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There is No One Who Could Help Now?
I turned away astonished to see that in the few moments we had been talking, dusk had stolen the remnants of the day. Time always did seem to pass differently in my home. As we clattered down the corridor, I glanced into the rooms where the doors stood open. All were empty. There were no sounds of conversation, of caretakers going about their duties. Mr. Hansen stopped in front of a high wooden desk at the foot of the stairs. I caught the smell of beeswax polish, a sharp reminder of the back stairs leading up to the attic of the witches cap. We walked on the staircase, until I stopped in front of a paneled door and unlocked it. “I will have the fire made up,” Mr. Hansen said. The room was bone chillingly cold, though it was clean. I lit the oil lamps from the candle, and looked around. A small writing table and chip and dale arm chair sat adjacent to the door. Straight ahead, two tall windows, floor to ceiling, filled one side of the room. On the opposite side of the room was a heavy chest of gold, covered by a lace runner. When Mr. Hansen returned, I said, “Dearest Jim, will you please open that chest, there is something inside of it for you and your family.” Mr. Hansen eagerly walk over to the chest, and his eyes lit up like a new born baby having his first birthday cake. “Go ahead, Mr. Hansen, it is for you.” “No, Mrs. Winchester; I can well believe it. But this is a treasure I can live on for years. Only you must tell me how I can repay you…In a hundred years I could never do enough for you,” he said. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Well, that word went to my heart; but for a minute I did not know how to answer. For it was true I had risked my soul, and that was something he could not pay me for; but then maybe I had saved his, in getting him away from those foul people, so the whole business was more of a puzzle to me than ever. However, then I had thought that made me easier. Mr. Hansen went on to explain to me, “Well, Mrs. Winchester, the day before yesterday, I was with my young son; the poor young man, without health or hope, lying sick in a mean rooming house. Until now, I had no way to know how I would care for him.” Mrs. Winchester sat up in bed in a flutter of pity. “Oh, Mrs. Hansen, how dreadful! Why did you never tell me? You must hire a better room for him at once. Has he a doctor? Has he a nurse? Quick—give me my checkbook!” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester. But you have already given me a king’s ransom.” When I got back to my room after a long, hot soak in the bath, a fire was burning in the grate, releasing an aroma of pine resin into the room. The smell snapped at my heartstrings, taking me back to New Haven winters when William was home from work. I gazed into the fire awhile longer, happy in my own company. I sometimes wondered if some of those grizzled old souls were able to make the journey from New Haven to Santa Clara. My home seemed to add so much to the ambience of the area. However, unlike the Earth, this huge estate seemed to need people within it to survive. That is one of many reasons my construction project went on so long. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Have you ever noticed how houses, as long as they have someone occupying them, no matter how little maintenance is done, always hold up better than houses that are abandoned? Houses, like a body which the soul has abandoned, deteriorate more rapidly when on one resides within. One evening in the cooling fall of the year, Mr. Hansen and his wife left the caretaker’s house on the estate for a social function. The son of Mr. Hansen was home alone. He was in the basement which was used as a recreation room. It was getting late and her was expecting his parents any minute. Sure enough, he heard footsteps on the floor above his head. They traveled across the living room and into the dining room and back again. He thought it unusual that his father and mother would be in the house walking around for nearly a minute and not call him. He walked to the stairs that led from the basement to the first floor and called out, “Daddy?” The only answer was the sound of footsteps crossing the room and beginning to ascend the stairs to the second floor. “Daddy?” he called again. With still no answer, he began to slowly climb the stairs from the basement to the first floor. He could hear what he was convinced was an intruder walking through the bedrooms just above his head, apparently looking for something valuable. The footsteps crossed the second floor just above his head and began approaching the stairs and descend to the first floor. He rushed into the basement again. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Wanting to run but not wanting to run into whoever it was who prowled above his head, he could only wait in icy apprehension for his parents. As he waited, the intruder stalked the floor above him, apparently not interested in valuables, seeking something known only to him. His wanderings became more aimless. First to the kitchen, then back to the living room, then the dining room—pacing…pacing—to perhaps peer out a window at the fruit orchard. The ancient floorboards that once soaked up blood of those killed by the Winchester rifle, groaned with the wandering footfall of an apparently lost intruder. Slowly the footsteps approached the cellar steps…he swore he heard him put a foot on the top step. Ghosts supposedly went out of fashion when electric light came in. What nonsense! The supernatural were always around on my estate. My very mansion was patrolled by headless victims with clanking chains, and even though it was a comfortable house with an ice box and 47 fireplaces where you feel, as soon as you are in it, that there is something wrong, it sends chills down your spine! It is certainly a lovely, airy, high-ceilinged house with electricity, but I knew we were dealing with something that was invisible and could not be seen—something that was very malevolent. I often saw a boy with glowing eyes near the 7-11 staircase. But here I belonged and here I would stay. There morning had been bitter, with a driving sleet—though it was only the last day of October—but after lunch a watery sun showed for a while through banked-up wooly cloud and tempted me out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
I was an energetic walker, and given, at that season, to walking about the beautiful grounds. I made my usual round, and was following the path back to the mansion when I overtook a plainly-dressed woman walking in the same direction. When I caught up with the intruder, I was surprised to find she was a stranger. It was almost dark, and the woman’s face was hardly visible, but this woman was middle-aged, plain and rather pale. I greeted her, and then added: “You are going to my house?” “Yes, ma’am,” the woman answered, in a voice that the Connecticut Valley in the old days would have called “foreign.” I could not say where she came from. What struck me as queer was that I did not know her. I asked the woman, politely, what she wanted, and the woman answered: “Only to see Annie.” The answer was natural enough, but there was no one by that name on my estate. I turned off from the drive to the lower part of the gardens, so that I saw no more of the visitor then or afterward. And, in fact, half hour later something happened which put the stranger entirely out of my mind. I approached my house, slipped on a froze puddle, turned my ankle and lay suddenly helpless. Elroy, the butler, and Ersula the housemaid, knew exactly what to do. In no had me stretched out on a lounge, and Dr. Parker had been notified. When he arrived, he ordered me to bed, and did the necessary examining and bandaging, and shook his head over my ankle, which he feared was fractured. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Concerned about how I would get around my estate, as I was laying in bed, the spirit gave me an idea of building mini stairs that rose only two inches, so I could make it around, until I healed without being bound in plaster. From that night on, there was an appearance of ghost, who would manifest in front yard, walk up to the house and enter it, and interact with me. My home brought me deeper and deeper into a mysterious territory whose boundaries I had never before dream of transgressing. Ghosts often took shape right before my eyes. They would start off as tendrils and grow into glowing, mistlike things. Turning into orbs, the figures would grow larger and denser and began to assume a humanlike form. One evening, I extended my hand into the mist, and could feel its cold interior. Such a bold act may have been considered very rude by the entity, as the glowing image suddenly vanished. There were plenty of vibrations in my mansion to tune into. The place was drenched with psychic vibrations. In my Blue Séance Room is where the glowing lights and ethereal broadcast were received well enough that caretakers were aware of their presence. They would morph into columns of light about the height of a man and make their trek out of the room. One night Ersula reported seeing ghostly face looking through the window at her one night. The ghost then chased her hands away from the cows during an evening milking. The following morning, it was about nine o’clock before I admitted to myself that something uncommonly strange must have happened in the house. Mysterious things—dreadful things—were associated with darkness; and the wholesome prosaic daylight had not come to banish there. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I conjure thee, O Spirit Pheynix, and your 20 Legions of Spirits, by all the most glorious and efficacious Names of the Great and Incomparable Lord the God of Hosts, come quickly and without delay, from whatsoever part of the World thou art in; make rational answers to our demands; please come visibly, speak affably, speak intelligibly to our understanding. We conjure and constrain thee, O Spirit Pheynix and your 20 Legions of Spirits, as also by these seven other Names wherewith Solomon bound thee and thy fellows in the brazen vessel, to wit, ADONAI, PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEX-HEXETON, INESSENSATOAL, PATHUMATON, and ITEMON; do thou manifest in the Winchester Mansion, fully our will in all things that they may seem good to us. Come, therefore, in the Holy Names ADONAI, ZEBAOTH, AMIORAM, come, ADONAI commands thee. Please grants us your powers and virtues by the powers and virtues, and by the name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whose host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit of Sarah L. Winchester here before to return to her mansion, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to herself or any creature, that she many continue to expand and make her estate thrive, so that she accomplished her desired end, whatsoever it be, provided that it is proper to her office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. Please appear and make the sweet perfumes, give good entertainment. May all the Company of Heaven, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Light of Hosts of Heaven guide you back to your estate by the power of TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEXHEXETON, PRIMEMATUM. So bless it be. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If such peculiar manifestations as orbs and ghosts should be as intelligent as their actions often indicate, just what are they and what is their purpose? We have folklore that is at least 2,000 years old that equates these mysterious globes of light with spirits of the dead and with those beings we label nature spirits—the Devas, the elves, and the fairies. The manipulation of glowing balls of light as a means of transportation may even be employed by angelic beings and spirit guides. Indeed, these benevolent beings may take form as ghosts of light before fully materializing in our dimension. These orbs seen in the Winchester Mansion are intelligent and may be able to manifest a physical appearance that is most compatible with the level of understanding of each individual witness.
