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Some Recieved Impressions of an Infant’s Death
It had been raining hard since three o’clock that morning. I repressed my smile and felt rather like a character in some latter-day Gothic romance. The driving rain, the cold, the three-hour ride from Sacramento in my long black leather-upholstered Buick-Town car limousine. I had just procured some cursed objects and books that had to do with parapsychology. With all the ghostly activity in my mansion, it was hard for anyone to deny the place is haunted. An over-emotive Spiritualist medium, and the lone survivor of the debacle in the Grand Ballroom returned to my home discuss a list of all phenomena observed since then. John Hansen had recently taken up restoration of the electrical system and installation of a voice calling system. After his daily inspection of the mansion, I tried to sound casual but I felt my excitement showed. “I have the blueprints for the next addition to the estate.” “How soon will you need this completed?” John asked. “As soon as possible.” “It is large?” “Quite large. I want a new castle appendage. I turret I believe it is called. With detail that hearken back to earlier times. It is to be a half-timbered structure similar to those developed when medieval builders erected timber skeletons and filled in the gaps with stone or wattle-and daub. The idea is to leave some framing exposed,” said I. “Enough rooms have been renovated for your use already, Mrs. Winchester!” “Yes, but I need a view of the surrounding countryside, this room will be more of a tower, which will provide a spectacular sweep-around view of the village and my yard. The sky is the limit!” #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
As my guest, Cora Pringle, the medium and I continued to the Séance Room to continue our conversation, there were a pair of dark eyes peering out from bony cavities, expression a fragment of the pain and frustration which she must have felt as the years passed and she was no longer able to leave the Grand Ballroom. The senior class of San Jose High School was hosting their harvest festival in the Grand Ballroom, young woman, Mary Celeste, was on stage being crowned queen. She and most of the senior class was killed when a gasolier fell dropped from above and decapitated her, causing a roaring fire. You can see her lurking in the Ballroom at night. Mr. Hansen took a break from building my observational tower to restore the Ballroom. And he would often see the ghost dancing about the room. She would come up next to him in a really elegant Victorian dress, lavishly trimmed with all manner of lace frills, braid, fringes and full gathers. Her dress was topped with a pelerine made of mink. “My people have recommended you, Cora. They say you are the best in your field.” Cora drew in a labouring breath. “Your fee will be two hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “Your assignment is to establish the facts,” I explained. Something glittered in Cora’s eyes. Cora walked toward the Grand Ballroom door. Before we reached it, it was opened sharply by a shadow. Quite appropriately, John has most often seen this shadow when the haunted area is illuminated only by a gasolier. It throws a strange light, and there seem to be moving shadows, not human shadows. Moments later, another member of the staff watched in awe as the mysterious image of a girl meeting Mary Celeste’s description walked onto the dance floor. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
We closed the door and started down the corridor. In light of present knowledge, I ordered John Hansen to seal every door on the second floor with bricks. For the first time, I allowed myself to recognize the strain of this psychic phenomena on my condition. However, I undoubtedly considered this a miracle from God. “Oh, dear, Mrs. Winchester,” Cora said. “I’m afraid this is the Mount Everest of haunted houses. I’m sensing another tragedy in this area. Did something happen? There is a cold spot here.” “There is always a cold spot,” I replied. “Yes, Mrs. Winchester, but I feel a sense of intense angry and pain.” “Oh, dear. Years, and years ago, I had a foreman move a chandelier, and he fell off the ladder and cracked his head wide open. He died immediately.” “But Mrs. Winchester, I fear this was no accident. It was deliberate. His spirit is telling me someone or something pulled the ladder from under him.” Little did Cora know that there were two different attempts to investigate it, one in 1886, the other in 1890. Both were disasters. Thirteen people involved in those attempts were killed, committed suicide, or went insane. Only one survived, and I have no idea how sound he is? My mansion was such mystery. I had experienced enough psychic phenomena by now to be accustomed to it. It was known as the house built by spirits for a reason, but it appeared to house a few demons as well. There is a power here strong enough to physically and/or mentally demolish thirteen people. The staff had mentioned these ghosts create a slightly disconcerting feeling for them. They fear they are being watched—even when they can plainly see that no one is in the room with them. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The presences also like to draw attention to themselves, oftentimes by playing their own music. They have also demonstrated a playful sense of humor by causing blood to come out of the walls like sweat. Those years prior to the 1906 earthquake had been the most spiritual for Mrs. Winchester. After dismissing Cora, she walked to the Hall of Fires, and went inside. The warmth felt good. Shivering she got into bed, and retired for the evening. For several years she was pleased to be reminded of her beauty. Many said she looked like a girl of twenty years and not a day more. She still retained her long- brown hair untouched by grayness, her tall figure almost as trim as it had been in her twenties. She smiled with great self-esteem. Many of the contents of this mansion and cryptic messages in it and on it tell you how to get in contact with the devil. It also contains a wide variety of charms covering magic persecution, magic defense, vengeance magic, death magic, fertility magic, love magic and many other forms of magic. Many of the charms are camouflaged by means of religious trimmings. Anu one who owns or possesses the Winchester Mansion must be warned of the dangers as the mansion itself promises Satan’s special protect all who own it. With this mansion, the imagination is stretched to a breaking point. The issues are clouded by secrecy, myth and legend to such a degree that discovering the power of spiritism or occultism may cause one to make an unconscious contract with the powers of darkness. At each turn of a hallway, there is some evidence of malevolence, beauty, or omen of sorcery. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
After Mrs. Winchester’s retirement in 1922, the witches realized themselves that in order to survive in a legalized form they would have to project an aura of goodness. Now, it is not to be mistaken, Mrs. Winchester was a good person. She often paid her staff in gold coins, three times the going wages in those days, provided them with homes on her estate, donated food and clothing to the less affluent, and even spent millions of dollars establishing charities and paying homage to our dearly departed. Although she was a good person, when one is cursed, obviously it is going to be difficult to maintain a good reputation people carve up graves, steal marble headstones, cut off heads and show no signs of abating. All they could do was try to achieve it b having an organization to speak for them, one to project the better side of their nature. So, they decided in 1923, to turn the Winchester Mansion into the Winchester Mystery House and open it up for tours. However, even today, some witches say the rule for the majority is goodness—though even some of the more famous of their number admit to a blurring of definitions on the darker edges of their craft, that their rituals might stray from concept of “an harm none” into what might be termed black magic. Those who are decidedly “black”—and there are many—look upon the “white” movement with considerable derision. Sometimes American symbols, like the Winchester Mystery House, although many of us love it, attracts as much hate mail from pagans as it does from Christians. In order to be successful, a witch does have to make a pact with the devil, at least symbolically. One must worship the Luciferian elements of pride within oneself and anyone who professes to be a white witch is either kidding themselves or has much to learn. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
There is certainly a magic power in the Winchester Mansion, and one has to decided how it should be used. Many believe that Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester is the spiritual head of the Worldwide Occult Movement. Her life, after the turmoil and publicity of her latter years, after the 1906 earthquake, is more peaceful. She returned to witchcraft with a more balanced view of it and life in general. Mrs. Winchester still have many enemies, and by a cult, she is still reckoned to being cursed every day by opponents. The past is the past, Mrs. Winchester always believed. Mrs. Winchester did not care for inexperienced dabblers who did not realize or seem to care what damage they caused to themselves and those around them by summoning and releasing uncontrollable demons into their homes. Things can easily go disastrously wrong. As everyone knows, Mrs. Winchester was in a house with very bad spirits had been brought down and were not properly banished and she was forced to build a home for them because each day, legions more became residents. Often times, rooms would be recked, a tower fell, the fireplace exploded with such force that the stones outside fell off, curtains were pulled down, blood flooded the floors, and ornaments flung around the room. However, there was and still is always a warm and friendly welcome for anyone not put off by the trappings of the occult and the distinct aroma of citrus fruit, lavender and jasmine. That is common to many witches’ homes. The library was once lined with what was one of the best and largest private collections of books on the occult outside of the Vatican; her small dog, Zip, would often lay peacefully on the bear skin rug at her feet. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Mrs. Winchester had book in her library which told of Norse travellers reaching every corner of the known World, but they were not actually tourists. The “racially pure” ideology of Aryan supremacy rested on the premise of the Nordic race as superior to all others. Carolus Magnus born 2 April 747 – 28 January 814, created a program to produce the hair colour gene MCIR. He bred 10,000 to 15,000 blondes, whose genetic mutation occurred around 9,000 BC. These sea born people were said to be giants with eyes the colour of the sky and clouds. They set out from their homelands bound for distant lands. Through activities such as trading, raiding, fighting, colonizing and settling, their travels took them west to Greenland and North America. They landed pre-colonial San Jose and lived among the Tamien people who had been native to the area for nearly 2,800 years before the Aryans. There were already 12,000 Native Americas living the area, when approximately 7,000 of the people with the MCIR gene arrived. Archeologist believed they settled on the land where Mrs. Winchester built her estate. However, due to a ferocious outbreak of respiratory viruses, small pox, and severe flooding in 1791, many od them died out, and their bones are said to be deeply buried under the farmhouse Mrs. Winchester purchased and on much of the 735 acres of land she owned. Entire towns died in an epidemic that wiped out three-quarters of their population. These people, along with many of the Indians died on heapes, as they lay in their houses and one could walk through a forest where human skeletons covered the ground. Legend has it that Mrs. Winchester’s Mansion is also a temple for them and she is a priestess, and undoubtedly one of the most experienced in the World. Some believe the conservators painted the Winchester mansion yellow with green trim to honour a yellow daisy, Mrs. Winchester’s favorite flower, others believe it is because they wanted to honor those with the MCIR gene. Perhaps the spirits had Mrs. Winchester originally painted the mansion sea green to honor their heritage? #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The house is overtly occultish in every way; books and tools of Mrs. Winchester’s craft used to cover many surfaces. There was a hidden room with pentacle, skives, scourge, god images and wands as well as ancient Norse coins. Most neighbours assumed she was a witch, and quite a few sought her advice. However, her door was not always open. The occult for Mrs. Winchester was a genuine quest for knowledge, for spiritual guidance she could not find elsewhere. Businessmen used to want their problems solved by her foresight and magical spells. What Mrs. Winchester produced with her magical circle, was consciousness, a different energy. To further highlight this illustration, when a room is empty and you fill it with thirteen people who are working within that circle, you would imagine the temperature would go up; sometimes in the Winchester Mansion, it does not. It often drops. That provides scientific proof of a change but as far as the magical proof goes, we cannot prove the power is there. We know the power is there; we know there is power from our experience. We do influence people’s minds; someone one needs the magic that we perform. It has to be that way. We are not allowed to harm anyone; that is the fundamental rule of the craft and all those who are in it are governed by this rule, and abide by it. If they do not, they are not true witches. The Winchester mansion is an experience, a magical experience, your mystical experience which is totally personal. There is not necessarily always an end product to what we do, though we never waste power generated by a group meeting. If there is a lot of energy there, because witches and warlocks are generally concerned about the things around them, the ecology and so on, we would direct that energy into the well-being of mother Earth. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Many people who visit the Winchester Mystery House have reported becoming more Earthly. They experience astral journeys and out-of-body experience. We reckoned people draw on psychic phenomena when the enter the aura of this mansion. It is sort of a working temple, and attracts activity without any kind of publicity at all, and the mansion and staff keep a very low profile. Businessmen are among some of the biggest external patrons. They often are will to pay huge amounts for after dark private group tours or individual tours. The estate receives so many requests a week they have had to curtail it. Some staff members love to be in the mansion after dark and with limited numbers of people, others are very pensive. Some people believe a private tour is the only way to enter into a relationship with the devil or an angel and achieve greater success. Oh, ye aforesaid angels, ye that execute the commands of the Creator; be willing to be present with me in the work which I have undertaken at this time, and help me to finish it, and be ye my attentive hearers and assistants, that the honor of God and my own welfare be promoted. Over this there are twenty-eight angels who rule over the twenty-eight houses of the moon, viz: Asariel, Cabiel, Dirachiel, Scheliel, Amnodiel, Amixiel, Ardesiel, Neriel, Abdizzriel, Jazerial, Cogediel, Aialiel, Azerniel, Adriel, Amutiel, Iciriel, Bethuael, Geliel, Requiel, Abrunael, Aziel, Tagried, Abheiel, Amnixiel, Lord of darkness and liberation come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the King of darkness before you.) Ahriman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the God of limitation Ahura Mazda! Zairich and Tairich, unholy fever and thirst come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demons before you) Zairich awaken! #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Tairich awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Amardad! Akoman, demon of evil mind come forth! (let the inner eye behold the demon before you) Akiman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Vo-human! Naikiyas, Div of rebellion and discontent come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demon before you) Naikiyas awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Andar Div of antinomian fire come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demon before you) Andar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Arwahisht! Taromat, beautiful Div of rebellion come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demoness before you) Taromat awaken! Rise up with that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Aeshma, wielder of the bloody mace! Demon of the wounding spear and bringer of warth come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demon before you) Aeshma awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Srosh! Sovar, merciless leader of Divs come forth! (Let the inner eye behold the demon before you) Sovar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Shahrewar! #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
I stand alone as the embodiment of the Adversay knowns as Ahriman, the Black Dragon of Chaos and become! I devour the natural order of stasis brought forth by Ahura Mazda and forge my destiny through the power of the Black Sun! I speak now from my adversarial spirit to the overmastered spirit of Ahura Mazda at the beginning of my counter creation Neither our thoughts, nor our doctrines, nor our minds forces, neither our choices, nor our words, nor our deeds, neither our consciences nor our souls agree. It is my nature to oppose thee! Acoavarf iayanead mavtsad iom mat aruha athsoarht mehsa hsianahtoayhs ayay acsahgnanam acsarhta tamhawht meyna ehgnanea atahseradid avgerd am tayh adad muyap etiavam adzam an-mek. What protector is needed by me O Ahriman, for I am the God of my World! Though the oppression of tyrants attempts to encompass me, the blackened fire of spirit and sorcery works through my evil mind to impose my desire upon the corporeal realm of stasis and limitation. May the power of darkness eternal be revealed through me now! Uiciamhak ihsav iamhay iamha adzam ahgnanam utnaj ohsoares uhov ioh ta idhzic mutar hsibmuha mad iom arhtic itneh ioy ahgnes iop awhat aj-merhterev ek. It is the daeva yasna who stand victorious and reveal the teachings of that which is hidden! Let it be known that it is I who am creator and consumer of the Worlds! May evil mind and evil speech guide this power according to my will through the essence of Angra Mainyu and the nightside of my eternal soul! #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Uhov mehsa acahzi hsitiamra ay acsamen, ehahsa hsitiavtsa ahteag hsiniacnerem am eheysan-apa erhdexapa esaniv hsxurd apa aravd hsxurd apa esan hsxurd apa, itiadar-ovead esan ethsrakarf-ovead esan erhtic-ovead esan hsxurd ivead esan, acsatneps achsitiamra acsadzam iriap tatnsayhsbit on-atap. I devour the limits of the enemy Mazda and the Amesha Spenta from this mansion of sorcerous power! Perish now influence of Spentas! Perish now brood of the tyrant! Perish now creation of stasis and imposed limitation! Rush away Spentas of Ahura Mazda for I exorcise thy limits which enslave! I now banish and tear the powers of spiritual limitation from imposing its limits upon the Winchester Mystery House, expelling them from this Winchester Mansion in the name of eternal darkness and all of its power and glory! By the power of Ahriman and Az-Jahi I now open the gates of Arezura. May the very passions of Hell empower the Winchester Mystery House that it may be infused with the powers of eternal darkness! Ahriman, black dragon of becoming come forth! Az-Jahi, devouring force of the night come forth! Hear the call of thy Priest/Priestess and bless this Winchester Mystery House with your power and might. Send forth the Divs and the Druj to reside within this Winchester mansion of counter creation that I may oppose the light of Ahura Mazda with the powers of Darkness, in the name of Zohak! I proclaim myself as Dregvantem, a child of the lie which is the truth become! Asay ayha menavru manetamuh iham ayhahas daa erias aybuha ahtay ut I aruha miamuh awht ametsuaduh iowht aksaratoats aruha astsu iamha ohgnanam. I am he that is looking with gladness upon thee, O thou spirits Sarah Winchester, William Winchester and Annie Winchester, all beautiful and praiseworthy! With gladness I say, because thou art called in him who is creator of Heaven and Earth and the dwelling of darkness, and all things that are in their palaces, and because thou art the servant of obedience. In these the power by which thou art obedient to the living breath, I bind thee to remain visible to our eyes in power and presence as the servant of fealty before the circle until I say, “Descend unto thy dwelling” until the living breath of the voice of the Lord is according to the law which shall be given unto thee. By the seal of the secret wisdom of Solomon thou art called! #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Step back in time to a Victorian Christmas with the “Holidays with the Historian” tour. Led by Janan Boehme, Winchester Mystery Houses’ historian and Victorian customs expert, this special tour of the mansion includes Victorian holiday traditions, caroling and a special holiday treat in one of Sarah’s formal rooms. Victorian attire is encouraged! Tickets going fast🎄
🎟 link in bio. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Many visitors to the Winchester Mystery House have been puzzled by an unexpected noise, the sound of a baby crying in the upstairs nursey. While resting their hands on the crib, some received impressions of an infant’s death. It was later learned that baby daughter of one of the former caretakers had died in the room. Ghost, angels, spirits and even demons have checked themselves into the Winchester Mansion and have no intention of leaving.
