience to get feedback. The questions are usually things others need clarity on as well. Also, it is important to make sure your audience believes your message, or you are jus wasting your time. They have already made their decision. If the audience believes your message, it is important they remember it. This is why many lecturers provide colourful examples so people are better able to relate to the stories and keep them in mind. #RandolphHarris 4 of 23
Furthermore, if instruction is to be useful, the worshippers have to follow through and amend their behaviour accordingly to be an example for others to follow and show you that they are practicing these doctrines. And of course, actions speak louder than words. For example, you should not have to verbally reassure someone you love them, your actions should make that clear. Love is no real definition of love, but you can behave in a way to show someone you deeply care about them. This is why many women love when their husbands buy them flowers, diamonds, cars, clothes or compliment them on their new hairstyle, dress or the cuisine they prepared. When you stop to think about it, the preacher has so many hurdles to surmount that it is no wonder preaching so often fails to affect our actions. The preacher must deliver a message that not only gets out attention but it is understandable, persuasive, memorable, and likely to compel action. After all, does it not make you suspicious when someone says, “I’m sorry,” or “I love you”? Because it means they did something wrong or are about to do something wrong. If a person is really sorry, they will repent from the upsetting or deviant behaviour and make a gesture to show remorse. Nonetheless, our concern here is neither theological content nor oratorical style, but with how to create and receive a memorable, persuasive message. What factors make for effective communication? How might ministers apply these factors in the construction of more potent messages? For that matter, how might any of us who teach, speak, or write do so with greatest effects? Finally, what can we ordinary people to receive an extraordinary benefit from what we hear and read? #RandolphHarris 5 of 23
Well, vivid, concrete examples are more potent than abstract information. Human judgements and attitudes are often swayed by specific illustrations than by abstract assertions of general truth. Research studies show that a few good testimonials usually have more impact than statistically summarized data from dozens of people. A single vivid welfare case has more impact on opinions about welfare recipients than does factual information running contrary to the case. Another study finds that student impressions of potential teachers were influenced more by a few personal testimonies concerning the teacher than by a comprehensive statistical summary of many students’ evaluations. No experienced writer will be surprised by this principle. As William Strunk and E.B. White asserted in their classic, The Elements of Style, “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point, it is on this: the surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definite, and concrete. The greatest writers—Homer, Dante, Shakespeare—are effective largely because they deal in particulars.” Preachers and teachers should do the same, and so should we listeners, by conjuring up our own examples when the speaker begins to get abstract. However, a sermon is never just a string of unrelated examples; the preacher aims to communicate a basic point. We might say that theological truth is to a good sermon what the base of an iceberg is to its tip. Jesus’ vivid parables, for example, embodied basic truths in memorable pictures. And what pastor has not received compliments from adults for a simple but concrete children’s sermon? The children may not have grasped the analogy, but the adults understood and remembered it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23
This illustrates the power of principle number one: vivid, concrete examples are more potent than abstract information. Messages that relate to what people already know or have experienced are more easily remembered. Public-speaking experts have long supposed this to be true. Aristotle urged speakers to adapt the message to their audiences. Experimental psychologists have confirmed the point: messages that are unrelated to people’s existing ideas or experience are difficult to comprehend and are quickly forgotten. The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. After the procedure is completed, one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their proper places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life. The statement above may not be what you think it is about. It is actually about laundry. If you knew it was about laundry, it might be easier to remember because it is something most people are familiar with. If you reread it, you will probably understand it better. A message that is hooked to some cue—something we will think about or experience again—is more likely to come to mind in the future. When the cue pops up, it may call to mind the message associated with it. For example, one memorable sermon likened American religion to waiting-room Muzak—bland and soothing. A year after this “sound of Muzak” sermon was preached, we found ourselves eating dinner in a room with music softly playing in the background. Someone noticed the music—and recalled the sermon. This illustrates principle number two: messages that relate to what people already know or have experienced are most easily remembered. Spaced repetition assists memory. If the repetitions are spaced over time rather than grouped together, as every student of human learning knows well, we remember information much better. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23
The experimental psychologist Lynn Hasher found that repeated information is also more credible. When statements such as “The largest museum in the World is the Louvre in Paris” were repeatedly presented, people rated them as more likely to be turn when the statements had been presented infrequently. Social psychologists have uncovered a parallel phenomenon: repeated presentation of a neutral stimulus—whether a human face, a Chinese character, or a piece of unfamiliar music—generally increases people’s liking of it. Speakers can capitalize on this finding that repetition, especially spaced repetition, makes messages more memorable and appealing. When preparing a talk or sermon they might ask themselves, What do I most want people to remember from this? They can then repeat that one key idea many times. (We suspect that a little informal testing of parishioners’ recall would reveal that few people can recall the main points of the last three-point sermon they heard.) Given the limitations of human memory, a sermon should probably be the embodiment of only one vigorous idea. Perhaps this could even be taken a step further: that idea should be embodies in the whole worship service—the Scriptures, music, prayers, and closing charge to the congregation. A parishioners we should look for a unifying theme, or at least identify one idea in every service that is significant for us. Sometimes the key idea can be captured in a single statement or pithy saying that becomes the trunk of a talk or sermon, unifying the illustrative branches that grow from it. What listener can forget the refrain in Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” sermon? Principle number three therefore bears repeating: space repetition assists retention. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23
Active listening assists memory and facilitates attitude change. People remember information best when they have actively processed it—that is, when they have put it in their own words. Experiments reveal that when we read or hear something that prompts a thought of our own, we will often more readily remember our thought than the information that prompted it. Not only do we better remember information we produce ourselves but our attitudes are also more likely to be changed by that information. Social psychologists have found that passive exposure to information, through reading or listening, has less effect on people’s attitudes than information they get through active participation in a group discussion. Other research confirms that when we learn something passively our attitudes toward it usually do no change much. When we are stimulated into restating information in our own terms, we are much more likely to remember and be persuaded by it. Preachers, teachers, and even parents may fail to recognize that their spoken words are more prominent to them (as active speakers) than to their passive listeners. Parents are often amazed at their children’s capacity to ignore them. If instead of constant harping, the parent gently asks the child to restate the request (“Leo, what did I ask you to do?”), the child’s act of verbalizing the request will make the child more aware of it. Mr. Rogers, the television friend of preschoolers, applies this principle by asking a question and then saying nothing for a few moments, allowing children to answer themselves. Preachers would be well advised to do likewise, pausing after giving an instruction or raising a thought-provoking question. As listeners we can discipline ourselves to listen actively. Taking notes on a sermon, as any serious student does in class, forces us to repeat and restate its main points. #RandolphHarris 9 of 23