These were Mrs. Winchester’s carpenters on the estate. One of these gentleman has been spotted inside the house by both guests and tour guides for decades! He is usually seen fixing the fireplaces and rolling around his wheelbarrow in the basement. Can you guess which one he is? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/ 👻
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Angels and Demons, Gargoyles and Ghostly Apparitions
Except for William, the idea of love to me always seemed a question of submission. Of giving in to some powerful emotion, of losing control. Poor souls. However, with my beloved William, love seemed a natural thing, something one did not even need to remark upon, like breathing or raising one’s face to the sun on a summer’s day. It is no matter now, for he passed away years ago, and all I ask is to be left alone in my chair. Money has been an armor, you see; and there are few cracks in it. But William had a loving nature, if only others had show him love. He was a delicate boy when he was little, so his mother could curl him up, and put him into black velvet pants, like that boy in the book—little Lord Something. However, when his legs grew out of the pants, and they sent him to school, she said he was not her own little cuddly baby any more; and it riles a growing boy to hear himself talked about like that. It was like being pushed out of an illuminated ballroom, all flowers and chandeliers, into the winter night and snow. Yet, Mr. Winchester grew up into a fine man and that is why I married him. He used to go over and see his mother now and again; or she would come home for the holidays. And he used to take her out for lunch, or to dance at those cabaret places; and when the headwaiters adore his mother’s beauty and charm, he would talk about it for a week. For a time she used to get some comfort out of telling me about her early triumphs; and I used to listen to her patiently, taking notes on how to be a good wife and mother. You must not think of her as an unkind woman. She was friendly to her husband, and friendly to her children, but she knew she had to raise William to be tough and strong. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
There were always people prowling about in the background that she did not like the look of; people, you understand, who live on weak people. There is nothing more I can say. Reflecting of these memories was nice. It allowed me to sleep all day and into the evening. Or, rather, I drifted in and out of twilight state. I was aware of the housemaids and the parlor maids coming and going, shapes, blurred faces, the sound of kindlin and a striking match, the maid laying a fire. I work fully only twice. First, when Ersula placed a bowl of soup and bread beside the bed and waited until I had eaten it all. The second time, when she returned to administer a second draft of the bitter white medicine, a sleeping draft or some kind of traditional remedy, I never knew and hardly cared. My skin was alternatively burning and clammy with sweat. I tossed and turned in bed, like a ship on a storm-wracked sea, plagued by dreams and delusions. Angels and demons, gargoyles and ghostly apparitions, long-since deserted friends waltzed in and out of my head. For hours, so Ersula later told me, things hung in the balance as my temperature climbed as high as the nine-story observational tower. Certainly, I oscillated between beauty and horror. A skeletal hand pushing up from beneath freshly turned Earth, blossoms dying on the bough. The back of Annie’s heads, impassive and deaf to my consoling up her upset tummy. William smiling at me, in the orchard and by the stream, but then stepping just out of reach and turning away when I called out to him. Barbed wire and mud and blood, chlorine gas, a World of unimaginable pain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Nearly 175,000 men—jamming the streets and roads and field of my estate, attempting to tear each other apart, and in doing so, leaving anywhere from 44,000 to 51,000 casualties behind, to be cared for immediately after the battle by a handful of doctors, orderlies, and the servants of my estate, and my mansion metamorphosing into one vast charnel-house. To day the least, my tidy rooms, barns, and farmhouses, and Victorian gardens were overflowing with men who were seriously hurt and badly needed shelter from the elements. These horrors seemed to last for weeks. The fever broke at about three o’clock in the morning. My temperature dropped. I stopped shaking and my skin, sticky with fever, returned to normal. For the first time in hours, I was able to get out of bed. In the still and sleeping house, I could hear the whirring and chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs. A ribbon of moonlight made its way between the shutters and painted a line across the floor. I watched the moonbeams dance, slowly shifting, as the hours passed and the World continued to turn. I walked through the hallway, looking through a couple of doorways and back into the original section of the house when I noticed a fresh-countenanced young man standing and watching the goings-on with a peculiar look on his face. The more I watched him, the more I saw it was a look of wanting to come out of the Grand Ball Room. Catching his eye, I motioned for the young man to come join me for a cup of tea. He just stood there and stared, the expression on his face becoming even more painted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Then it dawned on me that he was a ghost, and he was stuck in the old part of the house and could not leave the Grand Ball Room. With an understanding shrug, he turned away from the door and walked further into the room to join the other apparitions. I stood back with my eyes closed, and a quiet smile on my face. By this time, the sky was a mass of teal and fuchsia. At first it looked like a kite-flying contest, the could over my mansion obstructed by swooping streaks of color that danced on the air currents, trailing multi-hued streamers behind them. Then I heard the chirping cacophonous twittering like an orchestra of xylophones. As I looked further through the skylights, I realized that the kites’ long tails were really feathers, and they were not tethered to the ground by strings. A flock of birds, what seemed like hundreds of them, painted the air with wings the color of the rainbow, dipping and soaring on air currents visible only to them. I could barely take my eyes off the flock. I wished the birds would stay forever: They were like an elaborately painted scene on a China teacup, and their chirping filled me with the kind of inexplicable joy that I had felt as a child, climbing onto my mother’s lap and smelling the faint scent of her jasmine perfume after a long day of play. The birds, as if acting on an invisible signal from above, formed two loose lines and soared higher, heading towards Heaven. I wished I could fly with them, borne along on whatever invisible breeze they had ridden in on. The birds had stirred something powerful in me, mysterious symphony of joy and emotion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It must have been some kind of European sorcery and magic. And, there seemed to be something else in the atmosphere. Around 5.45 a.m., I heard what sounded like for all the World, a small child. It came from further down the hallway, and I walked curiously down towards where the sound seemed to be coming from, the sound moved into the living room. I followed, and it kept moving and cooing at a distance of what I estimated was about six feet in front of me. As I got to the living room, the cooing baby moved on into the next room, the kitchen. I stood in the living room and rationalized for a moment. The lights from outside the mansion were spilling into the room, and it slowly occurred to me that if the baby had been playing, I would surely have seen her cross the room between the hall and the kitchen. I listened to the cute baby sounds in the next room, and a chill went down my spine. I now had no idea what I was dealing with. The cooing faded within the next moment, and I backed down the hall, ducking into the Alice in Wonderland room and, of course, there was no one in the room, but the tiny rocking chair was swaying back and forth. A few nights later, I was up in the middle of the night. I was in complete darkness. No windows in the room, no light, just darkness. Suddenly, from the area to my left, which would have been the bathtub, I heard very clearly—sharp and loud enough to make me jump—a voice shout, “Belly Ache!” The voice was that of a little girl, but there was something sweet and warm about the voice, like the voice of an angel. I pushed the button to turn on the light. Nothing. Not that I found the matter unfathomable. Quite frequently, I saw the figure of a little girl moving up and down the hall past my bedroom door during the night. She has a soft, blue glow. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
For week, I lie awake at night, thinking this could be my beloved Annie. I waited and waited, night after night to see her again and perhaps talk with her, but she did not return. However, the bathtub faucet leaked and dripped fairly on occasion. I lay in bed, listening to the drip. It had developed a steady rhythm, as drips will. Suddenly, the rhythm changed. The drip sound changed in pitch, and it literally played a tune. It was the Highland Fairy Lullaby. The temperature in the room dropped, and I could clearly hear the sound of a little girl playing with her doll. She was singing a tuneless little song, the kind of melodic chat that was common among young children, especially little girls at play. From time to time, she would interrupt the humming of her sing-song to speak lovingly to her doll, and then she would call rather loudly to her mother that she had a tummy ache. However, there was no response from the mother, and she would return to playing with her doll and singing. I could almost see the little girl dressing her doll, combing its beautiful hair. From that night on, I would awake in the middle of the night or in the morning and hear the little girl calling for her mother. Once I had thoroughly searched the house and determined that it must be the sound of some lost and confused spirit-child, eternally singing and occasionally calling for her mother, or perhaps it was some kind of ethereal phonograph, eternally reproducing the sounds of a little girl. For some, this haunting might be considered a nightmare, but for me, it reminded me of the death of my six-week-old daughter, and it gave me hope that she was still near me, in my house growing and aging, even if she were only a spirit. I took these as signs from the spirit World and had a bird aviary constructed with exotic birds from all over the World, and invited my niece Daisy to live with me. Someone I could be a mother to. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I invoke, conjure, and command thee, Spirit Botis, and your 60 Legions of Spirits to bring with you power armed from the Supreme Majesty, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHINENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachide, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. Magic forces, black and white, reaching out through space and light, be he far or be he near, brings us the demon Balthazar here. Ancient powers, we summon thee, we the power of three and seek your help in finding the demons who are in the Winchester Mansion. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that magic running through this estate, help us see with clarity, power that we have summoned here, protect us and we will have no fear. Throne having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Mighty Wisdom of God; by the Seal of Basdathea, by this name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou make faithful answers unto all our demands and perform all our desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which we desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice, that we may understand. TETRAGRAMMATON IEHOVAH, do I command three, at which being heard the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea runneth back, the fire is quenched, the Earth trembleth, and all the hosts of the celestials, terrestrials, and infernals do tremble together, and are troubled and confounded. Wherefore come thou, O Spirits Sarah, William, and Annie Winchester, forthwith, and without delay, from any or all parts of the World wherever thou mayest be, and make rational answers unto all things that we shall demand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
A thin door indeed it is between life and death: one moment young and full of future, the next lying wounded in some stranger’s house in a small farm-town, the following instant forever lost and wandering in eternity. Could it be the vital spark, the spirit of not only souls killed by the Winchester rifle, but also members of the Winchester family that still search for the youth they lost, roaming the miles of hallways in the Winchester Mansion for all of eternity? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Good-by; You’ll Never Know What This Has Cost Me
Mr. Hansen had never been able to understand why there was any harm in giving people a little encouragement when they needed it. Sitting back in my comfortable armchair by the fire, I thought to myself, “You would be surprised to find how discouraged the grand people get, in these big houses with all the help, and silver dinner plates, and a bell always handy if the fire wants poking, or the pet dog asks for a drink.” It was then that I first became aware of a disturbance in the air. A kind of restlessness. I looked sharply around the front parlor, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was deserted. No one had come along for some time. Yet there was a suggestion of movement nonetheless, a shifting of the light from the chandelier. The drapes loomed more menacingly and the fire appeared even closer, as I glanced out of window, my yard looked like an ancient forest of evergreen. What secrets did they contain within their shadows? My heart skipped a beat. I opened the window. The silence surged around me. Again, nothing. And inside—no telltale footsteps or voices. Only later, did it occur to me that the silence was peculiar. I should have been able to hear something. The roar of the furnaces, or the belching chimneys. The sound of the carpenters hammering. The servants washing dishes in one of the kitchens. However, I was only aware of the silence. Silence, as if I were the only one left alive on my estate. Then I heard it. No, not heard. I sensed it. A whispering, almost like a singing. The others have slipped away into darkness. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I heard the ghost of Mr. Winchester’s voice inside my head, though it was growing fainter with the passing years. However, this was different, a lighter sound, gentle and exquisite, carried on the cold air. A reverberation, and echo of words once spoken in this place? And what of the crimson mist on arising from the floor? On these cold winter nights, it was not unusual to hear the clanking like a bucket, and the shuffling of feet. When I looked over toward the kitchen, there was a man—or something—dressed in a long white coat, all bent over like he was tired or something, slowly walking toward the door-to-nowhere. He was filling up the buckets using the exterior water faucets on the second floor that were used to water my flower boxes. He seemed to walk right out the door and to the front of the house, but there was nothing supporting him. Then he watered the flowers and walked slowly back into the house, real tired- like. And almost suddenly vanished. There were spirits caught forever in the never-ending labor to keep this estate operating. Perhaps these were visions out of time making their journey into the eternal flame as well as into Eternity itself. However, every July 2, officers could be frequently seen in the dim moonlight, in the Victorian garden, dressed in their gray tunics and gold stars and wreath, gathering around the fountains, mixing fine bourbon with the clear water, and toasting to the next day’s victory or death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Summer nights always tended to be a little eerie. In the dark, the estate at best, is an uncomfortable place to be. The tragic memories and sorrows of a nation’s struggle defending the hour of the country with their Winchester Rifle’s hanged heavily and seemed magnified in the night. There is always something moving in the fruit orchards or the grass just off the unlighted portions of the estate. It all makes the Other World all that much closer. Sometimes one could even hear the strange military noises emanating from the 740 acres of land I own, and the fallen faces of the slaughtered. Desperate orders shouted…steel rammers ringing in muskets…the clicking of hammers cocked…the hoarse trill of a bugle…the clacking of artillery chains…a roar…shrieks…men gagging, crying, screaming, moaning, moaning, moaning….and there is often heard the funeral call, mounrful apologies of a heartsick, dying warrior to a lost friend bemoaning a fateful decision to be regretted down the ages. Although we had transitioned into summer, there was just an endless expanse of cold on these nights. Memories would seep into my mind. My Daisy Bedroom. Candles burned out. Me crying in the dark, jolted awake by bad dreams and calling out for my infant daughter who passed away long too soon. Then Mr. Winchester, sitting at the end of my bed, opening the curtains to let the silver moon in, saying there was nothing to be afraid of. How nothing could hard me. Not even a curse. How I was a Winchester, invincible and courageous. Nothing could get me as long as I kept building. And with William by my side, I believed it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