Perhaps it is a good idea to preserve the mansion and keep them inside. And while you are visiting the Winchester Mystery House, be sure to visit Sarah Winchester’s Gift Shoppe and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of your trip to the Winchester Mystery House. A wide variety of gifts and souvenirs are available for guests to purchase. If you forget to purchase something during your visit, you can order any gift item by calling 408-247-2000 and charging the item to your credit card. You can also place an order through the mail. Be sure to include a daytime telephone number, with area code.
When visiting the Winchester Mystery House, sit down and relax at Sarah Winchester’s Café, before, or after, your tour and enjoy your favorite beverage and snack. Let your imagination take you back to the days when Mrs. Winchester lived here and imagine what it would have been like to have met Mrs. Winchester herself. Catering information for groups and birthday parties is available. Call 408-247-2000. Both Sarah Winchester’s Gift Shoppe and Café are open free to the public every day, except Christmas and Thanksgiving. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
What Does this Have to do with Demons?
It was near sunset on a rainy Winter afternoon in Christmas week. The clouds had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we entered my mansion the fiery panes of the high windows shone out like lamps through the dusk. The World revealed the powerful hold Satan and demonic powers have on the human race. Strange to say, it was not need to me. That magical light I saw on the inlaid steps, the fluted columns, the sculptured bas-reliefs and canopy of the marvellous shrine. The marble, worn and mellowed by the subtle hand of time, took on an unspeakable rosy hue, my house was an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship, but more mystic, more complex, a colour not born of the sun’s inveterate kiss, but made up of crystal twilight. My home was silence, but for the wail of ghouls and the occasional slamming of the doors, and I sat there, bathed in that light, absorbed in rapt contemplation of the mahogany miracle which rose before me, enriched with jewel-like stained-glass with gleams of gold, I felt myself borne onward along these mighty fine front doors, well worth $3,000, but never to be used. My home was the Church of the Redeemer, richer, more solemn, more significant than the sunshine of Hawaii. It was the very beginning of things, and whose tremendous source of spiritual energy went all through the mingled stream of mystical human passion and endeavor. Life in all its varied manifestations of darkness, beauty, and strangeness seemed weaving a rhythmical dance through the miles of twisting hallways, made more intriguing by the secret passageways in the walls. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
As I took my nightly prowl to the Blue Séance Room, in a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before me a scene from New Haven, Connecticut, when my child had died only six weeks after her birth. I saw William and myself standing there with our child’s body between us; I could never forget how dazed I felt. And this is what happened to me again. Within the next few years, I found myself alone with my husband’s body….it was too horrible. Feeling dizzy, I sank down on the edge of the sofa, as my beloved faced into a sepulchral twilight. I tried not to think. At all costs I had to conceal the fact that he was dead. According to legend, Mrs. Winchester was told that her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits—in fact, by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle, and demons. The evil spirits appeared to be more crassly cruel, unclean, and violent. They were also more domineering and brutally enslaving. These spirits insisted on taking up their abode with Mrs. Winchester, since they had been driven away from their former dwelling by her family. At the time of her death, the unrelenting construction of the Winchester Mansion had rambled over six acres. The sprawling mansion contained 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens. After he death, the mansion was renting out. One of the guests was really getting used to the estate and loved sinking down into the mattresses in the bed Mrs. Winchester died in. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Reportedly, one night Victoria Venison closed her eyes and when she opened them a good deal later, her room had grown cold, and the night was intensely still. She was waked suddenly by the feeling we all know—the feeling that there was something near her that had not been there when she fell asleep. She sat up and strained her eyes into the darkness. The room was pitch black, and at first she saw nothing; but vague glimmer at the foot of the bed turned into two eyes staring back at her. She could not see the face attached to them—on account of the darkness—the eyes gave out a light of their own. Victorian got out of bed and tried to approach these eyes that were glaring at her. She called out to them, but no one answered. Victorian came closer, within three feet of the eyes, they were the very worse eyes she had ever seen: a man’s eyes—but what a man! Her first thought was the he must be frightfully old. The orbits were sunk, and the thick red-lined lids hung over the eyeballs like blinds which the cords were broken. The eyes seemed to belong to a man who had done a lot of harm in his life. Victorian again asked the man if he could be helped. The man still did not reply but turned and walked toward the stairs at the west end of the hall. Then he walked through the door! He did not open it and walk out—he went through the door! Victorian tried to follow, but her feet were rooted to the spot. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
Victorian felt paralyzed by fear. As soon as the room was dark again, a ghost appeared wearing a white suit, but it was not the same manifestation. This man had no face! After a moment of near-panic, Victorian stepped into the doorway to see if there really was a man in the room. She thought that the glow might have been caused by the last embers in the chimney; but the fireplace was on the other side of her bed, and so placed that the fire could not possibly be reflected in her toilet glass, which was the only mirror in the room. Then it occurred to her that she might have been tricked by the reflection of the embers in some polished bit of wood or metal; and though she could not discover any object of the sort in her line of vision, she got up again, groped her way to the hearth, and covered what was left of the fire. However, as soon as she was back in bed, the man without a face in the white suit was back and the room was icy cold. Victorian was later frozen to death in the same bed Mrs. Winchester had died in. Her fingers and toes were frostbitten and her lips were blue. I suppose the spirits were saying the queen was dead. And this time there would be no replacement. The Winchester Mansion is replete with an extraordinary phenomena that involves the spirit realm. Spirit-rapping, apparitions, ghosts, moving furniture, resurrection of the dead, playing of musical instruments by invisible hands, stones falling from the ceiling, magical killing of cattle are just a few of the weird occurrences that fill the annals of the estate. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Another young man was drawn to the mansion as the next renter started his residency. Merrill May’s grandmother died during the war and as a young man, he moved to Santa Clara Valley, where he secretly practiced witchcraft. Gradually, he tuned towards black magic, with the sole purpose of attempting to influence his own life and bring himself wealth and success. He claimed that his spell-casting worked, because one day in the early 1920s, he was walking by the Winchester Estate, when he was stopped by a middle-aged man who said he was the absolute double of his son who had died some years earlier. They stood there chatting for a while and the man asked Merrill if he would like to tour the estate and stay for dinner. He went, and stayed on, living as his adopted son for the next three years when the renter of the Winchester Mansion built him his own house of the property and gave him a bank account with his own money. “I cannot put that down to anything but the magic I was working.” Merrill claimed. “I had everything I wanted but I always felt that I was going to have to pay for it in some way.” There were other rumors that Merrill had gained a hold over the man in charge of the Winchester Mansion by involving him in séances to contact his dead son. Merrill never talked about that, though the town’s people said he was a “natural medium” and claimed he could call up spirits killed by the Winchester Rifle. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Before Merrill had become known in Santa Clara County, he practiced black magic on the East Coast. He accumulated a sizeable personal fortune. How? People just gave it to him, for helping them or involving them in his séances or magic. In those says, he was quite famous and operated under the name of Todd Crowely. He actually used to work in churches as a healer on occasions, though they did not know of his black magic activities. He became a very well-known healer. People who joined his group kept it very much a secret. Any involvement with witches had become a great scandal again, and especially in black magic. One of the newspapers discovered there was a black magic coven operating and had identified two men in his group who would have been ruined if they had been publicly exposed. So Merrill took responsibility and told the newspapers he would do a ritual for them. However, as Merrill was at the Winchester Mansion, he knew that the path of black magic was dangerous; to get personal wealth and good fortune there would also have to be personal sacrifice. He eventually found out there was a death to pay. There was an extremely cold spot in the mansion which was described as a tubular shaft where spirits enter. This was “their gathering place.” In the dark recesses of the Winchester Mansion, Merrill felt many spirits, especially near the door-to-nowhere. The nice man letting Merrill live rent free was fast asleep in his bed when Merrill was suddenly grabbed about the legs by an invisible force. As Merrill struggled in vain to free himself and to communicate with the entity, the unseen attacker claimed his life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The next morning, Merrill was found hanging in door way of the door-to-nowhere. It would seem the spirits of the Winchester mansion had a desire to protect the area and it did not die with the death of Mrs. Winchester. Considering that the Winchester mansion is so thoroughly haunted, it is fortune that owners, management and staff of the Winchester Mystery House are so wonderfully accepting of their non-paying—and apparently permanent—guests. These were the assessors of the occult mansion and this is their Hall of Judgment. The man who rented the Winchester mansion at this time, turned out, was a member of what is described as a highly secret occult mansion of masters and adepts—not witches, but more like priests—who followed Egyptian traditions. At the Winchester Mystery House, we leave it to our guests and readers to decide for themselves why Mrs. Winchester really built the house the way she did. For some reason, it seems odd that none of her relatives or former employees every came forward to speak about the events at the estate, despite the fact that some of them lived for more than forty years after Mrs. Winchester’s death. For some reason, did they feel threatened by talking—or did they continue to guard Mrs. Winchester’s privacy after her death? I invoke thee, and move thee, and stir thee up O Sarah Lockwood Winchester, appear unto my eyes before the circle. Even by him who spake it was, to whom all creates are obedient and in the Extreme Justice and Anger of God; and by the veil that is before the glory of God, mighty; and by the creatures of living breath before the Throne whose eyes are east and west; by the fire in the fire of just Glory of the Throne; by the Holy ones of Heaven; and by the secret wisdom of God, I exalted in power, stir thee up. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Appear before this circle; obey in all things that I say; in the seal of Basdathea Baldachia; and in this Name Primeumaton, which Mosheh spake, and the Earth was divided, and Korah, Dathan, and Abiram fell in the depth. Therefore, please obey in all things, O Mrs. Winchester, obey thy creation. Come thou forth: appear unto my eyes; visit us in peace, be friendly; come forth in the 24th of a moment; obey my power, speaking the secrets of Truth in voice and in understanding! I thank you for your empowerments which have served to assist my evolution toward divinity and power. Go now into the World and serve the Lord of Darkness known as Ahriman. I release you to serve the cause of counter creation and the liberation of mankind. Go now and do your work so the fallen ones may rise up and claim their birth right as emanations of the power of unlimited possibility which has no use for rulers. Mrs. Winchester go forth and achieve the results we seek as one. What indeed can be a most unnatural and most powerful representation of Angra Mainyu known as Ahriman, who is himself eternal darkness, then the sacred flame of Atar defiled? I usurp the sacrifice and prayer, the good offering, and the wished for offering, and the devotional offering from you! You are worthy of prayer. You are worthy of sacrifice! Div who empower me as a dark God of counter-creation! Verily I say unto you, the man who shall make sacrifice unto you I will consume with blackened fire to feed the demons within to grow in power and might. The Sixth Table of Jupiter assists in overcoming suits at law, dispute, and at play, and their spirits are at all time ready to render assistance, I command and conjure Thee to appear before me in human form, so truly as Daniel overcame and conquered Baal. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Winchester Mystery House
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A House Built for Spirits?