So does discussing it with someone else. No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression—this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget. Therefore, anticipate that active listening assists memory and facilitates attitude change. Attitudes and beliefs are shaped by action. If social psychological research has established anything, it is, as we emphasize that our actions influence our attitudes. Every time we act, we amplify the idea lying behind what we have done, especially when we feel responsibility for having committed the act. It seems that we are as likely to believe in what we have stood up for as to stand up for what we believe Moreover, this principle is paralleled by the biblical idea that growth in faith is a consequence as well as a source of obedient action. The implication of his “attitudes follow actions” principle is clear: a message is most likely to stimulate faith if it calls forth a specific action. The effective talk or sermon will not leave people wondering what to do with it. It will suggest specific actions, or it will stimulate listeners to form their own place of actions. “How will ‘Love your neighbour’ affect you?” the speaker might ask. “Who are you going to phone or visit this week?” In the twenty-one months Joseph Smith had possessed the golden plates, no one expect Joseph Smith had seen them. They were kept wrapped in a cloth when not in use. When Joseph translated, he sat behind a curtain which prevented others from seeing them. God was not yet ready for others to see the precious book. This was a great responsibility for Joseph, because others had to believe the things he said and could not see for themselves. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23
However, the Lord had promised Joseph that he was not to be the only one to see them, that three others should be shown the wonderful plates. Joseph was anxious to share his wonderful secret. Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris desired to be the three people who were to see the plates. They asked Joseph to pray to God about this. After Joseph prayed earnestly o God, a revelation came to these three men telling them that is they had faith they should see the golden plates, the breastplate, the Urim and Thummin, the sword of Laban, and the Liahona or compass. The Lord said: “After you have obtained faith, and have seen them with your eyes, you shall testify of them, by the power of God; and this you shall do…that I may bring about my righteous purposes unto the children of men, in this work. Ye shall testify that ye have seen them, even as my servant Joseph Smith, Jr., has seen them, for it is by my power that he has seen them, and it is because he had faith. And he has translated the book, even that part which I have commanded him, and as your Lord and your God liveth, it is true.” A few days after this revelation was received in June, 1829, Joseph, Oliver, David, and Martin were out in the woods discussing this revelation and praying that God would show them the plates. Joseph prayed first. Then each man turned and prayed; but there was only silence in the stillness of the forest. Joseph prayed again, followed by each of the other men. When God did not answer their prayers, Martin Harris blamed himself, think he was not good enough, and that he was keeping them from having their prayers answered. He went away to pray by himself. After Martin Harris left, Joseph and Oliver and David knelt and prayed again. While they were thus praying, a very bright light appeared in the air and rested upon them, extending all around them. It was not like the light of the sun, nor the light of fire, but was more glorious and beautiful. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23
An Angel stood before them in this light, and there appeared a table on which were many plates as well as the golden plates from which Joseph had translated. Beside the plates were the Urim and Thummim, the breastplate, the sword of Laban, and Liahona, or compass. The Angel turned the pages of the golden book one by one so the three men could see the engravings. The men were allowed to handle the plates, to feel them as well as to see them, so they would know for sure they real. Then a voice came from out of the bright light above them, saying, “These plates have been revealed by the power of God, and they have been translated by the power of God. The translation of them which you have seen is correct, and I command you to bear record of wat you now see and hear.” When the Angel, the precious thing, and the bright light had disappeared, Joseph went to find Martin Harris to tell him of the wonderful vision they had seen. He found him in another part of the woods praying. Joseph knelt with him and together they prayed that Martin Harris might be the third witness to share the vision. As they were praying, the same bright light came to them as it has to Joseph, Oliver, and David. The Angel showed Martin Harris the golden plates and other precious things, just as he had shown them to others. The four men then went back to the Whitmer home and told the family what had happened. All rejoiced in their wonderful experience. They knew they must make a record of it so that all people might know. They carefully wrote their story. Briefly the words of the “Testimony of the Three Witnesses” are these: “Be it known to all nations and people to whom this work shall come, that we, through the power of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23
“We know they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice has told us so. Wherefore, we know for sure that this work is true. We also testify that we have seen the engravings which are on the plates. They were shown to us by the power of God and not of man. We declare that an Angel of the Lord came down from Heaven and brought and laid them before our eyes, and we saw the plates and the engravings on them. We know that it is by the power of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we saw and we make a record that these things are true. It is marvelous to us, and to be obedient to the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. We know that is we are faithful in Christ, we shall dwell with him forever in the Heavens, and the honour be to the Father, and to the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Then Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris signed their names to the document. Never in all their lives, even in times of great trouble, did they every deny their testimony. At the time of their deaths, when they were old men, they still told all who would listen the wonderful story of how the Angel visited them and showed them the golden plates. These three men were not the only witnesses who were to see the golden plates. The Lord told Joseph Smith that others were to be permitted to see them. A few days later when several men were meeting together, Joseph showed them the golden plates. They saw them as Joseph turned the pages, leaf by leaf, showing them the writings in the strange language. They were permitted to touch and handle them. There were eight men in this group. They did not see the Angel nor the other things which had been shown to the first three witnesses, but they knew they must bear record of the things they saw. They carefully wrote their story, and the “Testimony of the Eight Witnesses” briefly is this: “Be it known unto all nations and people unto whom this work, has shown to us the plates, which have the appearance of gold. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23
“As many of the pages as he translated we did handle with our hands and saw the engravings thereon. We bear record that we have seen and lifted and know for sure that Joseph Smith has the plates of which we have spoken. We give our names to witness unto the World that we have seen, and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.” These eight men then signed their names to the document: four Whitmer brothers, Peter, Christian, Jacob, John; two brother of Joseph Smith, Hyrum and Samuel; Joseph’s father, Joseph Smith, Sr..; an a man named Hyrum Page. The book printed from the translation was called the “Book of Mormon” because Mormon was the man who had prepared the plates many hundreds of years before. The complete testimonies of the “three witnesses” and the “eight witnesses” have been printed in every copy of the Bool of Mormon that has ever been printed. Nearly every man over the age of twenty years who had anything to do with helping in the Lord’s work of translating the golden plates saw and handled the plates. Throughout their lives they testified to the truth of the work. Not one of these men every denied that he had seen the golden plates. Several of these men had not yet been baptized. This had been a wonderful experience as they worked closely with God, and those who had not yet made their promise to God in the waters of baptism did so within the next few months. At every point Christianity has to correct the natural expectations of the Pantheist and offer something more difficult, just as Schrodinger has to correct Democritus. At every moment he has to multiply distinctions and rule out false analogies. One has to substitute the mapping of something that has a beneficial, concrete, and highly articulated character for the formless generalities in which Pantheism is at home. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23