So I talked to myself to keep my spirit up. I was in no actual physical danger, I said. It was just a matter holding on to my nerved. Still, fragments of life flashed into my mind and out. Broken images of my husband and daughter, photographs of our happy days. Memories of Mr. Winchester. And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow coming to meet him. Had he recognized the moment for what it was? Whispering, I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the walls. “She is the last, the last, the heiress.” Heard howling from the walls. Sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching on the floors, and a terrible weeping. I worked hard to turn this mansion into something beautiful. Having evergreen trees planted and a variety of flowers. I even remodeled a room with attractive redwood walls, and another with floor to ceiling glass panels that provided a 180-degree view of the estate. I smiled when I saw the perennials that I had planted. However, a number of other peculiar incidents began to convince me that I was being visited by discarnate entities. I always knew I was being haunted. But now I was catching fleeting glimpses of fast-moving shadows from time to time when I would least expect to see such a thing. There would often be smells of delicate perfume. Mr. Hansen thought it was closer to a man’s cologne. Sometimes we encountered the scent together, but in every instance it came and drifted away after only a few minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once, when I was outside tending the flowers growing under the front windows, and I was suddenly enveloped in an invisible puff of strong cigar smoke. Then I was choking, coughing. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the smoke away from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, I saw the daisies with drops of blood on them, glittering and yet dull at the same time. I propelled myself into a standing position, and walked towards the front doors. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get those doors shut. When I looked in the mirror, I was not injured at all. That night while I was falling asleep, I sensed a large, dark presence in the bedroom. It glided over me and seemed to hover just over my head, and I was the recipient of a telepathic command: “I want to know your thoughts!” After I fell asleep, I experienced horrific nightmares. I was awakened by the sounds of terrific crashes, as though something huge had fallen over somewhere in the house, causing terrible damage. Thanks to the stocks I owned and the ones I bought in Con Edison, I was able to keep building rooms to evade the ghosts. Do you know how it is, sometimes when you are doing a bit of fine darning, sitting by the window in the afternoon; and one minute it is full daylight, and your needle seems to find the way of itself; and the next minute you say: “Is it my eyes? because the work seems blurred; and presently you see it is the daylight going, stealing away, softlike, from your corner, though there is plenty left overheard. Well—it is the way it is with these ghosts around.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Most nights, screaks could be heard emanating from within the walls. Then everything would be stripped of color, an absence and shade. Fog hovered motionless from the ceiling. And it would come again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want from me?” But the fog, the apparition, had vanished. After the Spanish-America War, all the fine ladies took to running to the mediums and the clairvoyants, or whatever the stylish folk call them. The women had to have news of their men; and they were maid to pay high enough for it…Oh, the stories I used to hear—and the price paid was not only money, either! There was a fair lot of swindlers and blackmailers in the business, there was. I always had a way of seeing things; from the cradle, even. I do not mean reading the tea leaves, or dealing the cards. No, no; I mean, feeling there are things about you, behind you, whispering over your shoulder. I felt more and more sorry for those women that the soothsaying swindlers were dragging the money out of for a pack of lies; and one day I could not stand it any longer, and though I knew the Church was against it, when I saw one lady nearly crazy, because for months she had no news of her boy at the front, I said to her: “If you will come over to my place tomorrow, I might have a word for you.” And the wonder of it was that I had! For that night I dreamt a message came saying there was good news for her, and the next day, sure enough, she had a telegram telling her her son was coming home. And that August, the war ended. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
One is confronted finally with the metaphysics of time: is it merely linear; are we moving along it like riding a train on a track and all that happens, once it occurs, is forever gone? Or can that time be bent, as some prominent theoretical physicists of the late 19th and 20th centuries have said, so that we may run into it again? Or, can an event go out in more directions than just backward, carried on time like ripples from a stone throw in a pond, occasionally under very special circumstances in very special places, returning like a faint echo? Is it possible that the bigger the event the larger the ripples and the more likely they are to return? Or perhaps is it possible, if time can be bent, or the ripples move slowly enough, to catch up with events again, and again, and again? Come tour the Winchester Mystery House and perhaps you will find some hidden clues. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Voices Echoing in the Silent Mansion
After the service, the mourners circled the funeral parlor’ beige reception hall, nibbling on refreshments and offering muted condolences. Sarah L. Winchester perched on the edge of a stiff floral sofa, nibbling at her fricassee of parsnips. With the two housemaids, Belinda and Elisabet comforting her. Mrs. Winchester felt alone and exposed. She sensed curious eyes on her, but they quickly shifted their gazes whenever they caught her looking. After a while, Mrs. Winchester slipped out a side door and into the cemetery where the sun still shone relentlessly on the headstones. The rows were straight and the grass was freshly mowed, yet the headstones stuck out at odd angles and few trees poked their way up around the perimeter, throwing welcome shade on the hot afternoon. She picked an aisle at random and wandered down it, reding the names Freja, Gustava, Jannike, Maj. She stopped at a small gravestone, calculating the age of the deceased. James Frazier Reed November 14, 1800 – July 24, 1874. Now you shall sing among the angels, it read. Her hands went clammy: James Reed must have been one of her acquaintances. Mrs. Winchester made her way down the row, and later returned to her estate. Of course, a gnawing ache sent her prowling the great American West, the voice in her dreams that had whispered build a house for the spirits. The long carriage ride through the green fields never prepared anyone for the impressive architectural reflection of the psyche of Mrs. Winchester. However, it is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun that Won the West.” Drenched in sunlight and cascading along acres of gardens to hold the panorama of the enormous mansion, carriages rocked and struggled to catch a glimpse of not only the estate, but Mrs. Winchester as well. It was after the Santa Clara Valley was brough to life by the warmth that hung fragrant in the air of the Winchester Mansion, carriage whipping to and fro, carpenters sawing and nailing, vendors crying the finest drapes, fabrics and furniture, and the coming of the most beautiful led glass and stained glass windows known to man. This was Eden. The mansion was like a god. The profusion of towers, fancy turrets, glamorous interior, and intriguing history was the stuff dreams are made of. It was a place of drama, art, plush gardens and architecture. Virtually every piece of literature someone could obtain about the estate and Mrs. Winchester considered there to be “real occult” activity and satanic codes hidden within its walls. Sometime during construction, a wounded carpenter crawled into the barn, and lay coiled there, perhaps to escape the heat, or to get some rest, or to get away from the constant moaning and crying the house itself would make. Escape from it he did, for later a lantern landed directly upon his head, splitting its human contents into tiny, unrecognizable chunks. It was as if, fate-drawn, he forced himself to crawl to hi own doom. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Often, at night, disembodied limbs pitched out the low windows to thud amongst the glorious statues and fountains. Although people thought Mrs. Winchester fired staff quit frequently, others believed that the mansion or demons inside of it was consuming people and leaving their unidentified remains outside. However, it was never enough to identify the victim, if there actually was one. According to one Ame Fisk, a farmhand, “During the night of the 3rd of June, as I approached the massive house—I stepped upon something that felt so peculiar that I stopped and picked it up. It proved to be an arm. Happening to look at the west window I saw an outline of a pyramid of some sort, which on examination I found was a pile of hands, arms, feet, and legs which must have belonged to souls killed by the Winchester rifles.” At night, the hauntings taking place within the mansion made it a descent into an Inferno. Passers-by heard ghostly music, screams, moans, and saw blood, flesh, and abdominal cavities lying on the ground, levitating, vanishing, and reappearing, and in the flickering, ghostly candlelight, they could see ghouls in the windows hurried, cutting and sawing. Yet, with all that soul-and body-rending activity, in the morning it was as if it was just all a bad dream, witnessed by many. Or could it be the spiritual essence of the hundreds of men the were killed on the battlefield? #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
One of the housemaids lived in the Winchester mansion, and spoke of hearing, at odd hour of the night and quite suddenly, the cries of a baby. One time she even started going up the stairs to quiet the poor darling, responding to her maternal instinct, forgetting that Mrs. Winchester had no living children. It is a sound which you cannot really identify right away—an odd squealing, taken at first to be “the pipes” or “the house settling.” It was only after trying to recall the sound a few seconds after it had died away that she realized, it was indeed a baby’s cry. Later that evening, the housemaid Synnove was alone in the front parlor. Mrs. Winchester was on the third-floor reading. Synnove was on the sofa knitting with her back to the stairs. It was a particularly quiet night. She heard Mrs. Winchester slowly descend the stairs being her and stop on the landing. She stood there, Synnove thought, for a good moment. Finally, to find out what happened, she turned around to see if Mrs. Winchester needed anything. But no one was there. Assuming she had turned and gone back up the stairs to her room without being heard, Synnove got up and walked to the third-floor, knocked on her closed door, and stuck her head into the room. “Will you be needing anything this evening, my lady?” She asked. “No.” Mrs. Winchester replied. “Why do you ask?” “You mean you did not just come down the stairs and stop on the landing?” “No. I have been sitting up here all night.” Some believe that there may be small leaks between the Worlds, a psychic bleed, perhaps of energies inside of the mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
The next morning, when Mrs. Winchester awoke, it was long past her usual hour, and she sat up in bed surprised and vexed at having overslept herself. She always liked to be down for breakfast to hear the birds singing; but a glance at the clock made it clear that it was nearly noon. Mrs. Winchester got up and said to the housemaid, “Draw my bath, please.” After she bathed, she dashed through her dressing, and caught herself singing at her image in the glass as she sat brushing her hair. It made her feel young again. The other woman vanished to a speck on the horizon, as this one, who ruled the foreground, smiled back at the reflection of her lips and eyes. Mrs. Winchester thought she had now faced the phantom and dispelled it. “Courage—that is the secret! If only people who are in love were not always so afraid of risking their happiness by looking it in the eyes.” As she brushed back a dark abundant hair it waved. Certainly she was looking very pretty. The afternoon danced along like a cockleshell on a bright sea. She ordered a particularly good dinner, had her trunks brought down from the attic, and consulted with the housemaid about getting out summer clothes. She felt the faint shiver of apprehension. Walking across the room, sat down again before her mirror. What a different face she saw! The smile on her pale lips seemed to mock the rosy vision of the other Mrs. Winchester. However, gradually, her color crept back. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
As the apparition hovered over her he said, “Oh, virgin, underserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the name of your country, and why you are thus bound.” At first she was silent from modesty, and, if she could, would have hid her face with her hands; but when he repeated his questions, for fear she might be thought guilty of some fault which she dared not tell, she disclosed her name and that of her country, and her mother’s pride of beauty. Before she had done speaking, a sound was heard. At least the entrance of the housemaid who came to draw the curtains roused Mrs. Winchester from her labors, and she saw to her surprise that the clock marked five. The sun was still streaming through the some of the led glass doors of the bedroom. She went down into one of the dining rooms to have dinner. Her seat near the end of the table was facing the entryway. During dinner, she looked toward the entry and saw an elderly lady dressed in black coat and hat carrying a large bad. She assumed it was a guest of one of the housemaids or her way out or possibly someone they had hired to cook dinner, so Mrs. Winchester called Synnove over to ask her who the lady was. Synnove asked, “What lady?” Mrs. Winchester said, “The lady in the hall. She looks like she is ready to leave.” But Mrs. Winchester, there is no one in the hall,” Synnove replied. Only the two of them remained in the house. Later in the evening, Mrs. Winchester went to the west wing. She found the room in her library to be very cold. One of the carpenters had committed suicide in the library, and his spirit was still there, and the room would never warm up. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
He would come down night after night crying that the lady in the white gown kept chasing him out of the room. One of the housemaids had gotten lost somewhere in the mansion and was found dead in that room. Mrs. Winchester decided to turn it into a library, and it must have upset the ghost of the housemaid, driving him to shoot himself. Mrs. Winchester was very aware of the spirit. Once in a while there is a knock on her bedroom door, and a few times the water turns on in the tub until Mrs. Winchester would get up to walk in there, and then it would turn off. However, it did in fact appear that someone had drawn a bath. There would be water in the tub and the faucet would be wet. The bathroom door would then squeak and slam closed. On another occasion, after Ms. Daisy moved into the mansion, she slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms (the one from which they used to hear footsteps). One morning she came down to breakfast and told Mrs. Winchester of an overnight visitor. “I woke up, and carefully went and drew the curtain aside. The moon was high, gibbous, its light bathing the yard. I saw a gleaming orb, and reeled back from the window in horror. When I turned towards my door, I saw a woman all in blude, and after studying me for a while, she turned away and disappeared…just vanished into thin air!” The family was terrorized by pounding footsteps in the night, moving shadows, and bizarre happenings, such as the curtains billowing out at odd times even with the windows closed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