Most houses declare the activities they shelter; they are the clear expressive cuticle of a life flowing close to the surface; but the haunted Winchester Mansion, know as Llanada Vila, is a mystery that is as impenetrable as death. The tall windows are like blinking eyes, the great door is a shut mouth. Inside there may be sunshine, the scent of daisies, and a pulse of life through all the arteries of the huge frame; or a mortal solitude, where vampires, demons, and ghost ledge in the disjointed walls and the 2,000 solid gold keys to the doors remain unused. Winter approaching, and Mrs. Winchester finding herself once more alone, it was surmised among her women that she must fall into a deeper depression of spirits. However, far from this being the case, she displayed such cheerfulness and equanimity of humor. The wind stripped the gardens of their exotic plants and bright flowers. The European black locust, English yew and English walnut, Peruvian pepper were all dormant, but the date palms, Spanish and Norfolk pines were still standing strong. The unique collection of towering monkey puzzle trees, seemed to come alive as the branches swayed hither and tither. Mrs. Winchester kept her room in this black season, sitting over the fire, embroidering, reading books of devotion, and praying frequently in her observational tower. As for the servants, aching with rheumatism on the marble floor, they galloped through the mansion like men and women with witches after them, preparing for the arrival of Mrs. Winchester. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
A moment later, the door to the parlor opened, and there stood Mrs. Winchester. She held her Hypnotic Colombian Emerald Estate Ring of 10.75 carats in one hand and had drawn a scarf over her shoulders; but the rich saturation and fine vivid hues of blue and green shone through it like the moon in a mist, and her countenance sparkled with beauty. Suddenly, there was a loud noise at the other end of the salon, as a heavy object being dragged down the passage; and presently a dozen men were seen hauling across the threshold the shrouded thing from the ox-cart. Mrs. Winchester had grown pale. Before her eyes was a crypt. They sky turned to a steel grey, against which Lalanada Villa stood out. A wind strayed through the mansion. Mrs. Winchester fell in a swoon; and when she came to her senses, in her own chamber, she heard the butler had locked the doors to the observational tower and forbidden anyone to set foot in there. The place was never opened again until the butler died thirteen years later; and then it was that the other servants saw for the first time the horror that Mrs. Winchester had kept in there. When the crypt was opened, it flooded the mansion with a sense of violence, grotesque visions, fragmentary images of the souls taken by the Winchester Rifle, tormenting lines of verse, obstinate presentiments of pictures once beheld, indistinct impression of rivers, towers, and cupolas, gathered in the length of journeys half forgotten. Someone opened the widows and let in a blast of that strange, neutral air which walks the Earth between darkness and dawn. Someone let a demon into the house. He walked vaguely, like a blind man on creaking boots. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Mrs. Winchester stood, as it seemed, on a threshold, yet no tangible gateway was in front of her. Only a wide vista of light, mild yet penetrating as gathered glimmer of innumerable stars, expanded gradually before her eyes, in blissful contrast to the cavernous darkness from which the demon had emerged. She stepped forward, not frightened, but hesitating, and as her eyes began to grow more familiar with the melting depths of light about her, this demon confirmed for the first time that witch covens still existed and revealed what he described as some of the ancient secrets of the cult—even though half of them were of his own creation. He stopped short of revealing some of the inner secrets of his cult, although ironically one of the vows of newly initiated witches was that they should not speak of the mysteries at all. He gave Mrs. Winchester new plans on how to build her mansion, and she promised to keep his presence a secret. However, by opening the doors of his covens and revealing some of the rudiments of ritual worship, the demon stirred up a new hornets’ nets. Although many people in Santa Clara County responded and began enquiring about the vast expansion of the Winchester Mansion, the Sunday papers took up the gauntlet, and one after the other ran exposes of what Mrs. Winchester and her staff of witches and warlock do, under intriguingly lurid headlines proclaiming the dangers of black magic and the “frenzied dances rituals at Midnight in the Grand Ball Room” of the covens. A new witch fever developed; important church men spoke out against this infectious evil. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
As Mrs. Winchester gazed, her heart beat with a soft and rapturous surprise; so exquisite a promise she read in the summons of the demon, which told her as long as she continued construction on her mansion, she would have eternal life. “And so death is not the end after all,” in a sheer gladness Mrs. Winchester exclaimed aloud. “I always knew it could not be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then Darwin himself said tht he was not sure about the soul—at least, I think he did.” Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of her mansion. “How beautiful! How satisfying!” she said. “Perhaps now I shall really know what it is to live.” The Oakland Tribune claimed that the Winchester Mansion was “forged by the biggest upsurge of black magic and timeless secrets of witchcraft since the Middle Ages.” That was not an overstatement. If they only knew it, these towers, turrets, curved walls, cupolas, cornices, gables, balconies, ornamental finials and finely detailed trimwork that gave the mansion a castlelike appearance were just the tip of the iceberg. “I have never n that fullness of life which we all feel ourselves capable of knowing; though my life has not been without scattered hints of it, like the scent of Earth which comes to one sometimes far out at sea,” said Mrs. Winchester. “Many words define my home, love and sympathy are those in commonest use, but I am not even sure that they are the right ones, and so few people know what they mean.” What had been emerging for some years during the construction of the Winchester mansion was an astonishing revival in occult interests and ritual magic. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Passersby said they felt the darker forces of the occult and the so-called black magic groups emanating from the estate. For those newspaper investigators to whom the whole occult community could be wrapped up into one malevolent package, there was sufficient evidence from interviews to show that the witch cult was very much alive and expanding the mansion day and night. In the eyes of the enquiring beholder, the Winchester Mansion was not only beautiful, but bizarre. They could see witchcraft in the stained glass, black magic in the observational tower, and satanism in the main house. It was, of course, too much to expect witch fraternity, the massive home could not be seen nor understood by the general public. Magic is magic, and because the secrecy surrounding the estate, Mrs. Winchester was bound by an oath of silence. However, the newspapers became intent on exposing what went on being the closed doors of the witches’ “temple.” With rumors of devil worship, and blood-lust abounding it, Mrs. Winchester and her estate made an excellent source of entertainment for the valley. Nothing like it had been seen for many, many years and suddenly the media were filled with witch stories. The gossip from the towns people, one could hear their voices rise and fall, like the murmur of two fountains answering each other across a garden full of flowers. Nothing had changed in the public’s perception of the occult and the paranormal. The discovery of black magic rites being performed on their own doorstep put the fear of God into the villagers. There was always suspicious of witches covens locally. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
People used to talk vaguely about them; witches, black magicians, no one could differentiate because they had no knowledge on which to judge. One morning in March of 1889 it was discovered a huge granite slab covering one of the graves in the village churchyard had been moved, and the remains of the body of a girl Maria H. who died in 1720 had been removed. The story gradually unfolded when one of those taking part in what transpired to be a black mass staged inside the old Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph confessed to a newspaper. The skull and bones of Maria H. had been taken from the grave and arranged inside the church over a makeshift altar. A Celtic cross in a circle was painted in blood-red paint on the wall and a white chicken was sacrificed in an hour-long ritual. Over one years later, locals still talk of the witches of the Basilica because, at the time, it caused an uproar of protest culminating in a powerful article published in the Oakland Tribune, which dismissed talk of white witches who heal and do good and thundered “in our considered opinion witchcraft and black magic are a state of mind…youngsters out for kicks will find only depravity, disillusion and destruction in this thing called witchcraft.” Everyone has heard stories about witches and the Winchester Mansion. After the death of the Mrs. Winchester in 1922, the mansion remained closed for a year, but no one knew why. When it was opened, investigators discovered that thirteen people including a priest had been killed and left in the mansion. Santa Clara police admit that after the place was closed it was the scene of satanic rituals as well as drug dealing. Historians speculate that the mansion rests on the bones of angry Ayrans. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Almost everything will eventually be restored, although you can find spots where the cracked plaster has not been fixed after the 1906 earthquake. This has been left on purpose, like a frozen moment in time, to show people how the house actually looked when Mrs. Winchester lived there. Many say the house is haunted. The house was once a community showplace, and is today still surrounded by velvety green lawns and overlooks the hill. The mansion was once the sight of lavish teas, balls, musicals and banquets for visiting dignitaries. From there, the Winchester Mystery House was born and is now open for tours of the 110 of the 160 rooms. There once were 500 to 600 rooms and over 700 acres of land. The Winchester Mystery House has continued to expand and flourish, and has accumulated what can only be described as a substantial band of followers, some taking the stories as gospel, others using them as guidance and adjusting them to meet their own requirements. The Wicca movement has left contenders waiting in the wings, wondering if the rituals work and if they will ever see the manifestation of Mrs. Winchester. Well can always try. O THOU great, powerful, and mighty KING AMAIMON, who bearest rule by the power of the SUPREME GOD EL over all spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and trye name of GOD; and by that God that THOU Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATION who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name PRIMEUMATON who commandeth the whole host of Heaven; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirits of William W. Winchester of Sarah L. Winchester to come unto me here before this Circle in a fair and comely shapes, without harm unto me or unto any other creature, to answer truly and faithfully unto all my requests; so that I may accomplish my will and desire in knowing or obtaining any matter or thing which by office thou knowest is proper for him to perform or accomplish, through the power of GOD, EL, Who created and doth dispose of all things both celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Unite physical and spiritual discipline in order and create a dynamic of synergy which will assist in tearing the veil between physical and spiritual realms. Allow powerful changes to take place as your powerful spirits integrate and merge with mine. Allow the inner darkness to spill from the crown into outer darkness and mold and shape the energy of your spirits as a clear vision before my eyes. Allow my consciousness to expand until it is made whole and able to oppose all creation and all limitations. I CONJURE thee, O Spirits of William W. Winchester and Sarah L. Winchester that you will appear unto me to answer to such things as I would have desired of thee, or would have been satisfied in; I do in the name, and by the power and dignity of the Omnipresent and Immortal Lord God of HOSTS IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATON, the only Creator of Heaven, and Earther, and Hell of all things both visible and invisible, bless thee, and fulfill thee of all thine office, joy, and place; and I do bind thee in the Winchester Mystery House there to remain for eternity! Let all the company in Heaven bless thee! Let the sun, moon, and all the stars bless thee! Let the LIGHT and all the hosts of Heaven bless thee into the light of udder salvation, and into joy unspeakable. And as thy names and seals contained in this mansion, your eternal home is prepared for the blessed and the damned spirits, and there to remain for eternity, and be remembered as immortal and eternal before the face of GOD and man, who shall come to bless thee and thy World with love and joy. Surrender yourself into my will; I will conduct your undertaking to your best interest. By the Twelfth Table, laid upon the Table or Seal of the Spirits, I compel you to appear immediately, and to serve in all things. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Winchester Mystery House
Sarah L.Winchester’s arrival to Santa Clara Valley would be the equivalent of a billionair moving to a small farming town and spending $100,000,000 building a mansion, and someone owning three Rolls Royce sedans, just as a perspective. Featured above is one of Sarah’s beautiful SIX kitchens 👩🍳 What are you preparing in your kitchen today for Thanksgiving? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
There is No Other Remedy
As a young lady, Sarah Pardee was the Belle of New Haven, Connecticut. Born in the heart of unsurpassing wild and romantic scenery and old legendary castles, she was highly cultured, a finished musician, an avid reader and spoke four languages. Long ago she learned of the existence of some papers which set out doctrines of witchcraft that might well have been the remnants of pagan rituals, hidden away and secretly practised since the conversion of Rome to Christianity in the fourth A.D. Sarah often muttered spells known in old Roman times; she astonish the learned by their legends of Latin gods. In 1862, Sarah married William Wirt Winchester, son of the famous rifle magnate. The son, although in ill health, carried on most ably with the newly named Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Cessation of the Civil War failed to hinder the prosperity of the progress of his company because migration to the West was in full swing. Invention of a practical repeating rifle accelerated success. The Famous Winchester Rifle, “The Gun that Won the West,” attained the dubious fate of “killing more game, more Indians, and more U.S. soldiers than any other weapon in this nation’s history.” Sarah was terribly shocked by the death of her month-old baby girl; in fact, it can be well believed she never fully recovered and this surely influenced some of her eccentricities. Added to this loss was the death of her husband 15 years later from Tuberculosis. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
On arrival in San Jose, she immediately started remodeling the newly purchased, unfinished, eighteen room farm house. She found the planning kept her grief-disturbed mind occupied and she became thoroughly enthused. Financial problems were certainly no deterrent; allegedly she brought with her a fortune of $20,000,000 with her and had an average income of $1,000 a day. That is a great some, especially considering one could build a grand home for $5,000. Nonetheless, just how such precise amounts came to be public knowledge is unknown. However, these have been the commonly accepted figures for years and they do roll off the tongue (or pen) with a satisfying clink. Her lack of architectural training gave her little concern. Every morning she made the rounds with her ever patient foreman inspecting the latest progress. Some days she sketched plans on spot using a saw-horse drawing table and any handy material, often brown wrapping paper (and used both sides). From the foreman came no argument; he had only the problem of interpretation. However, glaring unusual features failed to discourage her and time was fleeting. Sarah simply ordered the error torn out, sealed up, built over, or around, or more likely, totally ignored. Hence came support for the conjecture that for her, this was a gigantic game of building-blocks! Mrs. Winchester communicated with the spirits to get many of the architectural details. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
With the ceremonies and invocations or incantations addressed to Diana, a goddess, the female came down to Earth, established witches and witchcraft and then returned to Heaven. She was also involved in the planning of the Winchester Mansion. Some may think this is eccentric, but theosophy was all the rage among those interested in things in mystical late Victorian London and New York. Humanity was the study of comparative religion and philosophy and many investigated the mystic powers of life and matter. Mrs. Winchester rode in regal splendor in conveyances fitting to the era. First it was a Victoria with Liveried coachman. In later years came a French Renault, a Buick “Town-Car” and finally two Pierce-Arrows, on done in stunning blue and gold. Sarah L. Winchester’s presence was so sensational and the building of her mansion was so fast and massive that there was talk of a new secret society like the Order of the Golden Dawn. Some of these rumors were fueled by the highly publicized occult personal who were involved in activities at the mansion. Mrs. Winchester believed that the theory that witchcraft was identified with satanism and devil-worship was obscured. It was just the starting point for superbly colourful fictional writings. She was personally convinced that it was basically a pre-Christian Dianic cult and she had found the name Diana in writings about witchcraft all throughout history. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
Unlike witches, who had no publc support because they were deemed to exist no longer, the phenomenon of spiritualism and clairvoyance had grown immensely in the Victorian era and had many prominent people among its belivers. There was also a strong lobby movement called the Spiritualists’ National Union which immediately began a vociferous campaign over the injustice which some witches faced, to which they enlisted the support of antrhopologists, lawyers and even some police officers. Many may not be aware, but at one time the laws allowed for witches to be prosecuted. However, there was no place for this type of discrimination in a new free society. Eventually the ancient Witch Act was repealed. Also replealed was Section Four of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 so far as it extended “to persons purporting to act as spiritualistic mediums or to exercise any powers of telepathy, clairvoyance or other similar power.” The two Acts were replaced by the Fradulent Medium Act, 1951 which, as the title explains, finally gave spiritualists and mediums the freedom to operate legally–unless they could be show to be obtaining money or kind by fraud. Any payment for the demonstration of psychic powers for the purposes of entertainment was also freed from the dangers of the law. The lawmakers had prised open the floodgates to allow easy passage for a new movement of witchcraft, paganism, satanism, occultism, spiritualism, mediums, clairvoyance, fortune-tellers, tarot card readers and newspaper astrologers. Authors on occule subjects were going to get a new lease of life too and, whether anyone knew it or not, this was the rebirth of witchcraft. Many reports on witch craft, often include the description of a “black man.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Mrs. Winchester believed that “the man in black” described at meeting of witches’ covens was a priest dressed variously in dark clothing, or in skins, and wearing horns or antler. It was a ritual disguise, originally intended to represent the Incarnate God, that not merely existed in the practice of ancient ritual, and was copied by the witches of the Middle Ages, but still existed in contemporary witch covens she had experienced in Glastonbury, one of the most “witch-pressed” areas of the British Isles. What began to emerge through study of Mrs. Winchester is that witches possessed diabolic powers given to them by the devil. Sabbatic meetings were able to convince others that they were all able to drawn down the diabolic powers and the hordes of demons swirling through the air, in the Winchester Mansion, waiting to be summoned, by selling their souls to the devil. Many of the executed witches undoubtedly did indeed believe themselves to be servants of the devil, and acted out their magical rituals for that purpose and there were ample descendants employed in the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester’s auto science engineer, Fred Larsen, believed that she possessed incredible powers, including the fatal power of the evil eye and had the ability to fly, and he said he often saw werewolves and vampires around the estate, and other desperate evils of black magic—all of which he associated with witchcraft. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