Indeed, after the discussion has been going on for some tie, the Pantheists is apt to change one’s ground and where one before accused us childish naivety now to blame us for the pedantic complexity of our “cold Christs and tangled Trinities.” And we may well sympathise with him. Christianity, faced with popular “religion” is continuously troublesome. To the large well-meant statements of “religion” it finds itself forced to replay again and again, “Well, not quite like that,” or “I should hardly put it that way.” Thus troublesomeness does not of course prove it to be true; but if it were true it would be bound to have this troublesomeness. The real musician is simply troublesome to person who wishes to indulge in untaught “musical appreciation”; the real historian is similarly a nuisance when we want to romance about “the old days” or “the ancient Greeks and Romans.” The ascertained nature of any real thing is always at first a nuisance to our natural fantasies—a wretched, pedantic, logic-chopping intruder upon a conversation which was getting on famously without it. But “religion” also claims to base itself on experience. The experiences of mystics (that ill-defined but popular class) are held to indicate that God is the God of “religion” rather than of Christianity; that He—or It—is not a concrete Bing but “being in general” about which nothing can be truly asserted. To everything which we try to say about Him, the mystics tend to reply, “Not thus.” What all these negatives of the mystics really mean I shall consider in a moment: but I must first point out why it seems to be impossible that they should be true in the sense popularly understood. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23
It will be agreed that, however they come there, concrete, individual, determinate things do now exist: things like flamingoes, German generals, lovers, sandwiches, pineapples, comets and kangaroos. These are not ere principles or generalities or theorems, but things—facts—real, resistant existences. One might even say opaque existences, in the sense that each contains something which our intelligence cannot completely digest. In so far as they illustrate general laws it can digest them: but then they are never mere illustrations. Above and beyond that there is in each of them the “opaque” brute fact of existence, the fact that it is actually there and is itself. Now this opaque fact, this concreteness, is not in the least accounted for by the laws of Nature or even by the laws of thought. Every law can be reduced to the form “If A, then B.” Laws give us only a Universe of “Ifs and Ands”: not this Universe which actually exists. What we know through laws and general principles is a series of connections must be given something to connect; a torrent of opaque actualities must be fed into the pattern. If God created the World, then He is precisely the source of this torrent, and it alone gives our truest principles anything to be true about. However, if God is the ultimate source of all concrete, individual things in the highest degree. Unless the origin of all others thing were itself concrete and individual, nothing else could be so; for there is no conceivable means whereby what is abstract or general could itself produce concrete reality. Book-keeping needs something else (namely, real money put into the account) and metre need something else (real words, fed into it by a poet) before any income or any poem can exit. #RandolphHarris 16 of 23
If anything is to exist at all, then the Original Thing must be, not a principle nor a generality, much less an “ideal” or a “value,” but an utterly concrete fact. Probably no thinking person would, in so many words, deny that God is concrete and individual. However, not all thinking people, and certainly not all who believe in “religion,” keep this truth steadily before their mind. We must beware of paying God ill-judged “metaphysical compliment.” We say that God is “infinite.” In the sense that His knowledge and power extend no to some things but to all, this is true. However, if by using the word “infinite” we encourage ourselves to think of Him as a formless “everything” about whom nothing in particular and everything in general is true, then it would be better to drop that word altogether. Let us dare to say that God is a particular Thing. Once He was the only Thing: but He is creative, He made other things to be. He is not those other things. He is not “universal being”: if He were there would be no creatures, for a generality can make nothing. He is “absolute being”—or rather the Absolute Being—in the sense that He alone exists in His own right. However, there are things which God is not. In that sense He has determinate character. Thus He is righteous, not a-moral; creative, not inert. The Hebrew writings here observe an admirable balance. Once God says simple I AM, proclaiming the mystery of self-existence. However, times without number He says, “I am the Lord”—I, the ultimate Fact, have this determinate character, and not that. And humans are exhorted to “know the Lord,” to discover and experience this particular character. The error which I am here trying to correct is one of the most sincere and respectable errors in the World; I have sympathy enough with it to feel shocked at the language I have been drive to use in say the opposite view, which I believe to be the true one. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23
In countless writings the prophets of the Lord have been trying to teach us that throughout time and all eternity the most important organization is the family. A loving Father in Heaven organized His church here on the Earth as a means of teaching families how to be eternally happy. We know that none of us can receive the fulfillment of true happiness except at a member of an eternal family. We also know, or should know, that the success we experience in our homes as families, is going to have a most significant effect on the eternal happiness of each of us. Happiness in the life hereafter is geared to our learning and living celestial laws while we are here on the Earth. This being so, then our great need is to establish in our homes an atmosphere that will encourage the learning and living of the teachings of the Saviour. Satan knows that He can cause unhappiness in our homes if he can bring about disunity, discontent, disharmony, and a host of other spiritual illness. By this insidious process He has gained no small measure of success in His plan to lead astray the children of our Father in Heaven. For instance, He knows that if He can cause parents to quarrel with each other, their children may well follow the example. He knows that if parents show little respect for each other, so will their children. He knows that children mirror the actions of their parents. One of Satan’s most effective tools is at work among us today—it is a destroyer of happiness, peace, contentment, family solidarity. Families are stumbling and falling because of is hobbling and crippling effect. This tool of Satan is called the contention. The word contention means: to argue, to bring discord or strife, to dispute, to quarrel. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23
Now, sone will say, “This is our way of life—everybody is doing it.” Lest we think these acts are not serious and are just our way of life, to be accepted and lived with, let us hear the word of the Lord as expressed by an ancient prophet. “And according as I have commanded you thus hall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there have hitherto been; neither shall there by disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there have hitherto been. For verily, verily I say uno you, one that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and He stirreth up the hearts of humans to content with anger, one with another. Behold, his is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of humans with anger, one against another,” reports 3 Nephi 11.28-30. It does not take great faith to believe in something that never fails. God has never failed. Lack of understanding of many confused people is due to our own unconscious unwillingness to understand them (and ourselves), and they are confused due to the divided self because we need them (and us) confused. People have identities. However, they may also change quite remarkably as they become different others to others. It is arbitrary to regard any of these functions or “alter” actions as basic and the others as variations. Not only may people behave quite differently in their different alterations, but they may experience themselves in different ways. They are liable to remember different things, express different attitudes, even quite discordant ones, imagine and phantasize in different ways, and so on. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23
This a theory of natural splits. It maintains that people will feel they have integrity and identity, provided first that they are not under pressure to be wildly different in different role-relationships, and second that each role-relation is fairly consistent from day to day. Overall, both city dwellers and suburbanites tend to overemphasize the differences between them. Actually, when one controls for income and other social-status variables, there is little difference between the city and country cousins. There is little that makes suburbanites stand out from other similar-status persons. When one looks at similar populations in city and suburb, their ways of life are remarkably alike…The crucial difference between cities and suburbs, then, is that they are often home for different kinds of people. If one is to understand their behaviour, these differences are much more important than whether they reside inside or outside the city limits…if populations and residential areas were described by age and class characteristics, and by racial, ethnic, and religious ones, our understanding of human settlements would be much improved. The truth is that those living in the suburbs are not all that different from city dwellers with similar backgrounds. In many respects suburbs have been maligned by being portrayed as a monochromatic landscape of beautiful boxes holding look-alike middle-class and upper-middle class families. Suburbs now house nearly 60 percent of the American population, and this population is remarkably complex in terms of age, family status, income, ethnicity, and race. Individual suburbs, as is true with urban neighbourhoods, are often homogenous, but suburbia as a whole is diverse. There is a mosaic of all ages, lifestyles, races, cultures, educational and political backgrounds. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23