One night the poundings in the house and the boot-like footfalls grew so menacing that Mrs. Winchester believed that the mansion was being invaded. We are dealing with the unknown—adventures in a new country. I conjure thee spirits of the Winchester Mansion, by God the Father Almighty; by the virtue of Heaven and by all the stars which rule; by the virtue of the four elements; by that of all stones, all planets, and all animals whatsoever; by the virtue of hailstorms and winds; to herein receive such virtue that we may by thee the perfect issue of the secrets of this mansion, please cross all space and time. I conjure thee, O Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by Foras, the Mighty President, and your 29 Legions of Spirits to give us understanding, make us invisible, and live long, and eloquent. Allow us to discover Treasures and recover things Lost. I conjure thee Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by the strong and powerful Great King Asmoday—the Thirty-second Spirit, and his 72 Legion of Spirits Inferior, to reveal the secrets of the Winchester Mansion and maketh us Invincible. Please show us where the Treasure lies, and guardeth it. I conjure thee great Demons of the Winchester mansion by Marchoias—the Thirty-fifth Spirit, and his 30 Legions of Spirits to reveal yourselves night and day, guard and protect the mansion and bring it great prosperity. I conjure thee Archangels of the Winchester Mansion, by Raum—the Fortieth Spirit, and thou 30 Legions of Spirits to preform great miracles in the Winchester Mansion and in the sky. Cause Love between Friends and Foes. I conjure Thee Malphas—the Thirty-ninth Spirit, and your 40 Legions of Spirits to continue to build Houses and High Towers on the Winchester Estate and being Knowledge of Enemies’ Desires and Thoughts, and that which they have done. By thou my fortresses and defence against all enemies, visible and invisible, in every magical work. Do thou rule in all my affairs and prevail in those things which oppose me. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Demons have a solid place in popular culture and in the Victorian era. They often appear alongside witches and vampires. However, very few people actually believe in the existence of witches and vampires. Why then, do many people still believe in demons? Many religions teach that demons are real and must be cast out. Faithful religious followers believe thee teachings. However, skeptics see no evidence for demons. What do you believe? Visit the Winchester Mystery House, where the regal gardens enhance the beauty of the mansion. After the tour is over, people are brought back to reality. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
However, everyone can take something home with them by purchasing a gift in the Gift Shop on the Estate or at the Online Store. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Fear of the Engulfing Darkness
Somethings as old as the World, as mysterious as life. As she looked at the silent Victorian garden, Sarah L. Winchester sat on the western balcony for hours, letting the sun warm her, as illuminating thoughts whirled in her imagination. But there the apprehension was; and on this particular afternoon—perhaps because she was more tired than usual, or because of the trouble of finding a new cook or, for some other reason, moral or physical—she found herself unable to react against the feeling. The desolate widow, of whom her nearest friends said that only her absorbing interest in building one of the largest mansions in California, at the time, kept her from suicide after the death of her husband and new born daughter. There were days when she would stand there cold and shivering with the premonition of something inexplicable, intolerable, to be faced on the other side of the curtained panes; and when she opened the door and went in, there would be nothing; and on other days when she felt the same premonitory chill, it was justified by the sight of confused and betrayed spirts haunting her mansion. So that every morning she opened her eyes, she would take to feeling cold and premonitory because she never got out of bed without thinking a ghoul, ghost, or demon would be there. With her the strain had become chronic, and the reason was not far to seek. However, that coldly beautiful face was often penetrated by the secret she hardly acknowledged to her own heart—her passion for architecture. It allowed her to shut out the dark with graceful turrets, bay windows with fanciful cornices, intricate pillars, gently sloping cupolas and iconic towers with witch’s caps. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
However, the fields around the Winchester Mansion, once the summer sun would, always bred mist that seemed to hand head-high in long, silver lines. Apparently, some of these mists out of the fruit orchards were a little more animated than others. Mrs. Winchester would hear the famers talking about the “orchards” and refusing to work the area after the sun began to sink behind the estate. They were not just frightened—it was terror she recognized in their simple eyes. The trees grew in long rows, and one of the farmers, Joakim, made a statement saying that this was the only fruit orchard in the World where he saw blood and gore run in actual rivulets. Mrs. Winchester assured hum that when the orchard was planted in the area, the trees flourished on a unique fertilizer. Others reported hearing the frantic calls of panic-stricken men, seeing a unique mist, and could hear low moaning of the wounded, calling in a soft southern drawl for a wife or mother. Along with the hideous, soft thud of leaf into flesh, over and over and over, more than six hundred times. Surveying her home early one morning, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it another day!” Mrs. Winchester exclaimed aloud, as she put her key in the lock. She turned the key and went in; there was something about the day that made her uneasy. It was not just the cold spots—the front parlor had always been colder than the rest of the house. She had gotten used to that. There was something else. Ominous signs that something was not right, and it was not her imagination; there were physical, concrete signs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
In one of the bedrooms on the first floor, she had sealed up. However, she decided to have the foremen open the room back up and decorate it. When the removed the slate stones used to seal up the room, they noticed an odd site. The windowsill and the floor below it were covered with dead black files. This was puzzling. After all, the room had been sealed off. On closer examination, Mrs. Winchester saw some that some of the flies were incomplete. It was as if they had been chopped in two or—more worryingly—bitten in two. A shiver ran through her. She just could not understand it; there was no rational explanations she could think of. She simply felt as if she were fighting her way through a stifling fog that she must at all costs get out of. The blood rushed from Mrs. Winchester’s heart to her temples. She felt tears rushing to her eyes. “Ah, that’s worse, then—that’s hopeless!” She immediately had the room torn down. Afterwards, there was a long interval of suspense, during which she felt her heart beating against her ribs in quick admonitory knocks, as if warning her of the danger she was incurring. Suddenly, there came a loud rapping at the front door. She went to answer it, but there was nobody in sight. Later the night when Mrs. Winchester went to bed, she awoke dripping with sweat. The fireplace had a roar fire blazing. Since it was not winter, no one would have lit a fire. Mrs. Winchester stood breathing rapidly, her hands against her breast. She felt as if she had run a hard race and missed the goal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
She continued to feel the beauty of a great love for her home, even though the spirits made her feel as if she was unable to bear the burden of her legacy. She heard a tired step on the stairs and closing a bedroom door above. Then she dropped into a chair and buried her face in her folded arms. The footsteps came down the stairs, walked down the hall, entered the bathroom, flushed the toilet, the walked into Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom. She sat up in her chair, unable to move because she could feel a dark presence as the invisible spirit paced through her bedroom. This intensified her fear as the fire was doused by engulfing darkness. The next evening Mrs. Winchester was still reflecting on this when the surprised parlormaid came in and found her. No, Mrs. Winchester said, she was not going to dress for dinner. However, she eventually mounted the stairs to her dressing room. Her dinner dress was lying on the bed, and at the sight the quiet routine of her daily life took hold of her and she began to feel that the events she had been experiencing must have taken place in another World, projecting by phantoms of her fevered imagination. Only, how strange, how unbearable for other people to witness these events, and feel herself at the end of the World! Mrs. Winchester started to think of the mystery as something conscious, malevolent: a secret persecution before which she quailed, yet from which she could not free herself from. There was a flash in the corner of her eyes. The fireplace began to flicker on and off. As soon as she would put the fire out, it would spark itself right back up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Kasper, the butler, was called by Mrs. Winchester through the servant call system. He distinguished the fire, but before he walked out of the room, it was violently ablaze, as if it was spiteful. While Mrs. Winchester was in the dining room enjoying fricandeau of veal with spinach, she saw the dark shadow of a child form between the kitchen and the hallway. When Kasper walked in the dining room, it filled up with some kind of fog, and slowly drifted out of the room. She was brooding over the problem, when she said to Kasper, “You must go to bed early; you look terribly tired.” “I am sure we all overwork at times.” She rose and stood before him with sudden resolution. “Well, I am not going to have you use up your strength slaving in that way. It is absurd. I can see you are ill.” She bent over him and laid her hand on his forehead. “Poor old Kasper. Prepare to be taken away soon on a long holiday.” He looked up at her, started. “A holiday?” Then out of nowhere, there was such a pounding on the house that they ran outside to see what could be the source of the racket. However, whatever it was, it could not be seen, and the pounding just kept hammering away, circling and circling the mansion until it finally quieted down. Mrs. Winchester felt resentfulness rising with her fears. Kasper continued his troubled pacing of the room; then he stopped short, dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. From the shaking of his shoulders, Mrs. Winchester saw that he was weeping. She has never seen a man cry, expect Mr. William Winchester, after the death of their infant. She was frightened now’ she felt that the butler was being dragged away into some spiritual bondage, and that she must use her last atom of strength in the struggle for his freedom, and for hers. I conure Thee, O Mrs. Winchester of this instrument, by the authority of Hod the Father Almighty, by the virtue of Heaven and the stars, by the virtue of the Angels, by that of the elements, by that of stones and herbs, and in like manner by the virtue of snowstorms, thunder, and winds, that thou receive all power unto the performance of those things in the perfection of which we are concerned, the whole without trickery, falsehood, or deception, by the command of God. Creator of the ages and Emperor of the Angels. Amen. Domine, Deus meus, in te speravi; Confitetor tibi, Domine, int toto corde meo: Wuemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes acquorum. DAMAHIL, LUMECH, GADAL, PANCIA, VELOAS, MEOROD, LAMIDOCH, BALDACH, ANERETHON, MITATRON. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mansion is an ancient maze of rooms and twisted hallways that ramble on for miles. After having lost themselves in the catacomb, some tour guides find their way out with the held of an odd and slightly ominous-looking stranger who leads them to a familiar path then vanishes. “Are there any ghosts here at the Winchester Mystery House?” many visitors ask. Of course, the staff cannot encompass the spirit-World. However, the memories in the hundreds of rooms still standing in side of the mansion have been haunted for over a century. The door-to-nowhere, on the second floor, got its name not only because it seems the balcony was never attached to it to support visitors when they open the door, but also because when Mrs. Winchester built that portion of the house, the door would not stay closed. One foreman even nailed it shut with a small wire nail after the house was opened for tours (so as not to destroy too much of the historic door.) Sure enough, the next morning when he opened the house, the door was ajar. Over the years, tour guides never tried keeping the door closed. They figure whatever it was that wanted to get out (or in) of that room—either a draft or a ghost—would do so anyway. It usually occurs when the moon is in conjunction with the sun.
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Life Goes on Beyond the Grave
On December 18, 1890, when Sarah L. Winchester returned to her large country estate in Santa Clara County, she found her servants in an uproar over a dancing ghost. According to Agata, the housemaid, the cook Dag, and the butler Elof were gossiping in the kitchen, when suddenly Elof opened his mouth in both surprise and terror, and screamed that there was someone looking in the window. Ms. Daisy ran into the kitchen and saw nothing to cause the man so much alarm. Elof was visibly shaken and disturbed and said that she thought that he had seen a horrid face looking in at them. Dag assured him that it was probably only a shadow of some sort. The awkward moment was interrupted as Agata told Ms. Daisy that her bathwater was ready. Ms. Daisy thanked Agata and dismissed her for the evening. A few moments later, as Dag and Elof sat chatting, Elof once again claimed that he saw something at the window. Dag rose from his chair to investigate, but he was halted in his journey to the window by the sound of an uproar on the second floor. At first it seemed to be a flurry of wild rappings that had the two men staring at one another in wide-eyed confusion. Then the pace of the sounds slowed until they began to sound like the three-step Mrs. Winchester used to dance. Dag was perplexed. What was this woman doing upstairs when she was supposed to be on a business trip. Without speaking another word, the two men left the sitting room and walked quietly back to the Mrs. Winchesters main bedroom. Opening the door just a crack, they were able to see Mrs. Winchester’s room had been undisturbed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Determining to see who had gone up to the Grand Ball Room unnoticed, Dag grabbed a lantern from a kitchen shelf, and the two men walked up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. Although the sounds of the dancing continued, their lantern plainly revealed that there was no one in the Grand Ball Room. Then, as the men beat a hasty retreat down the stairs, the rapping seemed to race ahead of them, rattling the windows and pounding at the walls. Elof fled the mansion to get Mr. Hansen, and Ms. Daisy and Dag went to check on Agata. By the time Elof returned with Mr. Hansen, the rappings and dancing had attained such a volume that Agata had been awakened by the racket. Mr. Hansen, Elof and Dag searched the vast mansion and the stately grounds and found nothing that could explain the bizarre disturbance, which continued until dawn. At 1.00 A.M. the next night, the dancing ghost once again began its spirited interpretation of the three-step. Mrs. Winchester’s servant patrolled the sumptuous mansion and delightful grounds but could find no trace of the invisible dancer who continued to perform and to evade the searchers until dawn. When Mrs. Winchester returned that next afternoon from her business trip, she scoffed at Agata’s account and jokingly accused her of getting into the brandy while she had been away. Mrs. Winchester was a no-nonsense businesswoman who had little patience with superstitious folktales and accounts of ghost, dancing, or otherwise. She grew very impatient when Dag and Elof warned her that something supernatural had visited the mansion in her absence, substantiating Agata’s story of a dancing ghost. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The look Mrs. Winchester had on her face was not unloving, not indifferent; it was the look of a woman who had been so far from ordinary events that when he returns to familiar things they seem strange. Her professional discretion was exemplary, it was odd that she had never uttered an impatient comment, never remarked to Agata, in a moment of expansion, that this story was a nuisance and demanded to know why they kept badgering her about this case. She had, however, made more than one semiconfidence about their being spirits in the mansion—of course without giving names or details; but concerning this mysterious ghost her lips were sealed. There was another possibility: what is euphemistically called an “old entanglement.” Mrs. Winchester was a sophisticated woman. She had few illusions about the intricacies of the human heart; he knew that there were often old entanglements. The mansion was replete with pretty uniforms and weapons, schooled in the military arts of drill and discipline and inculcated with patriotic fervor. The mansion has other tendrils. Before this set of staff was hired, Franz, a farmhand, was mortally wounded while fighting outside. He asked his friend Gottfried to deliver a heartfelt message to their mutual friend, a woman to whom Franz was engaged, if and when Gottfried ever saw her working in the mansion. A promise to do so is made, and when Gottfried finds himself in mortal combat just outside the mansion, he tries to deliver the missive. The girl cannot be reached; she is someone in the Winchester Mansion. Gottfried says he will try again later, and returns to the harvest. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