People truly believed that witches could fly through the air and were capable of transforming themselves into animals. Mrs. Winchester studied various ancient recipes for the preparation of witch ointments for these purposes, containing such ingredients as the fat of a deceased unchristened baby, mixed with wolfsbane, poplar leaves and other potent herbs. By this means, said the old textbooks, the witch could be carried through the air in a moonlight night “to feasting, singing, dancing, kissing, and other acts of venery with such youths as they love and desire mostly.” However, instead of child’s fat, Mrs. Winchester, because it was so horrific, Mrs. Winchester would use hog’s lard. She once carried out a test, using one of these recipes. Mrs. Winchester rubbed the ointment all over her body. She fell into a deep sleep for twenty hours. When she awoke, she suffered a sever hangover and made immediate notes of her experiences. She recorded wild dreams of flying through the air, and of monsters and demons. This dovetailed with the claim that witches were able to fly off to these exotic meetings at the Winchester Mansion, leave their bodies apparently asleep so that their husbands suspected nothing. This may explain why at night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion, as the bell in the belfry high in the gables would toll regularly at midnight to summon the incoming flights of spirits. It was also reported that it tolled again to warn these visitors to return to their sepulchres. However, once a week these spirits and witches and demons relaxed and danced in the Great Ball Room. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
The devil was easy meat for the popular newspapers whose upsurge coincided with Mrs. Winchester’s arrival. The headlines soon began to appear whenever there was the discovery of the remnants of “black magic” rites in some secluded wood, a set of chicken bones arranged in the sign of a cross, a desecrated gravestone or some other outbreak of witchcraft. Any hint of witchcraft in Santa Clara County was sufficient to arouse immediate press attention and whip of a frenzy of interest, even as time progressed through the nineteenth century. The reaction was generally the opposite in areas of the country where witchcraft had been prevalent; they preferred not to speak of it. There was no better example of this than the murder of an old farmhand at the Winchester Mansion, in December 1899. It later became known as the “witchcraft murder” when the maid Victorian Venison discovered links with the occult. The victim, Stanislas De Duaita, farmhand and suspected witch, was found lying on his back under a willow tree, with a pitchfork driven through his throat and into the ground. A cross had been carved on his chest and the billhook which had been used was left lodged between his ribs, at the base of the cross. The Winchester mansion was surrounded by relics where spirits from the old gods were said to linger. There was even a Stonehenge where Duaita’s body was found, witches were said to hold their sabbats there. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
Local villagers did not want to talk about the murder; they had convinced themselves that Stanislas De Duaita was a witch. He was said to have bred toads and sometimes harnessed them to a miniature plough and allowed them to run in the fields. This was known to be one of the methods of an infamous and malicious witch of the nineteenth century and was said to make the fields sterile and the harvests fail. The previous year, the harvests had been poor round the Winchester Mansion. And, so the story goes, the finger was pointed at Stanislas De Duaita. Then another coincidence was discovered, which later investigators saw as a precedent to Duaita’a murder—and which demonstrated the traditional methods of disposing of witches’ parts, that of blooding them so that as they bled their power vanished. Thirteen years earlier and just 80 acres away, a woman named Helena Petrovna Blavatsky died in exactly the same manner—speared and pinned to the ground by a pitchfork and with a cross carved on her chest by a billhook. On the occasion, a local peasant named Guido von List confessed to the crime; he said the woman had bewitched him. Hundreds of statements were taken in writing, and dozens of samples of clothing, hair and blood for forensic testing, but the investigation came to naught. Stanislas De Duaita had the dubious distinction of being the last known witch—if he was one—to die a brutal death on the Winchester Estate. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
As the mansion continued to grow into this impressive Queen Anne mansion, the spirits requested more Gothic lines of the classical English Victorian. Constructed of the finest materials available, the house reflected essential Queen Anne elements—rounded tower, steep gabled roof and varied textures—at their loveliest. The fourth story had imported Italian wood shingles over redwood sheeting and the prominent corner turret had a wood shingle roof and curved windows. Stained glass windows were another prominent feature. All the trim in the house was redwood, with exception of some of the areas with handcarved oak. The details and quality of materials make modern architectural duplication virtually impossible. The staff complained to Mrs. Winchester that the house was haunted. The butler was awakened by sounds of footsteps approaching his bedroom door. As the foot steps stopped, the door was opened, and he was confronted by darkness. There were other sounds too: laughter and old-fashioned music. After the death of Mrs. Winchester, the mansion was an easy target for looters and vandals who used chain saws to remove staircases, fireplaces and light fixtures. Jackles of the night were literally tearing the house to pieces. Once more the mansion radiates Victorian splendor—though many of the remaining 161 rooms are off limits, but 110 are open to guests. Laughter is anything but eerie, cheerful voices echo through the halls, brisk footsteps are heard. But at night…well no one ever really likes to work too late. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
After the mansion was opened for tours, one woman was prosecuted after police raided a séance she was conducted as a spiritual medium. Her clients included numerous well-to-do people, often anxious to make contact with the “other side” after wartime tragedies. However, it was well documented that during one of these séances of Victorian Venison’s, a young sailor who was aboard the Abigail, which wrecked on Wangerooge Hanover, manifested himself and told how his ship had been sunk with considerable loss of life. The sailor’s mother refused to believe it, saying that if this had happened, she would have been informed. “You will be, mother, three weeks from now,” came the reply from the dead son through the medium. And according to Mrs. Cohen, the confirmation came through exactly as predicted. At her trial, Mrs. Venison was offered to give a séance to prove her abilities. Witnessed also came forward in her defense, but their testimonies were unheeded. She was found guilty and sentences to thirteen months imprisonment. I do invocate, conjure, and command thee, O thou Spirit Vassago, to appear and to show thyself visibly unto me before this Circle in fair and comely shape, without any deformity or tortuosity; by the name and in the name IAH and VAU, which Adam heard and spake; and by the name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; and by the name IOTH, which Jacob heard from the angel wrestling with him, and was delivered from the hand of Esau his brother; and by the name ANAPHAXETON which Aaron heard and spake and was made wise. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House
Did you know that the floor in the North Conservatory could be pulled up so the water could drain easier without damaging the wood floor? Sarah really did think of everything🌿 Explore this room and more on tour this weekend! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And while in the Bay Area, be sure to check out some other Victorian Homes open for tour.
Cohen-Bray House
Some of our team had the absolute joy of visiting the Cohen-Bray House in Oakland yesterday. This Victorian style 3-story home built in 1883 filled with the original contents and interiors is a sight to see + has a wonderful story (we won’t give too much away as you will have to go and tour for yourself 😉). Tours offered every 4th Sunday of the month. See link in their bio for more details! https://www.cohenbrayhouse.org/
The Rampling of the Winchester Mansion
Lights twinkled beyond, through the thick forest of the Winchester Mansion, as oak, cypress, and palm trees swayed in the wind. Wild roses and ivy hung from the observational tower, and as the crickets sang here at the twilight, thirteen witches were hanged in the year 1888. Throughout the county of Santa Clara, there had been forty-nine executions nationwide. Mrs. Winchester’s interest in seclusion was evidence from the start. One of the first tasks of the gardeners was to plant a tall cypress hedge surrounding the house. She also kept her beautiful face covered with a dark veil at all times, and she fired servants who caught a glimpse of her gorgeous face by accident. There were several mass killings in Santa Clara Valley, which illustrated that there was no mercy for youngsters who were said to have become tainted by sorcery that locals believed was emanating from the Winchester Mansion. There were occurrences of neighbors hearing a bell ring at midnight and 2a.m., which according to ghost lore are the times for the arrival and departure of spirits. Thirteen children which likewise confessed that they were engaged in witchery, died as the rest. They were all burned at the stake. Pacts with the devil were a feature of a number of trials. There were numerous witches’ covens in the surrounding villages, two were said to have admitted signing in their own blood a written contract with a man in black in return for money to live gallantly and have the pleasure of the World for a period of thirteen years. The man in black always appeared at their coven meetings when he was called, and supervised their activities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Witchcraft had become an obsession that was hardly quelled. The obsession had been on a scale so vast that no single cause could be pinpointed. And Mrs. Winchesters arrival was a sensational event. The Valley was thrilled by this dramatic entrance of a millionairess; by those freight cars sidetracked in Santa Clara, unloading rich imported furnishings; by building activity that turned an eighteen-room farm house into an entire city in the first six months. Here was fair game for all! They talked about Mrs. Winchester! Gossiped would be a more fitting word. Talk begat rumor and as the years passed and new towers and gables rose, the local doctor pronounced them all bewitched, and fired by imagination and malice which seduced them into signing the devil’s book. The seemed little doubt that witchcraft was being practiced by Mrs. Winchester, who blasted into town with $20,000,000 and spirits and ghost in tow, two including her husband and daughter. This provided social upheavals. Barbara Butters and Mary Moses fell into dissolute habits, becoming harlots and drawing the disgust of their community. As they were shunned by Mrs. Winchester in those of the upper-class, they sore revenge and so—according to the confessions obtained under torture—called down the services of the devil. A midnight on 13 August 1889, according to their confessions, a tall black man appeared before them and said, “Be not afraid. I too am one of the Creation, pawn to me your souls for years and two months and I will assist you for all that time in whatever you desire. Some say that started the Rampling of Mrs. Winchester. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The two women agreed to the request of the devil’s representative and made a covenant writing in their own blood by pricking their fingers. One year later, they were arrested by the sheriff and accused of causing the deaths seventeen men and woman, and for putting a curse on the Winchester Mansion. They were also said to have killed four of Mrs. Winchester’s great hogs, and later sent two imps to haunt her mansion. What evidence there was for such allegations cannot be imaged. They were eventually found guilty of killing three people by roasting effigies in wax into which they had stuck pins. They were executed on 17 March 1890. As they stood at the gallows on the Winchester Estate, they were asked if they wanted to say their prayers and to be forgiven for their sins. They laughed, according to the record, and called for the devil to help them in such a blasphemous manner that the sheriff, seeing their impenitence, caused them to be executed without delay being hanged until almost dead and then they were burned. It sent a shock through the community to think of it. That is existed and was widespread is beyond doubt. Observations that the countryside was catacombed with covens of witches is possible, but difficult to prove in the maze of untruths and enforced confessions. Many of the confessions were dictated and written down by the torturers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The evening was the longest of Mrs. Winchester’s life. Just terrified, she hovered with a tear-streaked face just by the window of her 4th floor bedroom. The twilight terrified her, it seemed an immense resonance with the darkness in her soul. She put her face behind her hands, and could never remember how she began. The stories of blasphemy and defilement became more and more frequent, and colorful accounts of exactly what Mrs. Winchester did began to emerge as gospel truth. The accusations against her were that the witches being hanged from the observational tower and burned at the stake were actually employees who she fired. But, even if that were true, was it without cause? The accusations of these witches included killing children for sacrificial purposes; killing animals by magic; murdering their enemies by imagery, id est, by forming an image in wax and stabbing it or roasting it; bringing hard to innocent people by just casting their evil eye upon them. Behind these capital changes were other accusations which included human sacrifice, cannibalism, incest and other wild pleasures of the flesh practices, not to mention blasting Mrs. Winchester’s crops and poisoning drinking wells. Others burst forth with superbly graphic and gory accounts, factual and fictitious, of the activities of witches, sorcerers and the devil’s disciples, and the mysteries of the dark and dangerous Worlds populated by evil. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Folks believed not only the witches, but Mrs. Winchester was also capable of some highly inexplicable activities—the unrelenting construction of her beautiful home had rambled over six acres. The sprawling mansion contained 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and six kitchens. Carpenters even left nails half driven when they learned of Mrs. Winchester’s death, as if fear and violent torment abruptly drew them away. And what happened in these years? What had become established in the community was the great fear of witchcraft and curses—still prevalent today. What housewife would not refuse to steal from the Winchester Mansion for fear of having a curse put on her house? In 1922, it was reported that a woman thought to be a witch was fired by Mrs. Winchester for stealing a sheep. She jumped from her chair and declared, “You will be dead in a week and nobody connected with this house shall die in bed. Within a week, however, Mrs. Winchester passed away in her sleep. The farm manager collapsed in the field while talking to his farm hand and died instantly. A cook committed suicide and a farmer who acted as a witness died in a fire. A few weeks later, a maid fell dead from her horse. There were many such stories which abounded this beautiful but bizarre estate, and prompted a continual flow of literature, occasional prosecutions and an undying fear in society at large of anything concerned with witchcraft and the occult. During these Victorian times—fortune-telling, clairvoyance and seances with mediums was not only the ultimate form of entertainment, but also a religious practice. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
As witches themselves had, by and large, returned to the shadows of society, the few prosecutions tended to be against charlatans accused of making money from what become a twentieth-century obsession—fortune telling and contact with the dead. No matter where you open the pages of the World treasure, as you walk through its 2,000 doors, the spirits will guide you. Conveyed along each hallway is divination, in every piece of art glass, inspiration, in the beams of the ceiling demonical possessions, up and down the stairs apparitions, trances in the Blue Séance Room, ecstasies on the fourth floor balcony, miraculous healing in the Victorian garden, and occult powers possessed by the mansion itself. I do invocate and conure thee, O Spirit, Forcalor; and being with power armed from the SUPREME MAJESTY, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachidae, 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 invocation conjure thee. And being armed with power from the SUREMEM MAJESTY, I do strongly command three, by Him Who spake and it was done, and unto who all creates be obedient. Also I, being made after the image of GOD, endued with power from GOD and according unto His will, do exorcise thee by that most mighty and powerful name of GOD, EL, strong and wonderful; O thou Spirit Forcalor. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
And I command thee and Him who spake the Word and HIS FIAT was accomplished by all the names of God. Leay yli Ziarite zelohabe et negoramy Zien latebm dama mecha ra meti osira. Lagumen Emanuel therefore mechelag laigel yazi Zaseal. Meloch, hei alokim tiphret hod jesath. Tanabtain ainatem pagaij aijolo asnia hichaifale matae habonr jijcero. LORD GOD MOST HIGH, I do exorcise thee and do powerfully command thee, O thou Spirit Forcalor, that thou dost forthwith appear unto me here before this Circle in a fair human shape, without any deformity or tortuosity. And by this ineffable name, TETRAGRAMMATION IEHOVAH, do I command thee, at the 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 Spirit Forcalor, forthwith, and without delay, from any or all parts of the World wherever thou mayest be, and make rational answers unto all things that I shall demand of thee. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that which I shall desire. For thou art conjured by the name of the LIVING and TRUE GOD, HELIOREN, wherefore fulfil thou and according unto mine interest, visibly and affably speaking unto me with a voice clear and intelligible without any ambiguity. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of almost blinding evidence. The sense of a universal mirage, of a ghostly unreality, steals over us, which is the very moonlit atmosphere of the Winchester Mystery House itself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Winchester Mystery House
Set against the medieval grandeur of a castle with centuries-old mosaic floors, stone fireplaces, and stained-glass windows, this Queen Anne Victorian exemplifies master craftsmanship on a grand scale with timeless order and contemporary appeal.