In discussing suburbs and suburbanites, it is important to remember their complexity as well as their commonalities. Not everyone would agree with the portrait of suburbs presented in the statement above. More negative view of suburban life, and especially suburban family life by critics such as M.P. Baumgartner. In a social-anthropological examination of an upper-middle-class commuter suburb of 16,000 outside New York, she describes a community that appears to it Riseman’s, and others’, criticism of suburbia. Baumgartner argues that the pattern she found in the community can be generalized to suburbia elsewhere (or at least upper-middle-class suburbia). She describes suburbia as a place of a “culture of weak ties” and “moral minimalism.” The surface tranquility of suburban life covers an unwillingness to address real conflicts and tensions. Weak bonding to family and neighbours leads not to discussing and resolving conflicts, but to conflict avoidance and suppression as major characteristics of suburbia. As put by Guest in his review work, “Since ties are weak and unimportant, sub urbanities have allegedly little reason to resolve differences. Thus, almost paradoxically, the apparent harmony of suburbia stems from a lack of communal feeling. Suburbia is too diverse to be simply and uniformly categorized. In general, one can say that suburbs have characteristics that tend to fall between those of cities and those of small towns. When one compares suburbs with small towns suburbs have less neighbouring, less community participation, and less localism. Suburbs also are more private and anonymous, possibly because they are not “whole” communities but only the residential piece. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23
The suburbs lack the overlapping social networks found in small towns where people work and shop as well as live together. In most suburbs residents must commute outside the proximate community for work or shopping. Suburbs, while having more neighbouring than cities, have less than small towns Suburbs similarly lack the strong informal social control mechanisms of small towns, which leads to suburbs having greater freedom, more anonymity, and more peace and quiet, and less crimes because people are busy working and demand a peaceful environment while they are at home. Socially as well as physically, suburbs are a middle landscape. Wherever you are, whatever you turn to, you are in a wretched state, unless you turn to God. So you do not succeed in everything you do? What is the big fuss? What self-actualized gets everything one wants? Not I, not you, not anyone else on the face of this Earth. No even a king, pope, or Paris Hilton. All Worldlings must wade through the gutters or tribulation and anguish. If anyone fares better, then one is in a good position to suffer rather more for God’s sake. “Look, there goes a man who has got a good life!” That is what the general public says. “He has got a lot of money, a big Cresleigh Home, a 2007 high performance luxury sports car BMW Concept CS, friends in high places!” However, there is another way. Look to the Celestial, and you will see that the Temporal does not amount to a great deal. Possessions are here one day, gone the next. If you are overly possessive, then your mind plays a trick. Everyone you meet is plotting to swipe them. Ten of everything? Having ten BMWs will not make your bottom ten times happier. One of everything will do. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23
Misery, if you want the true definition of the word, is just living on this Earth. The more your attention to the sweetness of spiritual things, the more you realize how bitter the experience is. That is because you feel more dearly and see more clearly the defects of human corruption. To eat, drink, watch, sleep, relax, labour, and be subject to all the bodily functions, to have to do all these things, that is the truly great misery. That is the great affliction, one has o conclude. Free from sin, and free for Heaven—that is the freedom to pray for. The bag of bones we have to lug around this World is a rackety load. The Psalmist knew (27.17). Hence, his heart-rendering cry, “Grasp my body with one hand, O Lord, and with the other rip my heart from it!” Imagine a place with out air, noise, and water pollution. Imagine a place where there was peace and quiet and happiness. Imagine a land of long white vistas, ice cold saviours, gleaming glaciers, breaking into the sea. Imagine the Earth so awesome, so vast, so pure, we can hardly breathe its air. Imagine the Earth alive with morning, shimmer white nights, no end of sky, no end of sea. Lord God of our fathers, God of American, please keep this forever in the inward thoughts of the heart of Thy people, and direct their heart unto Thee, for Thou, being merciful, full of compassion, forgiveth iniquity and destroyeth not; yea, many a time Thou turnest anger away. For Thou, O Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and abounding in mercy unto all who call upon Thee. They righteousness is everlasting, and Thy Law is truth. Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, as Thou hast promised unto our fathers from the days of blessed. Blessed is the Lord who day by day bears our burden. It is said that our relations deepen the secrets hidden from the truth. It may be said, however, there are some stones better left unturned. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23
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Here is All the Invisible World, Caught, Defined, and Calculated!
Here is all the invisible World, caught, defined, and calculated. Some come to do the Devil’s work, but life is God’s most precious gift. No principle, no matter how glorious it may be, may justify the taking of it. Even if great stone may lay upon their chest, Reverend Lawson, like Cotton Mather, thought prayer a more certain cure for the witchcraft that the children of Salem were afflicted by during the Salem Witch trials. They did not believe the magistrates might do any good with their methods, partly because it was so difficult to catch a witch. Martha Corey, who had been accused of witchcraft in 1692, would not sign her pact with Satan on Main Street in broad daylight, nor practice her black arts there. Witchcraft was by its nature secret, and hard to be found out. Yet witches had been caught, and many examples were a matter of record, as were many theories on catching them. There were, to begin with, commonly recognized grounds for investigation. If an apparition was appearing to the citizenry and afflicting them, one would surely want to investigate the person represented in that apparition. One would also look for evidence of malice, since witchcraft was an expression of ultimate malice, the diametrical opposite to Christian charity. And one could hope that an investigation would produce credible confessions. Confessions were often easy to obtain, particularly if one used the technique of “cross and swift questions” recommended by virtually all authorities from Malleus Maleficarum to Cotton Mather, but it was not always easy to judge whether they were credible. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Satan was the Prince of Lies and witches were his servants; the word of confessed witches was therefore suspect in the accusations both of others and themselves. Furthermore, it was known that desperate persons had sometimes confessed to witchcraft as a bizarre means of committing suicide. And the mentally disturbed had also been known to imagine themselves witches and confess. In spite of all these difficulties, however, confession was often the best evidence one could hope for. More concrete evidence was occasionally to be had. A diligent search, for example, might turn up some of the tools of the witch’s trade: images with pins in them, ointments and potions, books of instruction in the magical arts. And one could search the body of the accused for the so-called Devil’s Mark. It was believed that when a pact was made, the Devil placed upon the witch’s body a piece of flesh from which He, in His own person or that of a familiar, might such the blood of the witch. (The blood has traditionally been thought to be the carrier of the spirit; in sucking blood the Devil was feeding on the witch’s soul.) since this “witch’s tit” was created by the Devil, rather than by God, it lacked the warmth of normal flesh (hence the still-current expression about being cold as a witch’s tit). It also lacked sensation, and one could rest for it by running a pin through it to see whether it was a genuinely preternatural excrescence or only a wart or a hemorrhoid. Yet pricking for the Devil’s Mark was most haphazard and uncertain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