As if to make absolutely certain the message would never be delivered, fate sends two bullets, one to the messenger Gottfried, and one stray shot to Ms. Henrika, Franz’s betrothed. So Franz’s message died with Gottfried…not that it mattered anyway. Legend has it that Franz’s sisters found out and exhausted from the ghastly burden, buried him in the cellar of Mrs. Winchester’s mansion where no one would disturb him. Perhaps this last resting-place was not suitable for the young man who himself seemed to be eternally haunted and damned by the message that went undelivered; perhaps, somewhere, in the weird World beyond, three friend are still lurking about the Winchester Estate seeking forever one another and an answer to the unanswerable. While Mrs. Winchester was home alone one evening, a patrol man heard strange noises coming from her mansion. He went to investigate. Sherriff Halfdan thought there might be an intruder. He thought he had just heard him go to the upstairs window, and that he was crawling down. So he ran around back and shined his lantern up to the window, into the large back yard, back to the mansion and up to the second-floor window again. No one. He trotted out to the yard to get a better view and stop anyone trying to run into the acres of fruit orchards to hide. Still, not a sign of anyone emerging from the mansion. No one came out of the house. But Sherriff Halfdan hear him run across the floor to the window. He took the lantern and shined it across the fields and said to himself, “He could not have gotten out of there in that short amount of time.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
By that time, Mrs. Winchester had emerged from the mansion. She and the Sherriff spent hours searching the miles of twisting hallways in the mansion, but there was no one hiding there. “What did you hear?” Sherriff Halfdan asked Mrs. Winchester. “It must have been one of the parlor maid’s boyfriends playing a prank,” she said. “It sounded like someone running back and forth through the second floor,” Sherriff Halfdan said. “It was really loud,” replied Mrs. Winchester. “I could hear his feet running across the floor while I was on the third floor, but I am sure it was one of the parlor maid’s friends,” still denying what was becoming obvious by now. The Sherriff’s eyes kept checking the back yard. “You know how kids are,” he said. Later Mr. Hansen appeared from his guest house, and told the Sherriff that he knows this mansion well, for he built much of it. And that because of how loud the footsteps were, as he could hear banging sounds coming from the mansion, that no one could have emerged through the second floor window, leapt to the ground, and scampered beyond the yard and out of sight into the fruit orchards between the time the footsteps had stopped and the time the Sherriff was out back. “He had to be still in the house,” said Mr. Hansen. “But he wasn’t,” replied Sherriff Halfdan. However, perhaps he was still in the house. Perhaps the intruder never left the house because he could not. Perhaps he still is in the house, buried just a few inches below the cellar floor, with that mysterious undelivered message haunting him, forever through the ages. While Mrs. Winchester admitted that there had been strange noises in the mansion, at times, to the new staff, she stated that Mr. Hansen had that very day removed a pigeon’s nest from under the door-to-nowhere of the second floor. It seemed likely to her that the bird had somehow been responsible for the weird noises that had so upset the staff. Mrs. Winchester knew she had to keep the wild tales of a dancing ghost to rest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
That evening after the rest of the household had retired to their rooms quite early, exhausted from their nocturnal ordeals of chasing the eerie tapping sounds, Mrs. Winchester sat down in a chair in her study to read for a while before going to bed. At about 10 o’clock, she was distracted by scratching noises from above her head. She felt the same way gazing at a modern machine she did not understand. It saddened her. But everything saddened her now. It sounded as if someone in the room above her was dancing a three-step. Believing the Agata was having a bit of fun with her, Mrs. Winchester put down her book and began climbing quietly up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. She stood outside the door for a moment to be certain that she had accurately traced the sound of the dancing. Then, convinced that there was no doubt that the sounds were coming from the Grand Ball Room, she pushed open the door and stood ready to deliver a stern lecture to Agata. But there was no one in the room and the dancing had ceased the moment that she had opened the door. There was something strange going on here. Confused and more than a little baffled, Mrs. Winchester started to close the door when a series of rappings sounded from the Grand Ball Room again. Suddenly, two explosive knocks seemed to shake the mansion down to its very foundation. Mrs. Winchester grabbed her pistol from the safe, and declared that she was going to put a stop to the nonsense. She roused her servants and told them that they were going to find out who was responsible for the outrage against her mansion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The next day crew searched the entire house and examined every mile of the grounds. That night Mrs. Winchester asked everyone to stay in the Grand Ball Room with her because she had become a believer in the dancing ghost, and it was obvious that she dreaded the onset of a new round of phenomena. However, that night the ghost was silent. A month later, on January 20, 1891, Mrs. Winchester was entertaining guest who openly expressed their skepticism of the phenomena their hosts described as having been active in the house. Mrs. Winchester was furious that her guest did not believe her. However, out of thin air, and old, dirty love note appeared on the table and then the room fearfully looked around as the rapping began at the windows. The assembled guests listened incredulously as they heard an exact replication of what Mrs. Winchester told them. The guest figured someone was in the Grand Ball Room dancing, but when they investigated, they found no one. Everyone then agreed that Mrs. Winchester was cursed and someone had maliciously set a devil on the wealthy widow. And the violence of the disturbances at the Winchester Mansion continued to increase. The ghost had acquired incendiary abilities. Balls of fire circled the house and bounced against the windows. Dressed that hung unattended in closets burst into flame. Once, a mattress began burning underneath a guest as he readied himself for bed. When he was moved to another bedroom, later he was awakened by a frightful pounding on his bedroom door. It was terrifyingly loud; it was as though somebody was pounding fists against it. He lit a candle, slipped out of bed, opened the door and there was no one there. “My God,” he thought, “what is going on?” He was standing on the landing wondering whether he should brave it down the stairs when he noticed something odd. The door to Mrs. Winchester room was slightly ajar, and the light was on. He peaked inside to see if the vicious terror was disturbing her. Suddenly, a crackling noise had come from beneath the floor, followed by a long, high-pitched wailing. A bluish spark seemed to jump up at Mrs. Winchester, and her thin nightgown instantly swathed in flames. She cried out in terror and collapsed into unconsciousness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
The houseguest leapt to his feet and valiantly beat the flames out with his bare hands. The most curious thing about the incident was that the courageous guest suffered severe burns while Mrs. Winchester received not a single burn nor blister, even though her dress was nearly completely consumed by the flames. Agata had been rapidly waning under the onslaughts of the ghost, she died in child birth thirteen months later. From that moment on, everyone knew that there was a malicious evil terrorizing Mrs. Winchester and her mansion. Lord GOD ADONAY, who hast formed man out of nothing to Thine own image and likeness, and me also, unworthy sinner as I am, deign, I pray Thee, to bless and sanctify this water, that it may be healthful to my body and soul, that all delusion may depart from me. O Lord God, Almighty and Ineffable, who didst lead forth Thy people from the land of Egypt, and didst cause them to pass dry-shod over the Red Sea! Grant that I may be cleansed by this water from all my sins, and may appear innocent before Thee. O Lord Adonay, who hast formed me in Thine image and in Thy likeness, deign to bless and sanctify this water, so that it may become unto me the salvation of my soul and body, and that no wickedness may ever find place upon me. ANTON, AMATOR, EMITES, THEODONIEL, PONCOR, PACOR, ANITER; by the virtue of these most holy Angelic Names do I clothe myself, O Lord, in my Sabbath garments, that so I may fulfill, even unto their term, all things which I desire to effect Thee, Most Holy Adonay, whose kingdom and rule endure for ever and ever. I command thee, O Spirit Rumoar, even by Lucifer, thy mighty sovereign, to bless me with untold wealth for many generations to come. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Mrs. Winchester witnessed spirit materialization, heard spectral voices, felt ghostly touched on her person, and on occasion was even lifted into the air and set ablaze by a hostile entity. There are enough true stories about this mansion that will scare the pants off you. And it is true—to some extent. Documented are some horrific stories, and they will scare you, because we are talking about real people who once lived and did unbelievably frightening acts, in moments of unbelievable intensity. To this day, whisper voices come from the attic and they comingle with eerie music that grows louder and louder, until people seek refuge.
Mysterious lights appear both inside and outside the house; footsteps moving up and down the stairs; and noisy repertoire of assorted poundings, drummings, and rappings. To experience a haunting, or to see a ghost, is to receive proof that life goes on beyond the grave. Accounts of Haunting phenomena, no matter how terrifying they may be, provide evidence that existence continues for the sprit on more than one dimension, and that human beings are multidimentional entities that consist of mind, body, and soul. Such a beautiful break from all the rain! ⛅ https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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A Collection of the Most Rare Secrets
The rites of Transcendental Magic are divine and religious rites, and the counsels, spiritual and moral, which are found in its instructions are, in their way, the counsels of perfection, whatever element of puerility may radically obtain in its experiments. It is not to do outrage to God in the interests of diabolism, but to derive power and virtue from above for more successful control of Evil Spirits, and this obtains indifferently whether the purpose of the operator be otherwise lawful or not. One should put all one’s hopes in God before one makes pact with Satan; that, in a word, one should be good in order to do evil. Demons of the Solitudes stand guard over the Winchester Mansion and its secrets even when human ghosts have ceased to walk in the neighbourhood. And little do people know, that the habitual practice of Black Magic at the Vatican can be easily proved. Seemingly insignificant decisions in our lives set us on irreversible courses; that we were born when and where were, that we choose to live here or there, seem to set us on a track from which there is only one detour, only one escape. Sarah L. Winchester paused on her doorstep. Dark had descended on the brilliancy of the afternoon of April in 1888, and the grinding and building of the mansion was at its highest. She turned her back on it, standing for a moment in the old fashioned, marble-flagged vestibule before she inserted her key in the lock. The sash curtain drawn across the panes of the inner door softened the light within to a warm blur through which no details showed. It was an hour when she had most liked to return to that quiet beautiful house. The contrast between the soulful stillness of Santa Clara Valley, and the mansion with its devouring blaze of lights, always stirred Mrs. Winchester profoundly. In the very heart of this 600 room labyrinth she found her joy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
In the hall hung Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, Artemisia Gentilechi, Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, Sanford R. Gifford, October in the Catskills, Georges de La Tour, Joseph the Carpenter, Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas and other fine works of art. There was also the grand staircase, and on the right her library, full of books and inviting Victorian Renaissance Revival arms chairs. How Mrs. Winchester loved that room! Then, upstairs, her own drawing room, in which her niece Daisy loved to sit and soak up the sun. The Hall-of-Fires was one of Mrs. Winchester’s favourite rooms because had five fireplaces, and three connecting rooms. In fact, this is where she hastened back at dusk on winter days, where she sat reading by the fire, or answering notes at the pleasant roomy desk. Sometime friends dropped in; sometime—oftener—she was alone; and she liked that best. The housemaid, Hilda, tried her best to ignore the eerie noises that she heard coming from the room that possessed the door-to-nowhere. Each night when she was left alone to mop the floors, she would hear the sounds—dull, heavy treading, like someone slowly pacing back and forth and the door opening and closing. Finally she decided that she had enough of the strange sounds thar so disturbed her. She was convinced that a ghost occupied that room. In a state of nervous agitation, she asked to be discharged from her service in the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester saw no reason why she should attempt to talk the woman into saying with her. She was obviously a highly imaginative woman who had frightened herself by supposing that she was being visited by supernatural beings. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Through it all, Mrs. Winchester heard Hilda’s soul weeping in agony; it was an echo of her own, soul broken from a course of great hope. It was not before long, however, before Mrs. Winchester and the other servants also heard the sound of heavy feet in the room with the door-to-nowhere. Although puzzled by the treading of invisible feet, Mrs. Winchester and the servants convinced themselves that there was undoubtedly a natural explanation for the strange sounds. In spite of their refusal to believe that there was a supernatural element to the noise, Mrs. Winchester purposely omitted any mention of the disturbed room when she hired a new housemaid. However, it was not before long that Magda realized something was wrong. In addition to the sounds of thudding feet, the ghost has soon acquired fists with which to pound on walls and added bed-lifting to it repertoire of supernatural phenomena. The invisible force manifested under the bed of the Magda and began to raise the mattress higher and higher, until she finally cried out. Next, the thing hoisted the mattress of the bed. Magda described the sensation as feeling as if a large man were underneath the bed, pushing it up with his back. Later, the haunting developed an ability to whistle, talk, and materialize into a number of grotesque phantoms. Mrs. Winchester was awakened one night by a loud shriek that emanated from under her bed. Upon investigating, heard an odd moan coming from somewhere in the room. The bed began to move. Mrs. Winchester switched bedrooms, but her relocation did not spare her the torment of having her bed levitated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The phenomen had begun to leave its domain on the upper floor, venturing to the lower floors during the night. One of the kitchens seemed to be a favorite targe for its nightly forays, and on several mornings the cook would find the kitchen chairs heaped in a disorderly pile, the shutters thrown open, and utensils scattered about the room. One night Daisy was terrified to hear the bolt in her door slide back, the handle turn, and the door open. As an invisible entity moved across the bed, the curtains began to rustle, and the bedcovers were suddenly lifted and thrown off the bed, revealing Daisy trembling in fear. She saw a distinctly dark shadow against the curtains that hung from the bed frame. Mrs. Winchester was disturbed nearly every night, so much so that she would sleep in a different room frequently. She reported hearing the words “never mind” and “come and get” being repeated over and over, without any apparent meaningful application. As she attempted to sleep, she constantly heard footsteps shuffling around her bed, and felt forceful thumps to her pillow and other bedclothes. She must have blacked out. She came to, after what seemed like hours but could surely have only been seconds, brought around by an urgent rapping on her window. The face she saw through the glass startled her. It was a man’s face—a man with eyes so dark and penetrating that her immediate impulse was to close her eyes. The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Winchester sat down at the table, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Her tears flowed freely. “I should be happy,” she signed to herself. “By rights I should be happy.