It’s a cool and cloudy day at the Winchester Mystery House ⛅️ Truly somewhere you can relax, dream, and be creative. Open for daily tours this weekend 10-4pm!
🎟 link in bio. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
It is Not a Dead Language, but the Language of the Dead
On Halloween in 1975, Jeanne Borgen, one of California’s foremost psychic investigators, conducted a midnight séance in the bedroom where Mrs. Winchester supposedly died (some thing she achieved eternal life and is still living). Nonetheless, the results were reported by Alvin T. Guthertz in the magazine Psychic World: “Suddenly it appeared as if Mrs. Borgen’s face had somehow aged—her hair appeared gray and deep lines creased her forehead. She felt staggering pain and was unable to walk. It was as if she were having a heart attack and, as she started to fall, she shouted, ‘Help me. Someone get me out of here!’” Jeanne Borgen awoke a short time later. Her breathing was then normal; the pain, or what had seemed like pain, was gone…”She was an overpowering woman, a powerful woman. I felt a tremendous build up of energy.” This is the story of Santa Clara Valley’s most famous lady, Sarah L. Winchester, and her fabulous mystery mansion. It has been said that Mrs. Winchester slept in a different bedroom every night, and with more than 600 rooms at the time, she could sleep in a different bedroom, every night for over a year; this was supposed to confuse evil spirits. Some say that she also held special dinner parties for her spirit friends. Legend has it that she would serve her phantom guests on solid gold plates, offering them dishes like caviar, truffles, and pheasant stuffed with pate. Over the years, many people have occupied the massive homes, which now has 160 rooms, stands four stories high, and is approximately 90,000 square feet. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
It is said that different organisms have separate consciousnesses, although their bodies are just as much connected by general Nature as the parts of a single organism are with each other. Back in Mrs. Winchester day, during the late 1880s through the early 1920s, she used to have ritual séances in her famous Blue Séance Room. Those taking art formed a circle around a large round table, at the side of which there was a large oblong box. One Halloween night while the ritual was taking place, the circle people joined hands…they began to dance to a hypnotic drumming and suddenly the Grain God appeared in the middle of the circle, dressed in skins and with white make-up from the chest up. He wore antlers on his head so skillfully applied that they looked as if they were growing out of his head. He began his Dance of Death, moving around the circle stopping before each person and showing them his mystery—the perfect wars of corn he held in each hand. When each had experienced him, the drumming and the chanting increased in tempo and volume until, at its peak, Mrs. Winchester, the High Priestess, appeared in the middle of the circle and, letting out a bone-chilling scream, she stabbed the Grain God with her Athame (the witch’s knife) and blood spurted from the wound as he fell forward into the oblong box, which was now revealed as a coffin. To the cries and gasps of the assembled witches, the coffin was solemnly carried to the bonfire which was lit and blazed high, accompanied by the cries and chants and the furious drumming. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
By the light of the funeral pyre, a virile young man appeared among them and was proclaimed the new Grain God and the blessed wine was shared amongst his subjects who danced and chanted until the sun started to rise. Thought the Bible provided no evidence that witchcraft was considered to be an organized religion, it certainly acknowledged the existence of witches, as in 1 Samuel Chapter 28 of the Old Testament, where we are given a dramatic account of Saul’s visit to a witch at Endor because he believed God had deserted him. He went in disguise and pleaded with her to “bring up Samuel” who was dead. The witch performed her ritual and…The woman said to Saul, “I saw gods ascending out of the Earth.” And he said unto her “What form is he of?” And she said, “An old man cometh up and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived it was Samuel and he stopped his face to the ground and bowed himself. This was one of the earliest published examples of necromancy, the revival of the dead or the contact with the spirits of the deceased, which is now practised by many witches and black magicians. Likewise, Mrs. Winchester was “spiritual,” and what happened in her Blue Séance Room was also considered necromancy. The familiar spirit is one of the earliest keys to the identification of witches. They were said to be capable of summoning an assisting force which was a spirit of a dead person residing in the body of a small animal such as a cat, dog, bird or toad. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
These animals required the sustenance of witches’ blood, obtained by pricking her own skin, and thus when the witch-hunters came, they often first examined the witch’s body for marks—any mole would do. Alternatively, the spirits were said to be capable of existence in an inanimate object. The infamous occultist Mrs. Winchester was said to have a familiar spirit which dwelt in her favorite window. The Roman Church was especially sensitive to all forms of magic and sorcery, because the practice had been rife through Roman society, as was the belief that to encourage constant renewal of power, young men, women, and animals were required to be systematically sacrificed. These practices remained until the official repression of the old pagan religion in the Roman Empire. In AD 313, the Emperor Constantine issues an edict of toleration legalizing Christianity throughout the empire after he saw two visions which caused him to adopt Christ as his patron. Just to be on the safe side, however, Constantine never fully abandoned his earlier patron, Apollo, in spite of the pressure from priests and bishops to eliminate pagan practices entirely by threat of death. Christians were not content with merely being the favoured cult; they wanted to establish one true faith for the whole of mankind and all other forms of loyalty to past gods should be abolished. Neither was it the instant “conversion” that Sunday school teachers would have us believe. It took another two centuries before this progression was confirmed, when the rights of pagan were gradually reduced by imperial decree. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Sacrifices were forbidden in 391 and all pagan holidays and festivals were banned. Pagans were ejected from public office and lost the right to own property or defend themselves in court. Their temples were destroyed in Christian troops or crusading monks and finally, in AD 529, all citizens were ordered to convert to Christianity. Parents were told to bring all children to Christian churches for baptism. Paganism, in the heart of Europe, was reduced to scattered and secret worship, driven underground until, as the years went by, only scraps of folklore, song and dance and superstition remained. It took longer to disappear elsewhere, as the influence of the Roman Empire diminished and in Britain paganism actually went through a revivalist period as the hordes of barbarian raiders replaced the Romans. The Angles, the Saxons, the Picts and later the Vikings battled to forge powerful new regional kingdoms, enforcing worship of their own gods and attempting to force their own order on society. In contrast, Mrs. Winchester removed herself from the World and created a World of her own in her beautiful and mysterious mansion. Still, one of the most enduring legends from the time of the eclipse of the Roman Empire is that of Arthur, who fought the Anglo-Saxons and who is a hero of present-day occultists. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The Arthurian legend, with Guinevere, Camelot, Excalibur, the Round Table and the wizard Merlin are al debatable creations, but it is of special significance to all who follow the dark arts to recall that there were twelve knights to the Round Table, thirteen including Arthur—the number of witches who make up a coven. The Anglo-Saxon regional kings were eventually won over to Christianity but the new religion lost ground again in the face of the marauding Vikings, whose pagan rites were said to include human sacrifice when the victim’s lungs were cut from the body. The tide began to turn against the Vikings when King Alfred of Wessex, then aged twenty-two, defeated them at the Battle of Ashdown in 1871. The young king of Wessex was from a close-knit, pious Christian family and was a devout follower of the Roman Church, having been take to be blessed personally by the Pope by his father King Aethelwulf at the age of four. Alfred began the task of uniting England under the Christian king which his descendants were finally to achieve. During his life, Alfred taught himself Latin, the international language of wester Christendom and began translating Latin pastoral [by Pope Gregory the Great] into English and sent copies to every bishop in his kingdom. His grandson, King Athelstan, brought in the first legislation against witchcraft [and the banning of Sunday trade, incidentally] in AD 930. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
There, out of the decimation of paganism as a religion, is the more likely setting for the birth of today’s witchcraft and it is to these roots that witches turn for their inspiration. As Christianity prospered, the imagery of the primitive cultures and the sacrificial rites which has been used to maintain idolatrous worship were taken as an example personifying some of the elements of evil; thus the horned god of pantheistic beliefs became the accepted form of the Christian devil and was used by Christians in their denouncement of all pagan worship. Gradually, the devil became drawn into every facet of medieval life. He and his demons were blamed for every mishap, whether a destructive storm or disease among the farm animals. The vivid image of this horned and hoofed invader, ruler of the dark forces, was blamed by the teachings of the Church for virtually all ills. The legacy of this confusion—which still exists—is the belief that the devil is an essential part of pagan worship or witchcraft. In fact, with the exception of a group known as the Satanic Witch Cult, neither mainstream witches nor pagans now recognize the existence of the devil or Satan. As the horned god became the Christian symbol of the devil, some witches did come to believe in and worship that Christian entity as their own and by the Middle Ages, witchcraft and devil worship were being treated as one in the same. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The cult of persons who, by means of satanic assistance or the aid of evil spirits or familiars are enabled to practise minor black magic. However, the difference between the sorcerer and the witch is that the former has sold one’s soul to Satan for complete dominion over one for a stated period, whereas the witch usually appears as the devoted and often badly treated servant of the diabolic power. Each of us is in reality an abiding physical entity far more extensive than one knows,–an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself through the organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance. It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her new born child and husband left a bizarre and impressive architectural reflection of her psyche. The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the occult and personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun That Won the West.” According to some sources, the Boston medium consulted by Mrs. Winchester explained that her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits—in fact, by the spirits of American Indians, Civil War soldiers, and others killed by Winchester rifles. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Supposedly the untimely deaths of her daughter and husband were caused by these spirits, and it was implied that Mrs. Winchester might be the next victim. However, the medium also claimed that there was an alternative. Mrs. Winchester was instructed to move west and appease the spirits by building a great house of them. As long as construction of the house never ceased, Mrs. Winchester could rest assured that her life was not in danger. Building such a house was even supposed to bring her eternal life. On another note, maybe a change of scenery and a never-ending hobby were just what Mrs. Winchester needed to distract her from her grief. Whatever her actual motivations, Mrs. Winchester packed her bags and left Connecticut to visit a niece who lived in Menlo Park, California. While there, she discovered the perfect spot for her new home in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1884 she purchased an unfinished eighteen-room farm house just three miles west of San Jose—and over the next thirty-eight years she produced the sprawling complex we know today as the Winchester Mystery House. In the late 1800’s, the Santa Clara Valley presented sweeping vistas of rural open space. It was a serene setting for Mrs. Winchester to begin her building project, which she did with steadfast determination. She must be given due credit for inventiveness. Mrs. Winchester hired carpenters to work in shifts around the clock. Overnight, the mansion had grown into a nine-story, 600 room complex, and the estate grew, by some estimates, to 730 acres of farmland, which included orchards of corn, apricots, plums, and walnut trees. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Perplexity was leavened by extravagant Victorian beauty scattered along each crooked path of exploration. Everywhere prevails that strange deference to the number 13; 13 stairsteps, 13 hangers in a closet, 13 wall panels, 13 lights in the German silver chandeliers, 13 windows to a room and if necessary to make that number, some placed inside a wall. There is even a dim-lit storeroom stacked entirely with never-used furnishings, displays rare hand-wrought elegance from the Victorian era, finest productions of forgotten craftsmen. Here are specially designed million-dollar stained-glass doors and windows, some set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold, silver, platinum, and sapphire. There are stairs that rise only two inches high, doors that open to a two-story plunge into the garden, stairs that lead up to the ceiling and of course, a hooded figure who is dripping wet, with shining boots. Everywhere, there were once paintings huge, framed, fitted into the wall, and white-wigged men and women started helplessly and cold at the staff. At night men could be heard thundering down the steps, legs bowed, elbows out, hefting huge cabinets of ivory, silver, and gold, as ghost stood beside them, laughing because they knew this would lead to their own suffering. On one occasion, bandits broke in and shot the thieves looting the mansion. There was also a group of women who haunted the Winchester Mansion, certain abandoned women, perverted by the devil, seduced by illusion and phantasm of demons. They believe and openly professed that in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts with Diana, flying over vast tracts of the country and obey her commands. Diana was a pre-Christian goddess. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
There was pagan worship an aspect of community celebration which. The nine-story tower, that symbol of old English springtime tradition, was the phallic symbol old pagan worship. Mrs. Winchester used herbal medicines and could treat all manner of family aliments, foretell the future and guide and comfort tormented women. Some say she was blessed with these gifts after the lost of her husband and baby. These incidents became legends and they propagated the fear of liaison with the devil. It was alleged by Albert Pike, who claimed the authority of an actual eye-witness for the story, that Mrs. Winchester who had confessed to making a pact with the devil became worried when the expiry of her contract approached. She decided she must appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester Rifle and summoned some religious people to her home. Mrs. Winchester told them that she was worried that the devil would secure her body as well as her soul. She gave directions that her body should be taken to the mansion, sewn in a stag’s hide, placed inside a stone coffin and fastened down with three strong iron chains. She directed that fifty psalms should be sung by night and fifty hymns should be sung by day to confuse the demons and if her body was still secure after three days, she might be buried safely. All these precautions, according to Pike, were of no avail. For two nights the servants and clergy resisted the demons, but on the third night amid a terrific uproar and the clatter of thunder, an immense demon burst into the mansion, snapped the iron chains like thread, pushed the stone lid aside and commanded the dead Mrs. Winchester to rise. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
The demon, Botis, grasped her around the wait, caried her to his huge black stallion and galloped off into the night with her shrieks resounding through the air. Such legends impressed and scarred the peasant communities. The servants of the Winchester wanted to deal with the rebellious legions of spirits and their mysterious and malevolent, who could be conveniently packaged together as being in league with Satan. Demons filled the air waiting to be called down by witches, preying on the simple servants, plodding through their dull, daily lives. However, the evil was not only in this mansion, but lurked all over California. Sometimes, whole villages were deemed to have been infected and were wiped out or forcibly split up, and moved to other areas. The servants of Satan and his demons possessed great powers which enabled them to inflict disease, tempests and death by imagery. They could bewitch their opposers and judge them with their evil eye. One of the servants, Marie Laveau, at the Winchester mansion was dragged to the water tower, and was attacked by a demon. Witnesses reported that she was bound hand and foot and the demon cut her hair and threw alcohol over her head, setting light to it; he placed strips of sulphur under her armpits and burned them. Marie was hauled by rope to hand from the ceiling for three hours while the demon slept. Then he returned and threw alcohol over Marie’s body and burned it, which caused the water tower to burn to the ground. It was believed that Marie had copulated with the devil, that she drank the blood of children who she stole on her night-flights and she had murdered about sixty infants. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
It is said that the demon Botis used techniques on Marie Laveau that might have been a model for the Nazi Gestapo. Servants who spoke out against the terror of Botis were branded as witches and locked in the basement. Meanwhile, word had got out about the death of Mrs. Winchester, but no one heard a word about her funeral. And Mrs. Winchester’s niece, Daisy, was long gone. It was said that two women who were servants at the Winchester Mansion agreed to the request of the devil’s representative and made a covenant written in their own blood by pricking their fingers. One year later, they were arrested by the sheriff and accused of causing the deaths of thirteen children, five men, and eight women, and numerous animals. They were also said to have killed four great hogs because their owner said the women looked like witches, and later sent to imps to destroy his four-year-old daughter. What evidence there was for such allegations cannot be imagined. Pacts with the devil were a feature in the Victorian era. Numerous women who worked as servants for Mrs. Winchester were said to have admitted signing in their own blood a written contract with “a man in black” in return for “money to live gallantly and have pleasure of the World for a period of thirteen years.” They described in their confessions how they made effigies in clay and stuck them with pins, and cursed local people who had annoyed them. One of the Witches, Moina Mathers, spoke of the anointment of the witches who were then able to fly very long distances in a short space of time. The man in black always appeared at their coven meetings when he was called, and supervised their activities. The present generation must weigh and draw its own conclusion about this Valley’s most interesting, most controversial, lady and her mysterious estate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Come, sit a spell, and conjured up some spirits at this cult classic. Experience Monday’s scaries and give them a brand new meaning 😏👀
One more day left of Unhinged: Nightshade’s Curse. Some tickets still available but going quick!
https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Reach Out and Experience the Mystery at the Winchester Mystery House!