It was common for examiners, physicians included, to disagree over whether an excrescence was natural or preternatural. And it was not unheard of for them to find what they thought to be a Devil’s Mark on one occasion, only to discover that there was nothing left of it but a piece of dried skin on a second examination. The common people believed in a number of tests for witches. The best known was the water-ordeal, in which the suspect was bound and “swum”: thrown into or dragged by a rope thought the nearest body of water. If she floated, she was a witch; the water was rejecting her as she had rejected Christian baptism. If she sank, she was innocent; the mod would try to drag her out before she drowned. If they failed, they professed to be sorry. Guilty until proven innocent, which would often result in the death of innocent people. (It was generally mod-action when a witch was swum; the courts seldom countenanced it, even when the accused requested it as a means of proving her innocence.) Another such test was asking the accused to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. It was believed that a witch could not say it correctly, even after prompting, since she regularly said it backwards at her witches’ Sabbaths. It was also believed that a witch could not weep. Because she had rejected Christian charity in favour of demonic malice, she would remain dry-eyed at the most heart-rending spectacles. Many of the learned, including Increase Mather and Deodat Lawson, rejected such tests outright as superstitions as white magic or both. Others like Cotton Mather, were wiling to countenance experiments with them but refused to accept them as certain evidence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Rebecca Nurse was accused of witchcraft. Girls who had been afflicted testified that not only was the apparition of Rebecca Nurse tormenting them; they said they had seen it leave her body and return to it. However, Rebecca denied this allegation, and it was at that point that Judge John Hathorne, for the second time prayed that she be cleared if innocent; and if guilty, that be discovered. If he could not doubt that the girls’ afflictions were genuine, neither could he doubt that Rebecca Nurse was telling the truth, at least so far as she knew it. Perhaps, he thought, the Devil had made her a witch without her knowledge. Therefore he said to her “Possibly you may apprehend you are no witch, but have you not been led aside by temptations that way?” “I have not,” she answered, and Judge Hathorne could reply only be reflecting on “what a said thing” it was to see church members accused of such a crime. “What, he asked, did she make of the girls’ behaviour? “hey accuse you of hurting them, and if you think it is not unwillingly, but by design, you must look upon them as murderers.” “I cannot tell what I think of it.” Nothing testifies more to the genuineness of the fits than the fact that Rebecca Nurse, like majority of the accused persons, could not tell what to think of them. Later, when Judge Hathorne asked whether she thought the afflicted persons bewitched, she answered yes, “I do think they are.” So he appealed to her again. “When this witchcraft came upon the stage there was no suspicion of Tituba….She professed much love to that child, Betty Parris, but it was her apparition that did the mischief. And why should not you also be guilty, for your apparition doth hurt also.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
“Would you have belie myself?” said Rebecca Nurse. To repeated testimony that her apparition was tormenting people she replied “I cannot help it. The Devil may appear in my shape.” In the end the magistrates committed her for further examination. Rebecca Nurse’s arrest and examination did more than raise temporary doubts in the mind of John Hathorne; it evoked the first open expression of opposition to the witchcraft proceedings. Mary Warren, one of the afflicted girls, was the servant of a farmer named John Procter. On the morning after Rebecca Nurse’s examination, he came to Salem Village “to fetch home his jade,” as he put it. He expressed his opinion of the afflicted persons’ testimony in no uncertain terms. “If they were let alone,” he said, “we should all be devils and witches quickly. They should rather be had to the whipping post. However, he would fetch his jade home and thrash the Devil out of her. And more to the like purpose, crying ‘Hang them! Hang them!’” He added that when Mary Warren “was first taken with fits he kept her close to the wheel and threatened to thrash her, and then she had no more fits till the next day [when] he was gone forth. And then she must have her fits again, forsooth.” Historians have taken John Procter’s statement as evidence that Mary Warren’s fits were false, and in this they have been quite wrong. The seventeenth-century community took hem as evidence of Procter’s malice and brutality, and they were partly right. However, only partly. Because no matter how brutal it may be to beat the hysterical out of their fits, the fact remains that such treatment often works. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
A fit of uncontrolled laughter can often be stopped with a judiciously timed slap in the face. And we should remember that in the eighteenth century one of the commonest treatments for many forms of insanity was beating the patient. Such treatment was probably motivated in part by the “normal” person’s exasperation with the insane for so conspicuously losing their rationality. However, surely it was also motivated by the fact that it frequently worked. And for that matter, it should be recognized that we are still beating the insane. Even in modern times, people who work in lunatic asylums, on rare occasions, beat the patients because no one will believe them because they have no credibility due to the fact that they have been accused of being “crazy.” Imagine that. Calling someone “crazy” in modern times is just a new form of witch hunting, which allows one to do whatever one wants to a person. Most people no longer administer the blows themselves; it is done through technology, and with more precision than our ancestors. However, this should not disguise the fact that electric shock is just as brutal for the patient as the thrashing John Procter proposed for Mary Warren. Perhaps he did thrash her, and perhaps it did in part work, because Mary Warren was the only person who even temporarily recovered from her affliction. As we moved into the 19th century, more people moved from hunting witch to hunting animals for food and fur. Sarah Winchester inherited a fortune, as she was heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms company, but unfortunately, and it really may have been unfortunate, she could not take all her wealth with her. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
At the time of Mrs. Winchester’s death in 1922, there were rooms full of ornate treasures still waiting to find a niche in the massive home. And there still may be treasures untold hidden away in the Winchester mansion, even though it took six trucks, working day and night, for six weeks to loot the mansion after her death. However, for some reason, they still left behind enough materials to continue construction on the mansion for another 38 years. At one time Mrs. Winchester enjoyed the finest vintage wines and liqueurs. However, one evening wen she went to the wine cellar to locate a special bottle, she same across a black handprint on the wall. It was most likely a dirt smudge left by a workman, yet she took it as an omen and ordered the cellar boarded up. To this day the wine cellar has not been rediscovered, which means that there might still be spirits in the Winchester Mystery House—if only the intoxicating kind! The late Mrs. Winchester had been a great reader of Shakespeare, at a time when this pursuit implied more freedom of thought than at the present day, and in a community where it required much courage to patronize the drama even in the closet. Mrs. Winchester also had an inordinate love of dress, and the very best tastes in the World. Often she would sit alone, combing out her long hair. When it would get too dark to see, she would light two candles in their sockets, on the frame of her mirror, and then go to the window to draw her curtains. It was a grey September evening; the landscape was bare and bleak, and the sky heavy with cumulonimbus clouds. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Her bedroom door stood ajar, as she could vaguely see in the gathering darkness, and moved slowly to and fro, as if someone were swaying it. She was about to drop her curtain, when she stumbled and fell on her bed. Later Mrs. Winchester would be found dead. She died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 83. Although people in the town gossiped about her, many dreamed of getting their hands on her riches. Mrs. Winchester also had many finery and jewels. Before he passed away, Mr. Winchester had liberality covered her hands with rings, and she had the finest night dresses trimmed with lace ruffles. People coveted Mrs. Winchester’s rings and her laces more than they coveted her home sometimes. Before her untimely death, Mrs. Winchester wanted to leave her rings and laces and silks to Annie. It was a great wardrobe—there was not such another in all of California; it would have been a great inheritance for her daughter, if she had ever grown up into a young woman. There were things that a man never buys twice, and if they are lost you will never again see the like. So she watched the well. It was such a providence that Annie would have been Mrs. Winchester’s colour; and she could wear her gowns; and she had her mother’s eyes. For the same fashion usually come back every twenty years. Annie would have been able to wear Mrs. Winchester’s gowns as they were. They would lie there quietly waiting till Annie grew into them—wrapped in camphor and rose-leaves, and keeping their colours in the sweet-scented darkness. Even though Annie passed six weeks after her birth, Mrs. Winchester still had the gowns in several great chests in the attic of the Winchester mansion. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