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Bang! The furnace in the basement made such a loud noise, its note reverberating through the house like a bell and sending Mrs. Winchester’s nerves a-twitching. Bang! Again. Words of the haunts got around. The house received few visitors. No neighbours dropped by for a chat. From one end of the week to another she only saw Daisy and her servants. Jim Hansen, the foreman of the estate, told Mrs. Winchester that he had heard a peculiar noise moving across the lawn in darkness. At first, Mr. Hansen thought it came from the belfry; he suspected that some prankster were ringing it. However, upon pursuing the noise with a lantern in hand, he found that the bell had not moved. Mr. Hansen also told Mrs. Winchester in the strictest confidence that even before this peculiar disturbance, he had on several occasion heard a sound as if someone were walking on a gravel path, but there was nothing but emerald green grass for yards, and when he went to see who it was, he saw no one. Shortly after Mrs. Winchester’s confidential conversation with Mr. Hansen, both Mr. Hansen and a housemaid observed the luminous image of a woman in a tower window of the Winchester Mansion; both parties saw the ghost independently of each other. Mr. Hansen gathered the entire staff to witness the phantasm, which was fully visible for more than 10 minutes. One evening, a few minutes before midnight, Daisy was awakened by a noise very much like that of someone winding a large clock. After this bizarre noise, her bed began to shake, and she clearly heard a sound like that of a heavy sack falling on the floor above. Several strong knocks sounded about her bedstead, and the unmistakable sound of shuffling feet surrounded her bed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
About 1am, Mrs. Winchester was awakened by a piercing scream of terror coming from the fourth floor. Daisy had come face to face with the ghost of a wizened old woman. Mrs. Winchester and Daisy spent the rest of the night drinking coffee in the kitchen. However, they were not alone. The knocking started again. Then an entity resembling a monkey came lurking into the kitchen. The woman screamed and ran upstairs locking themselves in the Blue Séance Room. Suddenly, the monkeylike creature appeared in the window outside of the Blue Séance Room and started banging on the bars covering the window. By The time Mr. Hansen came running to response to their excited cries, he saw what he thought was an oversized werewolf howling and banging on the house. However, no one in the neighbourhood owned a monkey. Mrs. Winchester stay up all night sketching the creature. When she was done, Daisy went down to the library and spent hours reading up on curious monsters in The Hudson Bay Diaries. When she stumbled upon The Windigo. These documents explained that Windigo’s are flesh-eating demons. They come from the Native American tribes in the northern United States of America and Canada. The Ojibwa, Cree, and Algonquian Indians explained that the Windigo were once humans. Somehow, they turned into possessed cannibals. People feared these demons most during the winter months when food was hard to find. The Windigo supposedly roams frozen northern areas looking for humans to eat. According to legend, the Windigo paralyzes its victims with a scream. Then it kills them and eats them. Blizzards swirl around this giant as it travels from victim to victim. It is said to be as tall as the trees of the forest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
As Mr. Hansen, Mrs. Winchester, and Ms. Daisy searched the mansion to make sure there were no more intruders, they did not find the Windigo. However, what they did discover was a floating head. It was a white face of a woman. As if that was not shocking enough, the constant sound of heavy thuds prevented their nerves from relaxing. The house echoed with the sounds of boxed being dragged down the stairs. The trio had no idea what to think of this. Obviously, it was the souls of the slain. Ghostly phenomena were a common occurrence in the Winchester Mansion. When a person dies the bioelectric energy is released from the body into the local environment where it may perform one of two actions. The unconscious energy may dissipate into the local environment and there will essentially be no manifestations thereafter or it may, through covalent bonding, remain in the local environment and attach itself to a certain place or object that the person was attached to in life, or any place that has an electron deficit (this is the theory being “repeat” hauntings). The energy may, upon rapid release from the physical body (such as in accidental death, tragic situations, or a rapid natural release, et cetera) coagulate within the local environment over a short period of time, maybe only a couple of minutes or so, and amass to such a degree that the greater portion that was originally in the body had now become self-aware outside the body. Psychological forces of conscious will may also trigger this type of reaction. When self-awareness occurs, there is generally a degree of confusion because of the new form that the person is in, one of pure energy rather than a physically manifested body. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I invoke and conjure, and command thee, O Spirit TETRAGRAMMATON, to appear and show thyself visibly before this circle, in fair and comely shape, without deformity or guile, by the Name of ON; by the Name Y and V, which Adam heard and spake; by the Name of JOTH, which Jacob learned from the Angels on the night of his wrestling, and was delivered from the hands of hi brother Esau; by the Name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; by the Name ANEHEXETON, which Aaron spake and was made wise; by the Name SCHEMES AMATHIA, which Joshua invoked and the Sun stayed upon his course; by the Name EMMANUEL, which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, chanted in the midst of the fiery furnace, and were delivered; by the Name ALPHA and OMEGA, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the Dragon; by the Name ZEBAOTH, which Moses named, and all the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt brought forth frogs, which ascended into the houses of the Egyptians, destroying all things; by the Name ESCERCHIE ARISTON, which Moses named, and the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt were tuned into blood; by the Name ELION, on which Moses called, and there fell a great hall, such as never was seen since the creation of the World; by the Name AEONAI, which Moses named, and there came up locusts over all the land of Egypt, and devoured what the hail had left: by the Name HAGIOS, by the Seal of ADONAI, by those others which are JETROS, ATHENOROS, PARACLETUS; by the three Holy and Secret Names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATION; by the dreadful Day of Judgement; by the changing Sea of Glass which is before the face of the Divine Majesty, mighty and powerful; by the four bests before the Throne, having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by the Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Might Wisdom of God; by the Seal of BADATHEA, by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named make faithful answers unto all my demands, and perform all my desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which I desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice that I may understand thee. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
The Winchester Mystery House
Over many years, cases, and investigations, observers have documented hauntings in the Winchester Mansion that cannot be ignored. To those who wish to condemn these tales because they seem to document happenings after death, it must be remembered that a good 20 percent of the World’s population have built their religion specifically around life after death. They are called Christians. As well, most of the rest of the World’s major religions believe in another World, beyond, or perhaps parallel, with the one which is visible. Looking for a rainy day activity? Bring the family to the iconic Winchester Mystery House! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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I Will Condemn Thy Body and Soul
The desire to communicate with spirits is older than history; it connects with ineradicable principles inhuman nature. The sources of occult wisdom, it proceeds, are, firstly, in God, second spiritual essences—that is to say, the Angelical Hierarch; thirdly, in corporal creatures, the reference being probably to the signatura rerum of Paracelsus; fourthly, in Nature—that is to say, in a knowledge of the secret virtues of interval things, as, for example, herbs and precious stones; fifthly, but after a long interval in the apostate spirits reserved to the last judgment; sixthly, in ministers of punishment in hell, which seems to connect with the classical conception of avenging infernal gods; seventhly, in the people of the element, that is, the Salamanders, Sylphus, Undines, and Pigmies. If we would call any evil Spirit to the circle, it first behoveth us to consider and to know his nature, to which of the planets it agreeth, and what offices are distributed to him from the planet. This being know, let there be sought out a place fit and proper for his invocation, according to the nature of the planet and the quality of the offices of the same Spirit, as near as the same may be done. For example, if his power be over the sea, rivers or floods, then let a place be chosen on the shore, and so of the rest. The Spirits of Mars have a tall body and a choleric, filthy countenance, brown, swarthy, or red in colour; they have horns like the hart, claws like a griffin, and they bellow like wild bulls. They have the motion of burning fire, and their sign is thunder and lightening about the circle. Their particular forms are an armed king riding on a wolf; and armed man; a woman holding a buckler on her thigh; a she-goat; a horse; a stage; a red garment; wool; a cheestip. Wool of a choleric disposition is perhaps a Geotic form of dun-cotton. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
White Magic, as the intelligences concerned are said to be good and great, but their offices are mixed and confusing, including the discovery of treasures, the detection of secrets, fomenting war, opening locks and bolts, and procuring the love of women, inclining men to luxury and sowing hatred and evil thoughts. Obviously, White Magic of this kind is much blacker than it is painted. And I will tell you something else, too. Within the Winchester Mansion there lies the legendary wonder-World of Mysticism, Magic, and Sorcery, a World of fascination or terror. There, also, the dead live, and the hierarchies of extra-mundane intelligence are within easy communication, and become ministers or tormentors, guides or destroyers of man. The jewels, the stained-glass and led glass windows, the family’s fortune, it is all connected. Same with the Winchester name. The powers possessed by these Intelligence are very curiously set forth. They rule naturally over certain departments and operations of the material World, but outside these departments they perform the same operations magically. The mansion is filled with Pentacles and Sigils, instrument used in magical ceremonies. Along the long, winding and twisting hallways, it is difficult to say where the mansion actually beings, so it is uncertain where it ends. There are many curious secrets or transcendental good and transcendental evil. Many of the recent revelations lead us to concede, within certain limits, that there may have been some recrudescence of diabolism on the estate, as it is possible that there was formal communication with the Powers of Darkness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Under the pretence of White Magic, usually includes the Rites for the invocation of Evil Spirits. Many people do roam the halls of the Winchester Mansion looking about one to see if any Spirit does appear. And if any Spirit shall appear, let the invocant turn toward him or her, receive him or her courteously, and earnestly entreating one, let one require one’s name. Let one ask whatsoever he or she will. There are generally Spirits of the Air, who are undoubtedly demons, and a set of angelical conjurations floating about. Beyond the fact that the evoked Spirits are Lucifer, Beelzebuth, Astaroth, and the inferiors, be forewarned that conjurer is expected to give oneself, body and soul, to the demon who serves one. One might be otherwise be appalled at the frightful figures of those rebellious angels who in sin were cast into the abyss, and become tormented by witch craft or possessed by the demon. Sarah L. Winchester had been in a near daze one night from exhaustion. The heavy, leaden sky, the wind roaring against the windows. Darkness was falling with a pure metallic monotony to it. Heavy footsteps, sounds produced by a number of booted feet, were crossing the landing. Several moved quickly and as one, as if marching to some ethereal command; others dragged behind as if they belonged to the wounded. They paused abruptly at the top of the stairs because they lead to the ceiling, which confused the ghosts, as they stood marching on the spot. Mrs. Winchester bit her lip in fright. The housemaid, Hedvig, laid a comforting hand on her arm. Mrs. Winchester glared at the and waited for the commotion to cease. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The phantom footsteps began descending the stairs, tramping out a slow, ordered rhythm. Their determined marching was like that of a platoon of battle-weary soldiers advancing in a final push. With each tread gained, the marching grew louder. The footsteps were drawing ever close to the Venetian Dining Room. Although Mrs. Winchester’s heart did, in a perpetual eagerness of attention, sit in her great house alone, day after day, month after month, deprived of company, this fate was more cruel than she deserved and more painful than she could bear. Mrs. Winchester let out a cry, “It is rather gashtly. All the millions and—imprisonment in my home by spirits. Think of it—day after day, winter after winter, year after year, howling, banging, ghost, devils, demons, angels, and alone I remain.” Mrs. Winchester seemed to be the only one showing fear. Hedvig seized her chance. She spoke out into the tense silence, in a voice that was loud and confident. “You have my complete sympathy, Mrs. Winchester,” she’d said, briefly explaining her own position. “I can heart it.” Hedvig’s hands began to tremble. However, she looked at Mrs. Winchester with a reassuring smile. Mrs. Winchester began to sob in terror. There came a frantic pounding, as if several heavy boots were trying to kick down the door. The door flew open. Mrs. Winchester and Hedvig turned in fear. Suddenly the door slammed shut again. Mrs. Winchester stood up. She was terrified. Hedvig had been arrested by the opening and closing of the door, and was gasping out something inarticulate. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Mrs. Winchester ran out of the dining room and went upstairs. She rushed down the passage and through a door which communicated, rather surprisingly, with a narrow walled-in stair case that was unfamiliar to her. At the top, she found herself on a small landing upon which two doors opened. Through the confusion of her mind Mrs. Winchester noticed that these rooms, with their special staircase leading down to what had always been called Mr. William Winchester’s suit. It was neat, glossy and extremely cold. The red-apple glaze had barely faded from her cheeks, and not a lock was disarranged in the unnatural luster of her false front; even her cap and ribbons hung symmetrically along either cheek. However, death had happened to her, and had made her into someone else. At first glance it was impossible to say if the unspeakable horror in Hedvig’s wide open eyes were only the reflection of that change, or of the agent by whom it had come. Mrs. Winchester paused a moment. “Her hand is warm still—but no pulse. How did she get up here? She’s dead,” Mrs. Winchester pronounced. “Oh, poor thing! But how–?” Mrs. Winchester drew near, and was kneeling down, taking the inanimate hand in hers. Mrs. Winchester bending over, distinctly saw a circle of red marks on Hedvig’s throat—the marks of recent bruises. She looked again into the awful eyes. “She’s been strangled, but by whom? Perhaps that is why I was led to this bedroom.” Mrs. Winchester, with a shiver of fear, drew down the housemaid’s eyelids. There seemed, in the air o the cold room, something that forbade wonderment and silenced conjecture. “You hadn’t ought to have meddled with Mr. Winchester’s suit, my lady. That is what he must have punished you for. When it came to his privacy, he would not ever listen to human reason…even in his death, he demands privacy.