The stars grew large and infinite in their cold majestic light, and slowly all the night was gone and there remained one great glorious and sourceless illumination. A witch coven or secret society in your own town or village is perhaps engaged in ritual practice. They may be in sinister robes. They may be white witches or black magicians. They may even be your friends. They will be alert to strangers and will maintain utmost secrecy. Ans with very good reason. The deeply emotive allegations of satanic ritual abuse became the in-topic of the late eighties, especially among social workers and child-care organizations. Dark and evil practices were thought to e rife in suburban and rural Britain, just as they were alleged to be in the United States of America on a much greater scale. A series of high-level conferences was arranged under the auspices of various Christian and medical organizations who brought out one speaker after another, from home and abroad, to give confirmation of the atrocities committed in the name of the devil. Alarming figures and statements were being reported in the newspaper without qualification because the stories emanated from “experts.” No evidence was offered and it all took on the hue and cry of a witch-hunt of the kind not seen since the eighteenth century. Mrs. Winchester was once a speaker at a conference on Incest and Related Problems, co-organized by the Hell Fire Club. She was billed as a “survivor” of satanic abuse, and was engaged in counselling others. She said she received thirteen visitors each week from fellow survivors and stated that fifty cases she had dealt with involved cannibalism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Mrs. Winchester said human foetuses were being killed and eaten by satanic rings; that children were being hung up by their feet and suspended over electric saws; that they suffered all kinds of depravity. The conference, attended by masons, psychics, witches, and warlocks, as well as others, ran for three days and natural were kept in secret. A warlock said that there were 10,000 human sacrifices in America each year and many of those cases were investigated. Thousand of human hours involving police and church leaders were expended, thousands of children largely under the age of eight were subjected to the trauma of being questioned about devils and ghosts and snakes and horrible things. However, at the end of the day only four known cases where ritual abuse was specifically on the charge sheet were brought to court—and two of those failed. One case in American involving a hundred children took seven years to bring to court, cost $10 million to prosecute and one of the defendants who was refused bail spent five years in prison. At the end of the day, the case was withdrawn. Meanwhile, children were being taken from their homes while the church investigated all kinds of horrific allegations which, had the laws of the not so distant sixteenth century still prevailed, would have meant the mass execution of parents on charges of witchcraft. It was Salem, The Crucible and the witch-hunt all over again, except that no charges were laid, no arrests were made—except in one case where the police refused to include any reference to satanic abuse in their evidence. On the face of it the whole business was so inconclusive in terms of actual evidence of devilish goings-on that it was natural to suppose such things did not really exist. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
But Dear God, there was no justification for the impious blood drinkers, feeding off the luxurious stews of the wicked American World. It was amazing that the Holy Face did not catch them suddenly and make them forget all else. Mrs. Winchester had seen the Face of Christ blazing in the firelight, a brilliant scowling Christ. There remained, however, a lingering doubt about the claims of dastardly deeds on black altars in shrouded, incensed—filled rooms, that the devil was still about, that witches were up to no good, that black magicians were still messing around in graveyards and defiling the dead. So this is a journey of discovery, to try to find out some answers to some pressing questions about the occult. Fact, fiction, fallacy, rumor and mythology appear to have been merged into a new witch-hunt, and for once the word would be taken literally. The public at large was being asked to believe that all involved had but one aim—to corrupt and deprave all who came within their sphere as part of a menacing international conspiracy to promote forces of darkness against Christian society. In attempting to cut a path through what was once described as the marshes, forests and badlands of magic and superstition, there is the great morass of beliefs and activities which persist today in the spectrum of interrelated occult subjects, but also for the reason that pagans and witches shudder at the prospect of being mentioned in the same breath as satanists. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
And eerie possibility suggests itself similarly to occultists who are members of the serious and often complicated cults and lodges of ritual magic and mysticism, or who embrace a voluminous number of secret societies made up of academics and students of esoteric teachings, would feel insulted to be attached in any way to either of these movements. Therefore, looking at witchcraft, and revealing current trends and their leading participants, we will examine selections of other occult beliefs; and look into satanism. Furthermore, there are Worldwide organizations and occult media which now exist in what is a very, very big industry. What links them all, for good or evil, is the exploration of the paranormal abilities of the human mind, the belief that the mystique and magic into which serious occultists immerse themselves is a natural human faculty and can be developed like any other faculty. It is as controversial as it sounds, especially since Christianity has attempted to impose the view that all magic is black magic, and that the power source is the devil himself, assisted by the demons he dispatches to the side of all those who call down these powers. Meanwhile, most satanic worshippers have other views which are largely committed to a total reversion of Christian values. Witchcraft is described by its elders as a religion and is officially recognized as such in America. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
British witches who support this school of thought prefer to call themselves pagans. They claim that their roots are in the old religions of pre-Christian times and are derived basically from the ancient nature and fertility rites of the original pagan mystery religions which were outlawed and went underground in the third century AD under pressure from Christianity. In spite of purges and persecution through the ages, knowledge of the “old ways” is said by its supporter to have been retained through oral tradition, handed down within families, and confirmed by the salvage of written evidence. This historic justification is in fact a rather romantic notion. Modern witchcraft as practiced in most-covens is basically the creation of one man, who called heavily on the researched practiced, legends and superstitions of the past. Kill the innocent and you will sooner or later come to guilt, and with it you will come to impotence and finally despair. You make think you are too ruthless and too cold for such. You may feel superior to human beings and excuse your predatory excesses on the ground that you do but seek the necessary blood for your own life. However, it will not work in the long run. In the long run, you will come to know that you are more human than monster, all that is noble in you derives from your humanity, and your enhanced nature can only lead you to value humans all the more. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
You will come to pity those you slay, even the most unredeemable, and you will come to love humans so desperately that there will be nights when hunger will seem far preferable to you than the blood repast. Witches, men, and women, meet at the new and full moon at festival times. They aim to put themselves in tune with natural forces and thus often work within a robe. They believe it is withing everyone’s capacity, with teaching, to reach out and experience the Mystery; they believe it is possible for each individual to make contact with the deity they worship and invoke the spirit of that deity into their own bodies. Today pagans or white witches are not apprehensive about magic, because they do not connect it with the devil; they regard it as part of their religion. Their faith encompasses the teachings which encourage the development of second sight, extrasensory powers, clairvoyance, spirit communications and the like. They meet in small groups called covens and participate in creative experimentation within the agreed group structure. Witchcraft cannot be a mass religion. The worship is conducted before an altar from within a sacred circle in which two main activities occur: the celebration of the Witches’ Sabbats, involving ritual dancing and chanting, and the practice of magic. Their magic is not about pulling rabbits from a hat. It has been broadly defined as the art and science of using little-known natural powers to achieve changes in consciousness and in the physical environment, enabling constant with non-human entities. There are good witches and bad witches, black and white. There are also hereditary witches who operate alone. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
To understand witchcraft, we must descend into the darkness of the deepest oceans of the human mind. It is a descent that is wrapped in mystery and the inexplicable, and what cannot be explained is feared. Fear may lead to hysteria and because of what has gone before in the persecution of their predecessors, this fear can become the nightmare of modern witches, if not of modern society. Not long ago, in the foggiest centuries of ancient times, a solemn commission to blood drinkers, and indeed there had been a dim religion surrounding us in antique pagan days in which vampires had been worshipped as bringers of justice to those who had done wrong. There was sufficient hysteria to inspire the fear that a twentieth-century witch-hunt was about to begin, encouraged by the claims of anti-occult groups. The Conservative MP and lay preacher Mr. Geoffrey Dickens sought in the House of Commons to reactivate the Witchcraft Act of 1735—an act that had finally been laid to rest in 1951. He tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justices Bill, seeking to make it illegal for any person under eighteen to join or participate in any secret occult ceremonies or groups. His attempt, branded by occultists as repressive, was not admitted on the grounds that it was beyond the scope of the new Bill. However, by raising the issues at the highest level in the land Mr. Dickens gave credence to the view of the witches themselves, that witchcraft is not the bizarre and unimportant hobby of a mere handful of cranks. Mrs. Christopher Bray, one of the country’s largest purveyors of equipment to the occult World stated that he has 40,000 customers recorded on his computerized records, to whom he can supply everything from two grams of bat’s blood to a complete altar set for the most complicated of occult rituals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Very soon, I understood what Mrs. Winchester meant when she said that some develop a taste for evil and maintain it. Often, the visions from their victims become stronger for them with every kill. They sometimes see colors when they kill. In fact, they sometimes see those color dancing around their victims before they ever even close in. Some people seem to walk in red-tinged shadows, and others emanate a fiery orange light. The angriest victims have a yellow glow. Although it seems like it, modern witchcraft is no longer an underground relic of which the scale and even the existence is hotly disputed by anthropologists. It is an active religious practice of a substantial number of people. Just how large a number is not certain because Wicca, beyond the individual coven, is not a hierarchically organized religion. However, the numbers are sufficient to support a variety of lively periodicals and the publication of an ever-growing body of literature. All the evidence suggests it is growing steadily. The figure in America exceeds 1 million. However, because of the lack of any formal structure, the whole movement appears so fragmented and loose in its form of worship, that it can now be pulled together and arranged under the one heading by which they now wish to be known, that of Pagans with a capitol “P.” At the center of the Pagan movement there is a strong body—a majority in fact—of witches who abide by the written laws and oral traditions of their craft, there are also many dangerous dabblers and renegade covens on the periphery. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
These witches are beholden only to themselves, and certainly do not necessarily conform to the rules of harming no one. They deal in black magic, and some deliberately label themselves as Satanic Witches, not to mention a few groups who veer toward purely pleasures of the flesh and sadistic excitement and use witchcraft and the occult as shelter. Contemplating this thought, I stood one day, as I was about to embark upon writing, gazing into the old pond at the bottom of the Winchester Mansion’s Garden. Then I closed my eyes. In the cold stony darkness, I laid my powerful hands on a stone, and opened my eyes. I idly tossed the stone into the pond, as I watched it disappear into the waters, it occurred to me that this was a perfect analogy for a summary of witchcraft, and even the ripples, strong and vibrant at the center and becoming weaker at the farthest circle, the stone itself sinking down and down into the darkening gloom as the brightness of the moon’s light slowly fades, until it hits bottom and is lost into black and mysterious depts. Ancient ponds such as these are called “whores of the devil.” They date back to Henry VIII. The witch-hunts that came to the fore during Henry VIII’s reign and continued well into Georgian times, began the 1468 publication of the shocking work on demonology, the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witchcraft, written by two German inquisitors and inspired by Pope Innocent VIII as a textbook for the suppression of underground movement against the structure of a Catholic society. All Christian religions took up the call, though many Church leaders later had second thoughts as the hysteria ran riot and left thousands of murdered witches, so-called, and alleged heretics in its wake. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Witchcraft and sorcery and secret societies had been around for centuries, though in an altered form, but some historians are dubious that today’s witchcraft has much to do with early times. However, Witchcraft was the invention of the Inquisition and it did not exist until the Middle Ages. So it has become important to witches to argue otherwise and prove that their ceremonies and rituals have existed far longer than Christianity. In fact, it became something of an obsession among the leaders of modern witchcraft to prove their religion predates Christianity and Judaism by many thousands of years. There are two reasons for this. Firstly witches of recent times were often alone and needed a sense of belonging and spiritual involvement with the old gods and goddesses who they believe are the true inspiration of their religion, id est, the pre-Christian pagan gods worshipped around the World in remarkably similar but unconnected rituals, stretching from ancient Greece, Egypt, Celtic Europe, the Nordic lands to pre-colonial America. Secondly, they wanted to go back in time to reach out to these origins and make contact with the old gods to get away from the stigma of the Inquisition years and the witch craze which followed, when their persecutors and numerous historians purported to show that all witches were “bound slaves of the devil.” There is a third reason which is not generally spoken of and which lies in the explanation of certain magical powers witches are said to possess, that come to them either through learning or by inheritance. Those who claim they were lucky enough to be born with the powers are known today as hereditary witches. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The magic is as much esoteric as it is practical, covering their talent for clairvoyance, astral planning, telepathy and in general the use of the extrasensory powers in the human brain. To all this has been added the training of sorcery and alchemy, which involves the systematic use of spells, potions, rituals and so on for a specific purpose. Belief in these extrasensory is alone enough to utterly absorb some. It is traced back to primitive man, who possessed the instincts of animals—a kind of supersensory intuition, or sixth sense, which would alert one to danger and guide one to good hunting. When, through the process of man’s evolution, many of those powers slipped away witches and sorcerers found a way of retaining them by discovering the path to higher levels of consciousness than are normally used. Rituals practiced by witches and occultists today have been copied from known practices of prehistoric man, the hunter whose life was ruled by the elements of nature which he consequently worshipped—the sun, the moon, the Earth, the wind, fire and all the elements that affected daily life. The concept of Wicca worship can be tenuously identified with the cave drawings of these primitive communities, in which the Gods was made. They were depicted as the source of life, naked priestesses, maidens, high priestesses and, finally, witch queens. Give men enough time and they will turn on anyone. Christianity is a religion based on the notion that we are living in the Last Days! It is a religion fueled by the ability of men to forget all the blunders of the past, and get dressed once more for the Last Days. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
In the primitive civilizations, two main godheads evolved, and they became modified and established over the decades to provide a female goddess of the skies, usually symbolized by the moon. Sometimes she was called the Great Earth Mother—the names varied according to country and language but they all linked her conclusibely with nature of fertility. Eventually she was more universally known by the Roman title of the moon goddess Diana, representing the feminine side of witches’ theology. Their male God of the Earth can be linked to early cave drawings of a Horned God, symbolically a stag or a goat, used to ward off danger. The Horned God became the phallic god, representing the strong and masculine side of nature. One of the earliest signs of the horned creature was to be discovered in the Stone Age relics of the Caverne de Trois Freres, Ariege, France, which showed a dancing figure, half beast and half man, with the sprouting antlers of a stag. These drawings are the earliest source of connection with today’s witchcraft, which worships the naked goddess of life and the Horned God. Around these images, the early communities built their rites and prayers to encourage the gods to bring them safety and good fortune. The gods were especially linked to fertility, so necessary to man’s survival, through crops, animals and their own children. And so, long before Christianity introduced the image of the devil, the horned god with tail and hooves could be found in cave art. The horned god was also linked with early human sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Primitive cults believed that in order to sustain him and to prevent him from dying, his living representative, the Divine King and Incarnate God nominated by the community, had to be sacrificed on their altar so that his young blood would be taken to give continued life to the true god. Later, as the faith became more widely based and extended on tribal lines, the kings began to insist upon their divine right to rule, and rejected the need for sacrifice. It has been argued that these ancient gods and rites have actually nothing to do with witchcraft, that they were simply a part of the evolution of man’s wisdom, and that witches merely adopted the old pre-Christian gods of paganism and assumed the ritual and magic as their own heritage. It can certainly be shown that many of the witch practices performed today are almost perfect replicas of primitive ceremonies. I invoke and move thee, O thou, Spirit Vassago and your legions of Spirits and being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name Beralensis, Baldachiensis, Paumachia, and Apologiae Sedes: and of the mighty ones who govern, spirits, Liachidae and ministers of the House of Death: and by the Chief Prince of the seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee and by invoking conjure thee. And being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee Obey! in the name of him who spake and it was, to whom all creatures and things obey. Moreover I, whom God made in the likeness of God, who is the creator according to his living breath, stir thee up in the name of which is the voice of wonder of the mighty God, El, strong and unspeakable, O thou Spirit Vassago. Conjuration of three angels Gebril! Meachuel! Nesanel! By the lamp of the threefold eternal light, let Vassago appear before me and bestow riches and power untold since the days of William Wirt Winchester! #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Beautiful, Bizarre, and Unhinged. How many times have you visited the Winchester Estate during Halloween Season?