After Mrs. Winchester passed away, the house was locked up. Dozens of women waited at the auctions in San Francisco to bid on Mrs. Winchester’s copious wardrobe, but it still lay languishing in thankless gloom in the dusty attic. It was a revolting thought that such exquisite fabrics should be awaiting no one. Was it not a pity that so much finery should be lost?—for lost it would be, what with colours fading, and moth eating it up, and the change of fashion. After the mansion was sold Lewis Dupont and his wife Bianca spent months combing through the items left behind in the mansion. They could not figure out why the mover left so many beautiful and rare items. When they stumbled upon the attic with Mrs. Winchester’s wardrobe, Bianca asked if she could wear them. Her husband told her that he did not want to disturb any ghost and to leave them be. Nine moths went by, however, and brought with them new needs and new visions. Bianca’s thoughts hovered loving about Mrs. Winchester’s relics. She went up and looked at the chests in the attic in which they lay imprisoned. There was a sullen defiance in its three great padlocks and its iron bands which only quickened her cupidity. There was something exasperating in its incorruptible immobility. It was like a grim and grizzled old household servant, who locks his jaws over a family secret. And then there was a look of capacity in its vast extent, and a sound as of dense fullness, when Bianca knocked one chest’s sides with the toe of her little shoe, which caused her to flush with baffled longing. “It’s absurd,” she cried; “it’s improper, it’s wicked”; and she forthwith resolved upon another attack upon her husband. On the following day, after dinner, when he had had his wine, she boldly began it. But he cut her short with great sternness. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
“Once for all, Bianca,” said he, “it’s out of the question. If you return to this matter, I shall be gravely displeased.” “Very good,” said Bianca. “I am glad to learn the esteem in which I am held. Gracious Heaven,” she cried, “I am a very happy woman! It’s an agreeable thing to feel one’s self sacrificed to a caprice!” And her eyes filled with tears of anger and disappointment. Lewis had a good-natured man’s horror of a woman’s sobs, and he attempted—I may say he condescended to explain. “It’s not a caprice, dear, it’s a promise,” he said—“an oath.” “An oath? It’s a pretty matter for oaths! and to whom, pray?” “To Mrs. Winchester,” said the young man, “Everyone knows the clothes were meant for her late baby girl! That’s probably why the movers left them behind. Mrs. Winchester—ah, Mrs. Winchester!” and Bianca’s tears broke forth. Her bosom heaved with stormy sobs—sobs which were the long-deferred sequel of the violent fit of weeping in which she had indulged herself on the night she had discovered Mrs. Winchester’s betrothal. She had hoped, in her better moments, that she had done with her jealousy; but her temper, on that occasion, has take an ineffaceable hold. “And pray, what right had Mrs. Winchester to dispose of my future?” she cried. “What right had she to bind you to meanness and cruelty? Ah, I occupy a dignified place, and I make a very fine figure! I am welcome to what Mrs. Winchester has left! And what has she left? I never knew till now how great it was!” Lewis put his arm around his wife’s waist and tried to kiss her, but she shook him off with magnificent scorn. Poor fellow! he has coveted a “devilish fine woman,” and he had got one. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Bianca’s scorn was intolerable. He walked away with his ear tinging—irresolute, distracted. Before him was his secretary, and in it the scared key which with his own hand he had turned in the triple lock. He marched up and opened it, and tool the key from a secret drawer, wrapped in a little packet which he had sealed with his own honest bit of glazonry. Fe garde, said the motto—“I keep.” However, he was ashamed to put it back. He flung it upon the table beside his wife. “Put it back!” she cried. “I want it not. I hate it!” “I wash my hands of it,” cried her husband. “God forgive me!” Mrs. Dupont hastily took possession of the key. At the habitual supper-hour Lewis Dupont came back from his counting-room. It was the month June, and supper was served by daylight. The meal was placed on the table, but Mrs. Dupont failed to make her appearance. The servant who his master sent to call her came back with the assurance that her room was empty, and that the woman informed him that she had not been seen since dinner. They had, in truth, observed her to have been in tears, and supposing her to be shut up in her chamber, had not disturbed her. Her husband called her name in various parts of the house, but without response. At last it occurred to him that he might find her by taking the way to the attic. The thought gave him a strange feeling of discomfort, and he bade his servants remain behind, wishing no witness in his quest. He reached the foot of the stair case leading to the topmost flat, and stood with his hands on the banisters, pronouncing his wife’s name. His voice trembled. He called again louder and more firmly. The only sound which disturbed the absolute silence was a faint echo of his own tones, repeating his question under the great eaves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
He nevertheless felt irresistibly move to ascend the staircase. It opened upon a wide hall, westward, and admitted the last rays of run. Before the window stood the great chests of clothes. Before one of the chests, on her knees, the young man saw with amazement and horror the figure of his wife. In an instant he crossed the interval between them, bereft of utterance. The lid of one of the chests stood open, exposing, amid their perfumed napkins, its treasure of stuffs and jewels. Bianca had fallen backward from a kneeling poser, with one hand supporting her on the floor and the other pressed to her heart. On her limbs was the stiffness of death, and on her face, in the fading light of sun, the terror of something more than death. Her lips were parted in entreaty, in dismay, in agony; and on her blanched brow and cheeks there glowed the marks of thirteen hideous wounds from a vengeful ghost. Legend has it that Mr. and Mrs. Dupont were never heard from again and the ghost sealed off this portion of the attic, creating the stairs to the ceiling. Astaroth is a Mighty, Strong Duke, and appears in the form of an hurtful Angel riding on an Infernal Beast like a Dragon, and carrying in his right hand a Viper. Thou must in no wise let him approach too near unto thee, lest he do thee damage by his Noisome Breath. Wherefore the Magician must hold the Magical Ring near his face, and that will defend him. He giveth true answers of things Past, Present, and to Come, and can discover all Secrets. He will declare wittingly how the Spirits fell, if desires, and the reason of his own fall. He can make humans wonderfully knowing in all Liberal Sciences and is said to guard the Winchester. He rules 40 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, which wear thou as a Lamen before thee, or else he will not appear not yet obey thee. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Some of the architectural oddities of the Winchester mansion may have practical explanations, others may have supernatural origins. The miles of twisting hallways are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her. This wild and fanciful description of Mrs. Winchester’s nightly stroll to the Séance Room appeared in The American Weekly in 1928, six years after her death. “When Mrs. Winchester set out for her Séance Room, it might well have discouraged the ghost of the Indian or even the bloodhound, to follow her. After traversing an interminable labyrinth of rooms and hallways, suddenly she would push a button, a panel would fly back and she would step quickly from one apartment into another, and unless the pursuing ghost was watchful and quick, he would lose her. Then she opened a window in that apartment and climbed out, not into the open air, but onto the top of a flight of steps that took her down one story only to meet another flight that brought her right back to the same level again, all inside the house. This was supposed to be very discomforting to evil spirits who are said to be naturally suspicious of traps.” We who prayed and wept for liberty from kinds and the yoke of liberty accept the tyranny of things we do not need. In plenitude too free, we have become adept beneath the yoke of greed. Those who will not learn in plenty to keep their place must learn it by their need when they have had their ways and the fields spurn their seed. We have failed Thy grace. Lord, I flinch and pray, please send Thy necessity. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Oh deer, the weekend is here! What a better way to spend time than strolling through the gardens of the Winchester Mystery House.
🎟️ Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com/recent-links
O Wicked Wit and Gifts that Have the Power So to Seduce!