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Someone in the grip of demonic control feels compelled to act, to do the most objectionable things to others in order to somehow save themselves. There is a hierarchy of evil spirits. The minor ones, the foot soldiers, do the dirty work, to prepare the way for the generals. We know so little about ourselves and how our minds work. And there are demons just waiting to fool us. Hedvig had stumbled on Mr. Winchester’s Verus Jesuitarum Libellus, or “True Magical Work of the Jesuits,” which contained most powerful conjurations for all evil spirits of whatever state, condition, and office they are, and a most powerful conjuration of the Spirit Uriel. It was an original copy from the 16th century. The Conjurations are excessively curious. The first is addressed to a spirit whose name is not indicated, but he is supposed to have been obedient to Abraham and Isaac, and is directed to bring the magician out of the depths of the sea so many millions—the number is not specified, and depends upon the cupidity of the operator—of the best Spanish gold; otherwise, says the Conjuration, I will condemn thy body (sic) and thy soul. In the second formula, the spirit is cited by the knowledge and exorcising power of Agrippa, which again puts a definite limit to the antiquity of the collection, were it otherwise necessary. The third Invocation is addressed to the spirit Zayariel, who is conjured by Agla Scheffert and the great Jehova Podashocheia. The remainder, to the number of seven in all, are nearly identical in character and quite in purpose, the demon being invariably required to bring that which is desired by the operator from the depths of the sea, or from the abyss of the waters, or from the spiritual abyss. The Discharge or Absolution which concludes the series is really an additional conjuration. Perhaps we are not really as advanced as we think and should heed warnings about occulta powers. I implore Thee, O Thou Grand and Powerful ADONAY, Master of all Spirits! I beseech Thee, O Eloim! I Implore Thee, O JEHOVAM! O Grand ADONAY, I give unto Thee my soul, my heart, my inward parts, my hands, my feet, my desires, my entire being! O Grand ADONAY, deign to be favourable unto me! So be it. Amen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
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The Winchester’s Mysterious Echo Chamber
One hundred and twenty-two years ago the Victorian period officially ended along with the reign of England’s Queen Victoria. What is termed Victorian is really a series of architectural styles, most of them imitative of earlier periods from Europe and Great Britain. Though the United States of America was seeking its identity, culturally, politically, socially, and artistically, it sustained strong ties with its European heritage. In 1872, American painter William Merritt Chase was heard to remark, on being asked if he would like to go abroad, “My God, I’d rather go to Europe than go to Heaven.” The ambivalence between striking out as a young nation with ideas of its own and the desire to emulate the sophistication of England and the Continent was exemplified in the mixture and blend of architectural and interior styles during the Victorian period. When the words “Victorian house” are uttered, an image of fanciful gingerbread clapboard dwellings, with its dizzying array of towers, gables, spindles, stained and led glass windows, secret passage ways, basements, rambling square footage, vast front porches, rich, dark wood, brass, farmhouse kitchen sinks, fireplaces, hardwood floors, awning and double hung windows, green lawns, stately trees, beautiful flowers, and ghosts immediately springs to mind. One of the most haunted mansions and most beautiful mansions in the World is the Winchester Mansion, which was built by Sarah L. Winchester, heiress to the Winchester fortune. It is believed that Mrs. Winchester and her family were cursed for making “The Gun that Won the West.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The tales of apparitions and devils, of knockings and strange noise, with which the Winchester Mansion is full of, are indications of the supernatural and magical arts. Sorcery was, so to speak, an aristocratic pursuit. It was like the social media, religion, telephone, television, and therapy for the elite. After the loss of her new born daughter and husband, Mrs. Winchester kept her house alive by spending 38 years constructing it. Secretly, she felt that even the coming and going of indifferent unknown people would help to take the chill from those 600 rooms, to brush their walls the dust of too-heavy memories. Mrs. Winchester was an inconsolable widow. Throughout her home stood vases of flowers: roses, lilies, fragile bunches of lavender, and wild clumps of jasmine withering there among the sturdier blooms with the tick arching fronds of ferns. She often picked them herself. One afternoon, Mrs. Winchester was out on her estate, gathering acorns and blackberries, and sticks for her fire. An old famer stopped, his load was heavy and he begged Mrs. Winchester to let his son come into her house. The little boy was very sick, feverish and sleepless. She stopped and gathered some poppies. As they enter her mansion, the boy was in great distress, for he seemed past hope of recovery. Mrs. Winchester had the housemaid prepare him a bed just past the blue parlor. She received him kindly and stooped and kiss the sick child on his cheek. Instantly the paleness left his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The father was delighted; he had no servants. The housemaid spread the table and put upon it curds and cream, apples, and honey in the comb. While they ate, Mrs. Winchester mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy. When night came and all was still, the father thanked Mrs. Winchester and took the boy home. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
That evening, a breeze stirred the dark leaves beyond the windows. It lifted the lace curtains, dropping them softly back against the wall. It seemed an insignificant thing, yet made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Panic gripped Mrs. Winchester. She found herself pinned to the sofa, effectively paralyzed. She raised her right hand, and it was gripped at the wrist. Unable to pray or speak, her tongue was frozen. What Mrs. Winchester saw could not have been human. It had a head like a lion, but the body of a human and was a dense black form. The smell of wet fur and coldness was overwhelming. The beast started grunting and panting. Petrified, Mrs. Winchester stumbled out of the parlor and downs the stairs. On reaching the basement, she feels the wet pelt of the unseen creature brush briefly against her legs. As it bounds ahead of her, it growls like a bear. Mrs. Winchester runs back upstairs to her Blue Séance Room and slams the door shut. The doors and windows in the house started banging—opening and shutting. It sounded like a ghostly cavalry was using a battering ram against the front door, but nothing could be seen from the windows above, just wisping spirit voices could be heard trying to beat the door down. Mrs. Winchester closed her eyes. She felt as if a force was approaching her. Almost like a violent storm was coming. The entity entered the Blue Séance Room; it hovered some distance away from her. A wave started pulsing up and down her body. She was terrified. As she felt her body being lifted from the ground, she knew she was going to die. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When she came to, she was hovering just outside the Door-to-Nowhere. Mrs. Winchester was afraid. She stared dismally, helplessly, at the surface of the table before her as she tried to guide herself into this room that was two stories from the ground. And above organ music surged from the Grand Ball Room, while the wind came in freezing cold gusts. Through the dark, she saw glittering eyes of an anguished soul. As the wind blew, she was pushed into the room, avoiding a twenty-foot drop to her death. An orchestra was playing. The thick vibrations of the bass startled Mrs. Winchester, but she was in no hurry to see what was going on. But then a hand reached for her, steadied her, and meant to guide her closer to the wall. This was dreadful. Then the mysterious forces came for her as before, lifted her from the room she was in and propelled her into blackness. She found herself high above the floor in the Grand Ball Room. There were ghouls, demons, ghosts, and skeletons dancing and laughing, all looking at her as if she was the most anticipated guest. Mrs. Winchester’s heart was hammering so fast that she feared for her life. Gently she was lowered to the floor. Her spectral hosts were looking at her intently. One of the ghouls raised his crystal glass of fresh blood, basking in what he believed was Mrs. Winchester’s silent admiration. She on the other had was frightened. Her mind was full of turmoil…and in a strange way, she did not want to disappoint him. “Though I doubt you will need a map,” she said, “I welcome you into my home.” The crowd smiled and the music grew even more sumptuous. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
“You mean you’re into black magic, Mrs. Winchester?” said the ghoul. “I would like to keep an open mind. As I say, I use my gift for the betterment of the spirit World,” replied Mrs. Winchester. William Tell Overture and Funeral March were in heavy rotation that evening. It must be a mirage, she thought at first, but as the ghouls trembling hand grabbed her, and they danced, she knew it was real. The spirit World trawled the mansion like mythic beasts, their cries sending men in wool blazers and hardhats into a frenzy. Many of them dropped their tools and ran off the job. The figures dancing and shrieking around grew until they nearly blinded Mrs. Winchester. Her eyes glowed like embers with the gravely voice still whispering in her ears. An intense heat shot through her veins, carried singing in her blood to the base of her spine. Mrs. Winchester seemed to grow taller. She felt capable of anything. The air was dry, with a smell that reminded her of cathedrals and catacombs, of all those hidden places lying forgotten across the land and dusty years. A cobweb draped itself across her face, her mouth and eyes. She brushed it away, though the sensation lingered. She seemed to pass out, to awaken in an altered state of consciousness. It was not a dream, but not quite reality either—Mrs. Winchester knew it. It was a trance. The ghoul’s plans for the expansion of the Winchester mansion were drawn crudely and in blood on a cloth napkin. It was him home cottage, perhaps. The interior resembled, if anything, a temple. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
On the blueprint were steeply pitched roofs, shrines to Easter deities, statues and statuettes to the gods of antiquity, gold, black, and red wallpaper, Italian sinks and in a great profusion—drawings, prints, and paintings of characters from legend. The to be adjoining room was given over to books, hundreds of them. A bedroom adjoined it. Lastly, there was a sitting room and a sofa set against one wall. As the ghoul explained the new additions, his face began to contort in this horrible way. The bell in the belfry tolled, and Mrs. Winchester woke up with a jolt. Her guests were gone, but she was left with the blueprints drawn in blood on the cloth napkin. Trembling, she took the sketch to John Hansen, the lead foreman. He did not question the designs and built what he was told to built to the best of his interpretation. When a medium is called upon to relay a message which supposedly comes from the realm of the dead, he or she usually goes into a trance. This is a state which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as “a condition in which a spiritualist medium allegedly loses consciousness and passes under the control of some external force, as for the supposed transmission of communications from the dead.” In a state of unconsciousness, the necromancer may obtain communication in the form of automatic writing, but it usually comes through verbal speech. Sometimes the phenomenon called “materialization” occurs. This is defined as the ability on the part of some mediums “to create from unknow materials outside of their own body, some visible, tangible, more or less highly organized new formations supplied with their own illumination (such as efflorescent substance) for which formations in many cases, the human body in part or in whole forms a pattern, and these materializations appear and disappear suddenly. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Many reputable writers report that the materializations actually have been photographed and carefully studied. They are sometimes called phantasms, and seem to speak while the medium appears to be unconscious. Many people have gone to a séance believing the whole idea to be fraudulent, but have become firmly convinced that they truly heard a loved one who had died. Automatic writing is another baffling spiritistic marvel. The mediums may, while in a trance, inscribe a paper with the exact handwriting of the deceased. At other times a pencil may write without being touched by the human hand or any apparent mechanical device. Then again, in some instances a phantasm does the transcribing. I do conjure thee, O thou Spirits Sarah Lockwood Winchester, Annie Winchester and William Wirt Winchester, by all the most glorious and efficacious names of the MOST GREAT AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE LORD GOD OF HOSTS, that thou please commet quickly and without delay from all parts and places of the Earth and World wherever thou mayest be, to make return to the Winchester Mansion, and present yourselves in comely fashion and please provide rational answers about the architecture, curse, deaths, ghosts, and other spirits, visibly and affably, speaking with a voice intelligible unto mind understanding as aforesaid. I conjure and invite thee, Sarah Lockwood Winchester, Annie Winchester, and William Wirt Winchester, by all the names aforesaid; and in addition by these seven great names wherewith Solomon the Wise bound thee and thy companions in a Vessel of Brass, ADONAI, PREYAI or PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANAPHAXETON or ANAEPHENETON, INESSENFATOAL or INESSENFATALL, PATHTUMON or PATHATUMON, and ITEMON; that thou please appearest in the Winchester Mansion before this Circle to fulfill my will in all things that have been requested. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Allow your powers to come from the void with unlimited possibility, and reunite them with eternal darkness through the nexion of the practitioner so they can manifest upon the mental plane to be perceived for purposes of practical application. Please use your tools to allow our consciousnesses to grow and understand thou through the forces of creation and destruction. May we gain spiritual power though logic and not blind faith and allow logic to enter a doorway leading to evil mind or spiritual intelligence. May these tools become the eye between the reflector and the reflected which can peer through the veil of religious symbolism and please use it to unlock the latent power within us. Allow the lore surrounding this mansion and the legend of the Winchester family to become an alchemical map which leads us to the treasure of understanding and immortal consciousness as a divine being. It is only through your intent and the communication with the fabric of reality through the languages of the dead and the operations themselves that thou can bless us to gain specific meaning and power. Ahura Mazda is the God of the content or those who choose stasis and comfort rather than becoming. May be assistant you in crossing over to the mortal World with the power of darkness in the Alpha and Omega. All began through Ahriman as the void, which is both all and nothing. He is the origin of the Devil and so everything will also end with this Devil for he desires to liberate mankind from the shackles of enslavement. In this way, may thou be able to operate in the World though us and our evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds. May Sin become sacrament in the eyes of Zanda and exercise power according to one’s own divine will. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Demons, ghost, and vampires have made a huge splash in popular culture. These characters are portrayed as fiction in books, TV shows, movies. However, they can affect people’s belief about reality. The Cultural Source Hypothesis is a theory about belief in supernatural happenings. It states that popular culture can plant ideas in people’s minds. These ideas affect people’s experiences. For example, someone might see mist over the Winchester Mystery House and think it is a ghost. You decide for yourself. Rainy days at Winchester Mystery House☔️ Open 10-4pm for tours! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Leaders of the Darkness of this World