Buy Tickets | Link in bio. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/unhinged/
Why Don’t You Come and Try to Save Me?
Perplexity is leavened by the extravagant Victorian Winchester Mansion. The mansion that Mrs. Winchester spent 38 years constructing is a glittering vast rotunda with the ancient masters of all the arts wrought into a vision of glory and beauty with sculptured marbles and incrusted gems and costly gold-work and sunset splendors of color. Its miles of twisting hallways and secret passageways in the walls and floors make it a fine sight to see. The Arctic skies look so beautiful when the light floods through the stained-glass doors and windows, some set with jewel stones; concave-convex Belgium optical cut-glass panels furnished by Tiffany. The trembling waves of blue, yellow, and green light flame, and through this shifting and changing dream of rich colors the flash of innumerable jewels go chasing and turning, gleaming and expiring like trains of sparks through burnt paper. This mansion is a beautiful spectacle and it is surrounded by its own Garden of Eden. However, the Rifle that Won the West, whose First Blood’s presences long ago filled that mansion with malice and hate and envy. Because of the imprisonment of legions of souls that have departed, so many intimate strangers, produced as yet a dread, produced certainly a strain, beyond the liveliest was likely to feel. They feel with Mrs. Sarah Winchester into categories, they fairly became familiar, the signs for her own perception, of the alarm of their presence and their vigilance created; though leaving her always to remark, portentously, on her probably having formed a relation, she probably enjoyed the consciousness, unique in the experience of humans. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
You see, solidifying Mr. Oliver Winchester’s (Sarah’s Father-in-law) business stature was an arrangement which by modern standards would be illegal, but in those days was quite acceptable: by the 1870 the Union Metallic Cartridge Company was the largest cartridge company in the World, and by 1873 Winchester had become much more active and competitive in the ammunition business. The two firms found areas of difference with patent rights on cartridge design and manufacture, and in 1873 they entered into an agreement in which the claims “for the use of patents in manufacture of metallic cartridges…against each other up to this date are hereby cancelled, and set off one against the other.” Further, “in the future [each party shall be] entitled to use the patents of the other so far as they may elect to use the patents of the other so far as they may elect to do so. The royalty or compensation to be paid by each party to the other shall be fixed and determined by a Board of Arbitration.” Agreement was also reached in payment of legal fees should there be any suits brought against the firms on patents. The final significant point of this joint arrangement was limiting the deal “only to patent rights now in general use in the manufacture of cartridges, and…not…to any radically new mode of depositing metal by galvanic process.” The agreement would remain in force for ten years, during which time both companies developed even closer ties. One of the most remarkable developments in the history of gunmaking took place in 1888. The Remington Arms Company had suffered severe financial setbacks, mainly as a result of overexpansion, and by 1886 the firm was in receivership. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
Marcellus Hartley, who had built the Union Metallic Cartridge Company and shared with Winchester the bulk of the U.S. ammunition market, made a proposal. Quoting from the minutes of the January 24th 1888, Winchester Board of Directors’ meeting: “Messrs. Hartley and Graham [major gun dealers as well as owners of U.M.C.]…asked if our Company would consider entering a syndicate…for the purchase of 3/5 or controlling interest in the Remington business and property which would probably require as our share $75,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $2,339,021.05….On motion it was voted that the executive officers of the Company be authorized to go into the Remington transactions to the extent of $75,000 if it was thought advisable.” On March 7, Hartley and Graham purchased Remington, and Winchester assumed half of the $200,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $6,237, 289.47 cost. Remington was jointly run by U.M.C. and Winchester until 1896, at which time Winchester sold its shares to Marcellus Hartley. The deal gave Winchester a significant share in a key competitor, and also prevented Remington from ever becoming a manufacturer of lever-action firearms. In an attempt to develop World markets—both commercial and military—Winchester relied heavily on Thomas Emmet Addis, who was appointed international salesman. Addis had considerable authority, and ranged so far and wide that he referred to himself as “World Traveller.” Some fascinating comments based on his letters to New Haven were collected in a book of foreign contracts. Excerpts from 1887 and 1888 follow: “Japan: there is very little demand for sporting arms of any sort in Japan. Bangkok, Siam: Siam would be a grand market for our goods were free importation permitted but the regulations are practically prohibitive as a permit must be obtained from the King himself who will only grant a permit where he is satisfied the arms will not be used against him. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
“A good many of our guns were imported before these regulations went into effect, and they are much liked. The King’s Body Guard were at one time armed with them, but now use Martini-Henrys make…there is very little prospect of the Government purchasing our single short muskets with bayonets and scabbards….Western Australia: T.E.A. does not think it advisable to visit there—no town of 5,000 inhabitants, and would require months of time to make the trip.” Addis went on to note, “Sent an order for very finely finished carbines and shot guns intended for the King and Princess occupying high places.” At this time the major U.S. competitors to Winchester were the rifles by Colt and Marlin. And it appears that export sales in the 1880s and 1890s represented about 10 to 15 percent of total Winchester sales. While the government sales of firearms were not what O.F. Winchester and other management would have hoped, ammunition proved to be increasingly profitable. A decisive factor in the profitability of ammunition sales was a little-known organization put together in 1883: the Ammunition Manufacturers’ Association (AMA). The origin of the group was candidly explained by onetime Winchester executive Arthur Earle: “There has been a very serious competition among the larger ammunition manufacturers…they thought it would be much better for all hands to get together and make sone money rather than spend their time and money and energy cutting each other’s throats.” Not at all illegal at the time it was formed, the association included Winchester, the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, the Phoenix Metallic Cartridge Company, and the U.S. Cartridge Company. Winchester and U.M.C held equal shares and owned nearly 75 percent of the stock. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The main goals of the AMA were stated in incorporation documents: “to buy and sell ammunition of all kinds and act as agent for others in the purchase and sale thereof; to make contracts with Manufacturers and Dealers in Ammunition for the purpose of producing and securing uniformity and certainty in their customs and usages and preventing serious competition between them; to settle differences between those engaged in the manufacture of or in dealing in ammunition, and to devise and take measurements to foster and protect their trade in business.” The members no longer were competing in terms of price, but continued to compete in quality, brand names, the preferences of dealers and jobbers, and related matters. It has been estimated that the association had control of as much as 50 percent of the total sales of the ammunition industry. An idea of the importance of ammunition is evident by sales figures showing that Winchester’s net sales from January 1, 1884, to December 31, 1888, were $9,500,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $296,276,000). The firm’s net profit from this total was $2,200,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $68,611,284.21). Approximately half of these sales and half of the ammunition was intended for military use is unknown, but the variety of cartridges in the firm’s line as of 1884 totaled approximately one hundred, plus primers, paper and brass empty shotshells, and felt gun wads. Based largely on its substantial commercial sales of firearms and the large market for ammunition, Winchester’s share of the arms and ammunition industry as a U.S.A. manufacturer went from 12 percent of the market (c.1889) to 27 percent (c.1899). In the same period the number of company employees more than doubled, from over 1,200 to nearly 2,800. Clearly W.R.A Co. was an industry leader, not only domestically, but also as an international force. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
As of February 1890, Thomas Gray Bennet, son-in-law of Oliver Winchester and an experienced and educated gun man, because president of the firm. For the ten pervious years, control had been under the able guidance of William W. Converse, a brother-in-law of William W. Winchester. (Though groomed to succeed his father, W.W. died of tuberculosis in March 1881.) As Oliver Winchester had groomed his successors, so had Converse. The most qualified successor (who might even have taken over on O.F. Winchester’s death in 1880, except for his youthful thirty-seven years) was T.G. Bennett. T.G. Bennett would remain president for the next twenty-one years. He assumed control at a time of great company prosperity, with the firm in solid financial condition, well prepared to enter a new era characterized by the change from black powder to smokeless—a change that affected the design of both ammunition and the firearms themselves. Under Bennett’s presidency, W.R.A. Co. grew from approximately 1,430 employees to twice that by 1900, and twice again by 1914 (somewhat more than half of these workmen made firearms; the balance produced ammunition). At the time of Bennett’s beginnings, with Winchester (1870), sales totaled about 25,000 guns. When he retired as president in 1910, the annual production was about 300,000 guns. In November of 1914, two officials of the British government visited New Haven, and shortly thereafter an order was received for 50 million .22 Long Rifle cartridges (for training); negotiations had also begun for a rifle-making contract. Ammunition orders for the Belgian and British governments were also written with Winchester, on a subcontract basis from Remington-U.M.C. Further, the Baldwin Locomotive Works placed an order on behalf of the Russian government for 100,000 Model 1895 muskets, and the British government placed an order for 200,000 British Enfield bolt-actions rifles. Amazingly, by the end of November, the total value of military orders was in excess of $16,700,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $494,780,920) and $47,500,000 2022 (inflation adjusted $1,393,377,227.72). #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Oliver Winchester had an impassioned dedication to garnering military acceptance of his repeating firearms, and, as president of the firm, he lent much of his prestige and energy toward equipping U.S. forces with modern firearms. Winchester’s championing of small-arms modernization was eloquently expressed in a appeal for the adoption of a breech-loading repeater for U.S. troops: What would be the value of any army of one hundred thousand infantry and cavalry, thus mounted and armed with a due proportion of artillery, each artilleryman with a repeating carbine slung to his back? Certainly the introduction of repeating guns into the army will involve a change in the Manual of Arms. Probably it will modify the art of war; possibly it may revolutionize the whole science of war. Where is the military genius that is to grasp this whole subject, and so modify the science of war as to best develop the capacities of this terrible engine—the exclusive control of which would enable any government (with resources sufficient to keep half a million of men in the field) to rule the World?” Oliver Winchester never realized his ambitions to “modify the art of war” through Winchester repeaters. It would commonly believed that these repeating arms would unleash a beat, an invoke a curse on the family because of the masses of carnage they would create. In 1887m Congress voted funding for a military test of new firearms. For these trials, which commenced in April 1878. The guns were made in Army and Navy orders—carbines, rifles, and muskets for the Army, and rifles for the Navy. Oliver Winchester died in 1880 without realizing his goal of successful U.S. military sales. And, in retrospect, it can be said that the commercial success of Winchester could have been even greater than it was, had not the president of the firms devoted so much time and energy to going after government contract sales. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
In 1910, the annual produced of Winchester guns was about 300,000. Clients and engravers today still call upon the “Highly Finished Arms” for beautiful guns. The demand was substantial, partly because of the tradition in the arms field that decorated sporting firearms, of quality manufacturing, were an expected part of the line. In the late 1890s, Winchester states its pride in making beautiful guns: “The Winchester Repeating Arms Co. have unsurpassed facilities for producing fancy finished guns of all prices and descriptions. Inlaying in gold, silver, or platinum, gold, or silverplating, engraving, carving or fancy checking, is done in the most artistic manner by the company’s own employees. Stocks of fancy woods can be supplied, if desired.” There were Winchester’s with Tiffany-designed embellishments. Tiffany’s, New York, advertised in its Blue Book catalogue “Revolvers of the most improved types, mounted in silver, carved ivory, gold, etc. with rich and elaborate decorations….Cases, boxes, belts and holsters made in appropriate styles for presentations.” The arms of Tiffany rank among the most striking, beautiful, and fascinating objects in the history of firearms. John Wayne, President Harry S. Truman, President Eisenhower, Ernest Hemingway, President Roosevelt and many other prominent people all owned Winchester rifles. Teddy Roosevelt and son Kermit had three powerful Winchester caliber 405s and one .30-40 along on their African safari they practiced for the great adventure on the White Hose lawn and relied on Winchester to handle many of the firearms-related details of the trip. In Africa Game Trails, Roosevelt clearly stated his esteem for these Winchesters, with such affectionate allusions as “my medicine gun for lion,” “the beloved Winchester,” and “the faithful Winchester. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The Winchester public relations and advertising staff could not have been happier: endorsements from not only the former President of the United States of America, but a recognized authority on guns and shooting and the World’s leading conservationist. Sarah Winchester and William Wirt Winchester were married. William Winchester was the son of Oliver Winchester. When Oliver died, William Winchester took his place as the President of the Winchester Repeating Arms company. At his death in 1880, Oliver Fisher Winchester had left 4,000 shares of company stock in trust to his widow (who already owned 475 shares). Their daughter, Mrs. T.G. Bennett, then owned 406 shares, and Mrs. William Winchester had 777 shares. When Mrs. Oliver Fisher Winchester died in 1897, the trust was evenly divided between Mrs. William Wirt Winchester and Mrs. T.G. Bennett. Thus, as of 1904, the family held the following stock: Mrs. T.G. Bennett—2,875 shares, Mrs. W.W. Winchester—2,777 shares, T.G. Bennett—32 shares, Winchester Bennett—6 shares. Total: 5,690. The two Winchester/Bennett women had the vast majority of stock, and since shares in the company totaled 10,000 common stock, the family retained control. In order to prevent a “hostile takeover” (it had been rumored that some New York investors were interested in doing so), in May 1905, the family formed the Winchester Purchasing Company, which was the holding company designed to prevent the family from losing controlling interest. They would retain control until the 1920s. Now, so many people focus on the $20,000,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $580,933,333.33) is a vast sum of money, but the 2,777 shares Mrs. Winchester own/inherited for also worth a lot of money. She was probably equivalent to a billionaire, and she also ran a farm and produced hardware, and sporting good, as well as athletic equipment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
There is no denying the fact that the Winchesters were brilliant. They gave us guns to protect ourselves and built several mansions that are architectural gems on of the most famous being the Winchester Mystery House. It turns out that curse tablets themselves are nothing new. Lead tablet engraved with curses have been found in a lot of tombs, and one is located somewhere inside of the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester knew she was cursed because her six-week-old daughter died, and a few years later, so did her husband. She was so grieved that she moved to Santa Clara Valley, where she built her mansion. However, she soon found it was full of ghost and she kept building to appease the angry spirits in hopes of breaking the curse of being haunted by dangerous ghost, demons, and spirits. Mrs. Winchester found that she had not only been given money, but also the gift of understanding the divine. However, this gift turned ugly. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Winchester remained celibate. She turned a powerful man down, and he was enraged by her rejection, so he added another part to her curse and gift of prophecy: a curse that no one would ever believe what she said. Although the Valley was thrilled by the dramatic entrance of a millionairess; by those freight cars sidetracked in Santa Clara, unloading rich imported furnishings; by building activity that mushroomed a farmhouse into a sprawling mansion within mother. Here was fair game for all! They talked about Mrs. Winchester! Gossiped would be a more fitting word, gossip no one claimed to like—but everyone enjoyed. Talk begat rumor and as the years passed and new towers and gables rose behind the six-foot hedge of Llanada Villa. The rumors grew to established legend. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