I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange story. Almost all humans are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a lister’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a devil, would have no fear mentioning it; but the same traveller having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before one would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things, as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequences is, that the general stock of experiences in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. The Devil had been raised among us, and his rage was vehement and terrible; and, when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows. It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain Murder was committed in Boston in 1688, which attracted great attention. We hear more than enough of Murders as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and if I could, I would bury the memory this this atrocious eminence, as hi body was buried, in the Witch House’s basement. When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell—or I ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicious fell—on the man who was afterwards brought to trial. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
As no reference was at the time made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any description of him at that time have been given in the newspapers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the paper, I was aware of a flash—rush—flow—I do not know what to call it—no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive—in which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief observed the absence of the dead body from the bed. As the circumstances of the Murder, gradually unravelling, took stronger and stronger posses of the public mind, I kept them away from mine, by knowing as little about them as was possible in the midst of the universal excitement. John Hathorne asked most of the questions and established the judicial attitude that was to prevail throughout most of the examinations and the trials. Many people suspected that the devil killed this man and he had been summoned by Sarah Good because she had also been accused of bewitching a few girls in the town. Mr. Hathorne asked the children to look at Sarah God and say whether she was one who afflicted them. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
They accused her to her face, “upon which they were all dreadfully tortured and tormented for a short space of time.” When they recovered from their fits, they charged her with causing them, saying that her specter had come and tormented them although her body remained “at a considerable distance from them.” This was spectral evidence, that is, evidence concerning a specter or apparition of the accused, rather than her bodily person. It was eventually to become the central legal issue of the trials, but at the moment we need only see why it seemed initially so convincing to the examining magistrates. Here were girls afflicted with violent physical symptoms which had no known physical cause, but which a physician had attributed to witchcraft. There was a malicious old woman accused of causing them. When the sufferers accused her they were immediately thrown into convulsions. What could be more plausible than that the convulsions were inflicted as revenge for the accusation? Yet such behaviour was still unfamiliar enough in Salem so that one of the recorders noted that “none here see the [specters of the] witches but the afflicted and themselves.” However, the change was so startling that I fully believed the girls derived their impression in some occult manner. For instance, we knew there was something occult going on because the throat of the murdered man had been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defense, it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat in the dreadful condition referred to. Yet, it would have been impossible for such a wound to be self-inflicted by either hand. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Certainly, Mr. Hathorne was convinced; when the children had recovered and repeated their accusation he turned to the accused woman. “Sarah Good, do you not see now what you have done? Why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you this torment these people children?” Certainly many of her neighbours though her malicious, since they attributed to her a number of inexplicable events, including the death of a cow which perished in a “sudden, terrible and strange unusual manner.” Such testimony was common in witchcraft cases, and it has caused much unseemly hilarity among the modern historians. It is likely, they have asked, that His Satanic Majesty the Devil or any of his minions would stop to concern themselves with the fate of a New England cow? The answer is that nothing is more likely. What else would a fertility god concern himself with but the health or sickness of crops, of animals, and of humans? From the standpoint of a society that still remembered who the Devil was, no testimony could be more relevant. As a matter of fact, the village witches who still exist in rural England are often expert in folk medicines, human and animal, as well as charms, and until recently many of them were midwives. Sarah Osburn also denied that she had hurt anyone, but the girls feel again into fits. Mr. Hathorne asked her how this happened. Perhaps, she said, the Devil went about in her likeness doing harm, but she knew nothing about it. Sarah Osburn was the first at Salem to assert the principle that the Devil can impersonate an innocent person. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Whether the devil could or not was a matter of debate in the seventeenth century, but most Protestant authorities agreed with Goodwife Obsurn that, as Hamlet put it, “The Devil hath power/ to assume a pleasing shape.” However, the principle was not discussed at this hearing, since Sarah Osburn was a likely a suspect as Sarah Good, if for no other reason than her lying. Lying was still considered a serious sin in the seventeenth century, and a crime as well, legally punishable by the courts. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt about those passages, neither, I believed, had any one in Court. When Mr. Hathorne tried to find out how well Sarah Osburn knew Sarah Good she said she did not know her by name. Mr. Hathorne asked if Sarah Osburn had been tempted by the devil, and she said no. Why then, he asked, had not she been at church? She had been sick, she said, and unable to go. However, her husband and others contradicted her. “She had not been at meeting,” they said, “this year and two months.” To understand why the matter of church attendance was considered so significant one must remember that the seventeenth century saw witchcraft as literal Devil worship, and therefore as a rival religion to Christianity. This is why the magistrates sometimes asked accused persons, as they asked Sarah Good, what God they served. And if the accused person avoided speaking the name of God (as Sarah Good did), they had reason to think it a suspicious circumstance. The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the judge, on the other side of the court. He slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. Then he collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The examinations of Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn afford grounds for suspicion and for further examination. However, the major event of that first day of March was the examination of Tituba. It began like the others, but it changed very quickly: “Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?” “None.” “Why do you hurt these children?” “I do not hurt them.” “Who is it then?” “The Devil, for aught I know.” “Did you never see the Devil?” “The Devil,” said Tituba, “came to me and bid me serve him.” She went on, with a minimum of judicia prodding, to provide a detailed confession of witchcraft, the first of approximately fifty that were made during the Salem trials. On March first and second, in her examination, Tituba said that the Devil had come to her in the shape of a man—a tall man in black, with white hair. Other times he had come in the shape of an animal. He had told her he was God, that she must believe him and serve him six years, and he would give her many fine things. He had shown her a book and she had made a mark in it, a mark that was “red like blood.” Many people thought this to be a revelation. “Then I saw another beast, coming out of the Earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to comedown from Heaven to Earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“He ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless one had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name,” reports Revelation 13.11-17. Sarah Osburn was to die there on the tenth of May. Tituba, like later confessors, was never brought to trial. She lay in jail until she was sold to pay the jailer’s fees, her master refusing to pay them. Sarah Good was brought to trial. Another reaction to Tituba’s confession was to confirm the community in its fear of witchcraft, and particularly its fear of the three accused women. The night of March First William Allen and John Hughes heard a strange noise; it continued frightening them, but the approached and “saw a strange and unusual beast lying on the ground. Going up to it, the said beast vanished away and in the said place started up two or three women fled, not after the manner of other women but swiftly vanished out of sight, which women we took to be Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The next night William Allen again had hallucinations: “Sarah Good visibly appeared to him in his chamber, said Allen being in bed, and brought an unusual light with her. The said Sarah came and sat upon his foot. The said Allen went to kick at her, upon which she vanished and the light with her.” Notice that in this hallucination as in many others the hallucination stops as soon as the subject is able to move or speak. A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, “curse” may refer to such a wish or pronouncement made effective by a supernatural or spiritual power, such as a god, or gods, a spirit, or natural force, or else as a kind of spell by magic or witchcraft. The Winchester rifle is a handsome gun that legend has it was forged in Hell. Whoever possesses the cursed rife either suffers disaster or fortune. Oliver Fisher Winchester was an American businessman and politician, best known as being the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Oliver Winchester was born November 30, 1810 and dead December 10, 1880. Oliver Winchester was known for manufacturing and marketing the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the Volcanic rifle of some years earlier. Mr. Winchester was more learned than his kind in the mysteries of a deep and thrilling lore of peculiar fascination. He was a man highly honoured for his natural gifts and knowledge of learned books which nobody else could read, that was when he took his second orders the bishop gave him a mantle of scarlet silk to wear upon his shoulders in which, and his lordship had put such power into it that, when the parson has it rightly on, he could govern any ghost or evil spirit, and even stop an Earthquake. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Such a powerful man, in combat with supernatural visitations discovered that a division of Smith & Wesson firearms was failing financially with one of their newly patented arms. Having an eye for opportunity, Mr. Winchester assembled venture capital together with other stockholders and acquired the Smith & Wesson division, better known as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, in 1855. By 1857, Mr. Winchester had positioned himself as the principle stockholder in the company and relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, and changed the name to New Haven Arms Company. After experiencing a slow start, and then a booming success with the Henry rifle, the company reorganized once again and the first Winchester rifle was the Model 1866, which had been nicknamed the Yellow Boy. The gun was called Yellow Boy because it should be remembered that, howsoever strange and singular it may sound to us that a mere lad should formally solicit such a performance at his own hands. Gradually Mr. Winchester amassed a considerable fortune. When Mr. Oliver Winchester died on December 10, 1880, his ownership in the company passed to his son, William Wirt Winchester (who married Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1862), and died March 7 1881 at the young age of 43. The couple has also had a child, Annie Pardee Winchester, born June 15, 1866, and died 6 weeks later on July 25, 1866. Mrs. Winchester was deeply troubled by the loss of her daughter. In the course of her daily walk, she had to pass a certain heath or down where the road wound along through tall blocks of granite with open spaces of grassy sward between them. #RandpolphHarris 9 of 13
There in a certain spot, and always in the same place, she declared that she encountered, every day, a baby with a pale and troubled face, clothed in a little dress of white pique, made with two skirts. The pique was cut slightly Gabriele, and rounded off in the front with scallops, bound with white braid, with a button in each scallop, and ribbon-sash, tied at the left side, with one hand always stretched forth, and the other pressed against her side. “She is my baby,” Mrs. Winchester would say, and she often used to come to her parents house in New Haven; but that which troubled her was, that she had now been dead three years, and she had seen her body laid in the grave at her burial, this that she saw every day must needs be her soul or ghost. The hair of the appearance, sayth Mrs. Winchester, is not like anything alive, but it is so soft and light that it seemth to melt away while you look; but her eyes are set, and never blink—no, not when the sun shineth full upon her face. She maketh no steps, but seemth to swim along the top of the grass; and her hand, which is stretched out alway, seemth to point to something far away, out of sight. It is her continual coming; for she never failth to meet Mrs. Winchester, and to pass on, that hath quenched her spirits; and although she never seeth her by night, yet cannot she get her natural rest. Mrs. Winchester went to see a doctor who told her, “The case is strange but by no means impossible. It is one that I will study, and fear not to handle, if you will be free with me, and fulfill all that I desire.” Mrs. Winchester was overjoyed, but she perceived that the doctor turned pale, and was downcast with some thought which, however, he did not express. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The doctor knew that this might be a doemonium meridianum, the most stubborn spirit to govern and guide that any human can meet, and the most perilous withal. He made an appointment to go with Mrs. Winchester to the spot where she had these encounters. They had hardly reached the accustomed spot, when they both saw her at once gliding towards them; punctually as the ancient writers describe their “lemures, which swoon along the ground, neither marking the sand nor bending the herbage.” The aspect of the baby girl was exactly that which had been related by Mrs. Winchester. There was a pale and stony face, the strange misty hair, the eyes firm and fixed, that gazed, yet not on them, but on something that they saw far, far away; one hand and arm stretched out, and the other grasping the girdle of her waist. She floated along the field like upon a stream, and glided past the spot where they stood, pausingly. But so deep was the awe that came over the doctor, as he stood there in the light of day, face to face with a human soul separate from her bones and flesh, that his heart and purpose both failed him. He had resolved to speak to the spectre in the appointed form of words, but he did not. He stood like one amazed and speechless, until she had passed clean of out sight. When they returned to the house, and after he had said all he could to pacify Mrs. Winchester, he took leave for that time, with a promise that when he had fulfilled certain business elsewhere, when then he alleged, he would return and take orders to assuage these disturbances and their cause. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
The doctor later told Mrs. Winchester that he thought it was best that they try an exorcism, but his Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient powers, on grounds of perversion and abuse. So he referred her to a medium. The medium told Mrs. Winchesters, “There is a danger from the demons, but so there is in the surrounding air every day.” There was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared, and came towards the medium gradually. She opened her parchment scroll, and read aloud the command. The spirit paused, and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still; then she rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every syllable like a chant. The spirit then swam into the midst of the circle, and there stood still, suddenly. Her knees shook under her, and the drops of sweat ran down her flesh like rain. But, although face to face with the spirit, the medium’s heart grew calm, and her mind was composed. The spirit then commanded Mrs. Winchester to move West and build a mansion in honour of the spirit killed by the Winchester rifle and “as long as the hammer keep pounding, her heart would continue to beat.” The medium dismissed the troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew, gliding towards the west. Mrs. Winchester moved to San Jose, which was near her family Member, Enoch Pardee, an occultist, prominent physician, free mason, and Mayor of Oakland, California USA, had built his family’s mansion in 1868, which is now known as the Pardee House Museum. Masonry has influenced more the modern witchcraft; it has influenced dozens of occult orders. Mrs. Winchester bought a farm house and built a massive mansion. There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the Winchester mansion through the nineteenth century. The estate in those days was in a transitory state, and Mrs. Winchester, like her formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief with the new interpretation. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
However, the mansion is now flanked by a pleasantness, a beautiful garden and lawn, and it is surrounded by a sole grove of palm trees. It has also the aspect of age and of solitude, and looks the very scene of harmony and supernatural events. A legend might well belong to every beautiful glade of grass around, and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere within its walls. The incredible mansion, scenery of the legend still survives, and, like the field of the forty footsteps in another history, the place is still visited by those who take interests in the supernatural tales of old and new. Freemasons supposedly conducted a séance in the mansion in August of 2019. A phantom made an answer willingly. It stated, “before the next Yule-tide, a fearful pestilence will lay waste the land, and myriads of souls will be loosened from the flesh, until our valleys will be full.” The general facts stated in this diary are to these matters of belief accounted a strong proof of the veracity of the Ghost that the plague, fatal to so many millions, did break out in the global village at the close of the year. How sorely must the infidels and heretics of this generation be dismayed when they know that this Black Death, which is now swallowing its thousands in the streets of the great city, was foretold several months before the outbreak, under the séance of a freemason, by a visible and suppliant ghost! And what pleasure and improvements do such deny themselves who scorn and avoid all opportunity of intercourse with souls separate, and the spirits, glad and sorrowful, which inhabit the unseen World! May they who observe the Sabbath and call it a delight, rejoice in Thy Kingdom. May the people who sanctify the seventh day be sated and delighted with Thy bounty. For Thou didst find pleasure in the seventh day, and didst sanctify it, calling it the most desirable of the days, in remembrance of creation. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Today is the return of our guided Mansion Tour! The tour guide-led experience allows guests to access areas of the mansion that have been closed since March 2020. Click the link in our bio for more information. winchestermysteryhouse.com/recent-links
Randolph Harris II International Institute 