The Winchester Mansion is one of the most beautiful homes in the World. The complexity, workmanship, and precision of the structure shows that this architect had planning and building skills far beyond what had formerly been attributed to the Victorian Era. The Winchester Mansion is surrounded by a pleasant grove of all and stately trees. In the mist, there are fountains, sending forth clear and crystal waters, and fast, by a magnificent palace. In the 19th century, it impressed the spectator that it was not the work of mortal hands, but the happy retreat of some God. Drawn by admiration and wonder, many wished to enter and see the amazement of such an elaborate home. Golden pillars supported the vaulted roof, and the walls were enriched with carvings and paintings representing angels and the chase and rural scenes, adapted to delight the eye of the beholder. Proceeding onward inside the mansion, there were nearly 600 rooms filled with all manner of treasures, and beautiful and precious productions of nature and art. While her eyes were occupied, enjoying her magnificent home, though she saw no one, uttering these words: “Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands within our utmost care and diligence. Retire therefore to your chamber and repose on your bed of down, and when you see git, repair to the bath. Supper awaits you in the adjoining alcove when it pleases you to take your seat there.” Mrs. Winchester gave ear to the admonitions of her vocal attendants, and after repose and the refreshment of the bath, seated herself in the alcove, where a table immediately presented itself, without any visible assistance from waiters or servants, and covered with the greatest delicacies of food and the most nectarous juices. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Her ears too were feasted with music from invisible performers; of whom one sang, another played on the lute, and all closed in the wonderful harmony of a full chorus. At this site, engineers found a stone colossus surrounded by a forest of fifty-four columns of immense size and height, which were used to build the foundation. Some of these stones weight 1,100 tons and were seventy-two feet long. No one knows how these stones were moved because Victorians were thought not to have the technology. At the end of one of the passages of the Winchester Mansion, there also was once an entrance that opened onto a passage sixty-two feet long, a buried avenue flanked by forty-three stones—most of them taller than a man and weighed thirteen tons each. At the end of the passage was a complex structure of huge rocks, some carved with symbolic designs, forming a cross-shaped chamber that rose into a vault some twenty feet above the floor. On the floor of each arm of the cross was a basin stone—a large, flat rock with a shallow indentation carved into it. In this area bodies of the dead were placed, corpses were broken and scattered by time and marauding animals. The roof stones were grooved to carry water away from the chamber, and their seams were sealed with puttylike burned soil. It appeared to have been a cathedral to some kind of life force. Scattered about lay sickles and rakes and all the instruments of harvest, without order, as if thrown carelessly out of the weary reapers’ hands in the sultry hours of the day. After the mansion was constructed, there were sheep feeding without a shepherd, with golden-shining fleeces on their back. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
One of Mrs. Winchester’s favorite homes in the mansion was the Hall of Fires. On this night, the air was almost silky in the Hall of Fires, it has an inviting warmth. Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester was at her harpsichord, she had been playing for hours. Her candle had burned low; the darkness was turning to mist outside of the window. This evening she was concerned, he nephew fell ill, and she did not know if he would make it much longer. It was too bad, she was thinking, he is not so terrible to look at. In fact, he was handsome. Alarik blew out the candle at his bed, as he lay listening to the soft music playing in the background, it made the Earth tremble. Alarik came to Mrs. Winchester sickened. He was a hard-working farmer of age seventeen. On his stony acres, he did his best to support himself. The hill his farm was on was thought to be bewitched, causing anyone who dared climb it to turn a bright blue, and fear of this fate had been enough to be anyone but Alarik away for centuries. He uncovered a number of skeletons whose skulls bore the telltale scars of sword cuts. Time and nature did the rest, silting over the city and burying it beneath the farm his was proud owner of. Shortly after unearthing humans remains was when he fell ill and was drive by carriage to Aunt Sarah’s estate. She was more than happy to take him in. When the doctor arrived, Mrs. Winchester asked him to examine her nephew and asked him, “What do you make of this business Dr. Egil?” Dr. Egil shook his head. “The boy’s a sick man—that’s sure. Something’s sucking the life clean out of him.” Why the Winchester family? He wondered if it was something in their past, something about the mansion and their bloodline. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
“God only knows,” Mrs. Winchester said with a sigh. “God alone has all the answers. All I can do is speculate. I have never seen a case like this in all of my career. Who’s to say, but maybe he is put up with a demon. God help him,” Dr. Egil replied. Though his eyes blurred with tears, slowly Alarik raised an arm and brushed his cheek with his fingers before the arm fell back. “You look tires, Alarik,” Mrs. Winchester said. “Are you getting enough sleep?” “Of course not.” He looked up sharply. “I’m still have the dreams. Aren’t you?” She smiled. “Every night.” Just mentioning them send paralyzing fears. They both knew they were not dreaming. No one could admit the terror that each reveal struck in them. Now they haunted them well past dawn and all through each day: The sharp chins and bony noses, the cheekbones like broken glass, and the eyes, always green, always slanted, always eerie. It left Mrs. Winchester’s gaze as cold as a knife of panic slicing through him, a steel-bladed reminder that the dream were real. The only where they were coming from—and why. Deep down inside, Mrs. Winchester knew it was the hold of the Druids and it was too strong. Heaven knows what happened on all that land in days gone by. The Winchester’s never knew what they inherited. It is strange how things workout. Although she enjoyed the Hall of Fires, she wished not to tarry in that room for too long while he was there; there was an uncanny air about it. As she was halfway out the door, the tranquil atmosphere of the evening was shattered. A terrifying scream rent the air, sending a chill through Mrs. Winchester and Alarik. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
“My goodness, there must be a wounded animal nearby, that was not human at all,” Mrs. Winchester said. It frightened the life out of them both. Then a chair fell back with a clatter. Mrs. Winchester approached her nephew. He pointed his figure at the window. For a fleeting moment Mrs. Winchester could not believe what she was seeing. “God Almighty, that face!” The face before them was some transmogrified floating head of utter malevolence. The lips were pulled back in a terrible grimace. And the eyes—they were not the eyes of a human but hooded, like those of a cold-blooded creature predating mankind. Alarik felt her hand on his wrist. She was trembling. But he was recoiling from that awful face. He knew in his weakened state that he could not move and get away from it. His gaze dropped from that fathomless face. It gave Alarik a curious agitated feeling to think that here, in this now icy solitude, in the mansion he had so often admired, a dark mystery, too deep for thought, was being enacted. His heart began to beat stifling. Suddenly he gave an exclamation: “Look!” He had detected a man’s foot prints; two; then three; then more. “God—barefoot!” Alarik gasped. “Then it is…the dead…That is demonic,” said Mrs. Winchester. “I have seen it before, lots of times. It is pretty clear that there are demons at work.” In the Winchester Mansion, these things were not isolated, random occurrences but part of a whole—something sinister. The hauntings lasted for many years. One evening, Alarik felt a tremendous blow to the back of his skull and he later died. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
It was a traumatic event. Mrs. Winchester witnessed five objects begin to rise slowly out of the floor. They formed a rough semicircle about Alarik. They were human head. They were terrible looking. The grotesque faces were disfigured: all sores, terrible teeth and mouths, and they were all biting, like biting towards him. It was a vision from hell, worse than anything Mrs. Winchester could ever dream about. The heads were shrieking. As the feet of the dead stampeded through the room. The cold seemed to enter Mrs. Winchester’s very marrow. Her teeth were chattering. She shook like a leaf. The house seemed to plunge into total blackness. Mrs. Winchester groped her way across the floor, caught a sharp splinter of the fallen door in her palm, seemed to see something white and wraithlike surge up out of the darkest corner of the hall, and then heard a revolver shot. She was covered with icy sweat. Eyes listless. She advanced down the narrow side of the zigzag stairs. Her face was whiter than ever, as she saw bony, bloody hands clasping the Good Book. Mrs. Winchester fell back. When she awoke refreshed with sleep, she looked around, and the ghoulish heads, their mouths still opening and shutting obscenely, began to retract into the Earth. Mrs. Winchester felt slightly at ease. However, her ordeal was not yet at an end. Suddenly, the hair on her scalp was being yanked upward with great violence. Before she knew what was happening, her abuser was crouched down in front of her, their faces almost touching. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
Mrs. Winchester was looking into features that resembled those of the hideous heads. She started screaming uncontrollably. She pushed the face into the floor. Her mind was a riot of thoughts, all frantically trying to explain the atrocious acts. Mrs. Winchester recalled the terrible visions recounted by the saints and mystics of antiquity and felt she was being attacked by the same forces. Mrs. Winchester took lots of bed rest after this series of paranormal events. However, she always felt an evil presence in the mansion and would get stone cold. She could not move at times. But the evil force certainly did. It terrified Mrs. Winchester. She always knew when it was coming for her because her body temperature would drop. She would start to shiver and turn blue from head to toe—really freezing cold. Mrs. Winchester’s belief that the spirit World was watching over her was a comfort. Evil spirits are organized into a military-like structure. The “principalities” are the highest ranking officers under Satan, the “powers” are officials of somewhat lower standing, and the “rulers of the darkness of this World” seem to be a special band of evil spirits whose sphere of influence includes the leaders of human government. The phrase “spiritual wickedness in high places” is better translated “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the Heavenly places,” and makes reference to the myriads of demonic hordes. They are all under the direction of Satan, who is not only named the “god of this age,” but also called “the prince of the power of the air.” The Black Arts could be highly dangerous and most emphatically not a field for the unstable, immature or otherwise emotionally or intellectually weak-minded people. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
I DO conjure thee Spirit Crocell and your 48 Legions of Spirits, by all the most glorious and efficacious names of the MOST GREAT AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE LORD GOD OF HOSTS, that thou comest quickly and without delay from all parts and places of the Earth and World wherever thou mayest be, to make rational answers unto my demands, and that visibly and affably, speaking with a voice intelligible unto mine understanding as aforesaid. I conure and constrain thee, O thou Spirit Crocell and your 48 Legions of Spirits, by all the names aforesaid; and in addition by these seven great names wherewith Solomon the Wise bound three and thy companions in a Vessel of Brass, ADONAI, PREYAI or PRERAI, TETRAGRAMATON, ANAPHAXETON or ANEPHENETON, INESSENFATOAL or INESSENFATALL, PATHTUMON or PATHATUMON, and ITEMON; that thou appearest here before this Circle to fulfil my will in all things that seem good unto me. And if thou be still so disobedient, and refusest still to come, I will in the power and by the power of the name of the SUPREME AND EVERLASTING LORD GOD WHO created both thee and me and all the World in six days, and what is contained therein, EIE, SARAYE, and by the power of this name PRIMEUMATON which commandeth the whole host of Heaven, curse thee, and deprive thee of thine office, joy, and place, and bind thee in the depths of the Bottomless Pit or Abyss, there to remain unto the Day of the Last Judgment. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
And I will bind thee in the Last Judgment. And I will bind thee in the Eternal Fire, and into the Lake of Flame and of Brimstone, unless thou comest quickly and appearest here before this Circle to do my will. Therefore, come thou! In and by the holy names ADONAI, ZABAOTH, ADONAI, AMIORAN. Come thou! For ADONAI, ZABAOTH, ADONAI, AMIORAN. Come thou! For it is ADONAI who commandest thee. If THOU hast come thus far, and yet he appeareth not, thou mayest be sure that he is sent unto some other place by his King, and cannot come; and if it be so, invocate the King as here followeth, to send him. However, if he do not come still, then thou mayest be sure that he is bound in chains in hell, and that he is not in the custody of his King. If so, and thou still hast a desire to call him even from thence, thou must rehearse the general curse which is called the Spirits’ Chain. As this smoke ascends I ascend also by following the path of smoke and usurping the power of worship to empower my blackened eternal soul. I take all power raised within this sanctuary as my own through this talisman of counter creation to strengthen my divine power and to Become a Living God. May my energy act as the very key which unlocks the cages of imprisonment so that I can reach liberation by stepping into the outer darkness which reunited the isolated frequencies of the light spectrum. Through this may I better perceive reality and become better able to counter create through personal alchemical transmutation and sorcery. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
From ancient times, people have looked for positive guidance from the spirit World. However, they also believed demons caused most of the World’s problems. Demons were said to cause comets, volcanic eruptions, and eclipses. Some people believed demons were the reason for all illness. Demons had to be cast out before a person could get well. Basically, anything negative that people did not understand was blamed on demons. AD. 500, the Greek and Roman empires had fallen. Education declined. Without a scientific understanding of the World, people’s beliefs in demons resurfaced. The Middle Ages lasted from about 500 to 1500. During this time, anyone acting strangely was accused of being possessed. Religious leaders had the most power during the Middle Ages. They believed demons existed and had to be cast out with prayer. If this did not work, then people were tortured. Torture was meant to make the body too uncomfortable for the demon to stay there. Unfortunately, many people died being tortured. If torture did not work, “possessed” people were killed. Thousands of stories exist about demons from cultures around the World. The stories usually reflect the lifestyles and concerns of those who believed in them. One demon found in folklore in many cultures was the mermaid. She was said to be part beautiful woman and part sea creature. The demon mermaid is not like the sweet ones found in children’s books of movies. Demon mermaids were said to crush sailors to death or drown them. Then they would eat the sailors with their sharp teeth. According to legend, mermaids sat upon rocks, combing their long hair and singing beautifully. A mermaid’s beautiful voice attracted sailors to their doom. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House
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Randolph Harris II International 