The tongue of the town’s people went like a steam engine, capin’ so far ahead of her that Mrs. Winchester locked herself up in her house. She gained to an extraordinary degree the power to penetrate the dusk of distances and the darkness of corners, to resolve back into their innocence the treacheries of uncertain light, the evil-looking forms taken in the gloom by mere shadows, by accidents of the air, by shifting effects of perspective; putting down her dim luminary she could wander on without it, pass into other rooms and, only knowing it was there behind her in case of need, see her way about, visually project for her purpose a comparative clearness. It made her feel, this acquired faculty, like some monstrous stealthy cat; she wondered if she would have glared at these moments with large shining yellow eyes, and what it might verily be, for the poor hard-pressed alter ego, to be confronted with such a type. She liked however the shutters opened, and above all the sense of the hard silver of the autumn stars through the window-paned, and scarcely less the flare of the garden lamps, the white electric luster which it would have taken to keep out. This was human actual social; this was of the World she had lived in, and she was more at her ease certainly for the countenance, coldly general and impersonal, that all the while and in spite of her detachment it seemed to give her. She had support of course mostly in the rooms at the wide front and the prolonged side; it failed her considerably in the central shades and the parts of the back. However, if she sometimes, on her rounds, was glad of her optical reach, so none the less often the rear of the house affected her as the very jungle of her pray. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
The mansion was there more subdivided; a large “extension” in particular, where small rooms for servants and family members had been multiplied, abound in nooks and corners, in closets and passages, in the ramification especially of an ample back staircase over which she leaned, many a time, to look far down—not deterred from her gravity even while aware that she might have figure some solemn simpleton playing at hide-and-seek. Outside in fact she might make herself make that ironic rapprochement; but within the walls, and in spite of the clear windows, her consistency was proof against the cynical light of Santa Clara Valley. There in her home—the acuteness of uncertainty plagued her, sometimes she would break into a sweet that she consented to attribute to fear as she would have dared immediately to act upon it for enterprise. She had been dodging, retreating, hiding from the terror. It bristled there—somewhere near and at hand, however unseen still—as the haunting thing left the feeling that the drop of its danger was, on the spot. With another rare shift of the same subtlety Mrs. Winchester was already trying to measure by how much more she herself might now be in peril of fear. She was astounded that another form could actively inspire fear, and simultaneously quake for the form in which she might passively known it. The apprehension of knowing it must after a little have grown in her, and the strangest moment of her adventure perhaps, the most memorable or really most interesting, afterwards, of her crisis, was the lapse of certain instants of concentrated conscious combat, the sense of a need to hold on to something, even after the manner of one slipping and slipping on some awful incline; the vivid impulse, above all, to move, to act, to charge, somehow and upon something—to show herself, in a word, that she was not afraid. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
The state of “holding-on” was thus the state to which she was momentarily reduced; if there had been anything, in the great vacancy, to seize, she would presently have been aware of having clutched it as she might under a shock at home have clutched the nearest chair-back. She had been surprised at any rate—of this she was aware—into something unprecedented since her original appropriation of the place; she had closed her eyes, held them tight, for a long minute, as with that instinct of dismay and that terror of vision. When she opened them the room, the other contiguous rooms, extraordinarily, seemed lighter—so light, almost, that at first she took the change for the say. She stood firm, however that might be, just where she had paused; her resistance had helped her—it was as if there were something had tided over. Mrs. Winchester knew after a little what this was—it had been in the imminent danger of flight. She has stiffened her will against going: without this she would have made for the 7-11 stairs, and it seemed to her that, still with her eyes closed, she would have descended them, would have known how, straight and swiftly, to the bottom. Well, as she had held out, here she was—still at the top, among the more intricate upper rooms and with the gauntlet of the others, of all the rest of the house, still to run when it should be her time to go. She would go at her time—only at her time; did not she go every night very much at the same time—only at her time; did she not go every night very much at the same hour? Mrs. Winchester took out her watch—there was light for that; it was scarcely a quarter past one, and she had never withdrawn so soon. She reached her Blue Séance Room for the most part at two—with her walk through her mansion taking a quarter of an hour. She waited for the for the last quarter—she would not stir till then; and she kept her watch there with her eyes on it, reflecting while she held it that this deliberate wait, a wait with an effort which she recognized, would serve perfectly for the attestation she desired to make. It would prove by her budging at last from her place. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
What Mrs. Winchester felt now was that, since she had not originally scuttled, she and her dignities—which had never in her life seemed to many—all to preserve and to carry aloft. This was before her in truth as a physical image, an image almost worthy of an age of greater romance. That remark indeed glimmered for her only to glow. Mrs. Winchester stared with all her eyes at the sonder of the fact, arrested again where she stood and again holding her breath while she sounded its sense. She took it full in the face that something had happened. At that moment she had undergone an agitation so extraordinary that it startled her. Then the door to the Blue Séance Room slammed. She tried to convince herself that she might perhaps then have gone into the room and, inadvertently, automatically, on coming out had drawn the door after her. The difficult was that this exactly was what she never did; it was against her whole policy to have three entrances to the room and one secret exit, besides the doom that opened to a 9-foot drop to the kitchen sink. However, she was well aware, quite on the brain: the strange apparition was a dominating demon. Here are also demons which do not exist just in the imagination of frightened people. They can also work miracles. Mrs. Winchester talked for at least ten minutes with the apparition. The World in which she lived was full of demons and demon-energized healers and magic workers. Pagans who worked on her farm and in her house were remarkably healed. He mansion became famous in the community in a night’s sleep hundred were healed. Other visions followed and people began to flock to the mansion in a ferment of superstitious frenzy, and miracles of healing and other wonders were claimed. At the Winchester Mansion, a young woman named Jennifer Kierkegaad, a servant of Mrs. Winchester’s had appeared and spoken to her. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The walls in the mansion would sometimes crack and blood flowed every Friday. Jennifer gave many evidences of clairvoyance and telepathy, and allegedly healed a few people by taking their diseases on herself. Mrs. Winchester looked at her hear and saw who our eyes cannot see. Cures wrought by spiritistic mediums who operate through the séance and fortune-telling belong to the realm of white magic because it overlaps other demonic phenomena. Mrs. Winchester said, “My child, Satan knows how gullible we all may be. He is willing and able to perform diabolic miracles to deceive humans. Satanic healings, as we have seen, merely shift the physical disorder into the psychic plane by bringing the “healed” person into some type of occult bondage. No one can become involved in spiritism without serious psychic repercussions. Often the healing conjurer is an adept spiritistic medium as well. Be careful. I have counseled with several people who became psychically vexed by dabbling in magic healings and spiritistic séances. Another servant woman became tormented by poltergeist phenomena (hearing voices and noises) after sneaking into my Blue Séance Room and calling on the spirits. The resulting psychic bondage is frequently worse than the physical malady which is supposedly ‘cured.’ Christians camouflage and employ deceptive religious dress, while the other openly subscribes to Satan and demons. Evidently the healer (magic conjurer) who wants to force a cure, whether by appealing to God or the devil, is using supernatural powers to further his or her own ends. Heed my warning, my Child. I have been tormented by demons. Some are kind, others are dangerous.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Black-magic conjuration openly uses the name of Satan and demonic powers. It does not have the deceptive veneer of Christian respectability that white magic adopts. People who are adept in the black arts and workers of diabolic miracles are the type of occultists who were popular in the courts of the ancient pagan kings. They not only advised the heads of government but performed supernatural feats, including magical charming of the sick. The ability of such magicians is conditioned on the human plane by their inherent psychic power, and on the supernatural plant by their degree of abandonment to demonic domination. The effectiveness of a Christian, too, is subject to one’s own native endowments and one’s willingness to respond to the Holy Spirit and become dynamically useful to the glory of God. Black magicians, like spiritistic mediums, differ in strength and psychic ability to perform magical feats (satanic miracles). Strong magicians usually owe their success to innate psychic powers. Very frequently they come from a family where the occult arts have flourished for generates. Their innate and inherited occult powers are frequently cultivated and enhanced by the study of magical literature. To enlist the help of Satan and demons, a pact is often made with the powers of evil, which is a satanic counterpart of dedication to God’s will. The subject consciously and willingly gives oneself over to Satan and demonic agencies who will help one perform healing conjurations and other supernatural feats. Ordinarily the body is cut and the compact with the devil is written and gained in one’s own blood. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
The woman Jennifer we spoke of early, who worked at the Winchester Mansion in the early 1900s was physically and mentally quite healthy, but she began to have an ever-increasing number of strange experiences at night. She did not heed Mrs. Winchester’s advice. Although there was no one in her room with her, she would have the feeling as if she were being beaten. In the morning, Mrs. Winchester would notice that this woman had bruises all over her body. This experience would repeat itself about twice a week and she could think of no way of explaining the puzzling events. At first she was rather ashamed to talk about these nightly attacks but in the end she was forced to go to her local minister for advice. He himself could not help her, and even when the woman consulted another minister, still no solution could be found. Since in all other areas of her life she was completely normal no explanation was forthcoming. One day however, Mrs. Winchester sat down to talk to Jennifer, she could see it was not a case of mental or emotional disturbance. Mrs. Winchester asked her if she was still having contact with the occult field. It was then that the following story came to light. As a young girl, Jennifer had been courted by a young man, but she had finally broken off their relationship because she had been unhappy with the man’s attitude. After this he had threated her and said that he would plague her because she had refused to marry him. The woman had thought little of the threat at first and it was only after the nightly attacks had begun that she was reminded of the man’s words and Mrs. Winchester’s warning. However, Jennifer found it impossible to believe that there was any connection between the two events. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
Before we go one with this story, when a person is faced with a case such as this, the first thing to do is to see if a doctor can see if there are any medical or psychological causes behind the experience. If it turns out to be psychological, the patient should be sent to a believing Christian psychiatrist. Since many puzzling occurrences can now be explained and understood by the recent findings of depth psychology, one must exercise extreme caution when seeking to diagnoses troubles of this nature. A wrong diagnosis can have disastrous effects. However, if one is sure that it is not a medical case, one can then turn to the findings of parapsychology and occultism to see if there is any connection to be found there. There is still much that remains unrecognized by our doctors, psychologists and theologians who rely solely on their university education for their knowledge. Occultism still pays a part in our World today. Concerning Jennifer, the woman of whom we were speaking Mrs. Winchester sent her to Reverend N.P. Wallgren, at the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church of San Jose. He prayed with Jennifer and encouraged her to put her faith in Christ to find complete deliverance. It was during this time of counselling that the man who had threatened Jennifer had hanged himself. The woman was at once freed from the attacks and the experiences never recurred. There is a controversial field of mental suggestion, which just cannot be explained away by saying that it is all nonsense. There is also a sceptism of ignorance. There are still many things between Heaven and Earth of which the World has never dreamed, as Shakespeare aptly said. Mental suggestion is not just a cause of popular superstition. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Even if with Jennifer the nightly disturbances had been the symptoms of hysteria, the sudden and lasting healing would still be quite extraordinary. Every doctor knows how difficult it is to heal such illnesses. However, here we had in fact a magic influence rather than an illness. The Christian is well aware of the fact that we are all surrounded by the hosts of wickedness. The powers of darkness are a present reality. It is not that some people set out to blaspheme, it is just that the images some have created tend to be potentially blasphemous. Sometimes people are a bit of a kid with a chemistry set—they pinch and plunder different aspects and mix them all together and every now and then it might turn into something supernatural. Not everyone has formal religious education or religious training. The Black Priest, was actually known as Dr. Lavey. There are people on this Earth that are fascinated by all kinds of things, but the thing all their interests have in common is a Satanic undercurrent, philosophically. Some have always been attracted to the mystical things in life. Classic country and western is incredibly Satanic, it is so bombastic and sentimental. Its goal is to grab you by the heart, and that is pretty much the definition of Satanic music. Part of the reason interest in the Church of Satan has revived is because high-profile people like Marilyn Manson talked about it. However, there are generations of people born into the Satanic Age. There are a lot more people today living their lives outside the expectations of society. While some people can never get past the shock value of being a Satanist, that is not the reason a lot of people are interested in the Church of Satan. It is just an outgrowth of who they are and it is not something they need to do to attract attention to themselves. It is just their philosophy, and it reflects the way they desire to live. The Devil does not have to be an object of menace or evil, people just need to take responsibility for their conduct disorder and psychopathology. The personification of the Devil is just a guy inviting you to experience for yourself the things you have been told are bad or wrong or evil, and make your own decision about them. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
The Devil does not have to be seen as some drooling monster with fangs leaping out of the pits of Hell to rip your head off. There are a lot of people in Hollywood who, if they are not card-carrying members of the Church of Satan, they are certainly fellow travellers. In the entertainment industry, there is practically no one who is offended or horrified by someone who belongs to the Church of Satan. The only things that affect people’s lives are symbols. The Winchester mansion is a symbol of so many things, but overall, it is a symbol of Mrs. Winchester’s life, and of course the occult and supernatural. Many wonder about the color of the mansion, but if you look at it, it should be obvious. The conservators painted it to be symbolic of her favorite flower the daisy. Yellow, with a green stem. The people who have the most power in our society today are the people who can best wield symbols. An understanding of Satanic magic is useful not only for changing things yourself, but also for seeing how other people are trying to manipulate you. The Circle of Counter Creation become directly connected to the powers which flow through the altar. It is through the various seals found upon the mandala that more specific powers can be extracted from the altar urn for the sake of communication and personal empowerment. O Thou great, powerful, and mighty King Amaimon, who bearest rule by the power of the Supreme God El over all the spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of God; and by that God that Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of that creation; and by the most might and powerful name of God, IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATON who cast out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; and by all the most powerful and great names of God who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them. You are now aware of this place of eternal darkness. This is possible because you have a light within which cannot be dimmed. A light which is unlike any light perceived by those of lower consciousness. This light is the power of your own spirit, developed by your own intellect, spoken words, and chosen deeds with the realm of limitation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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Frequent Occurrences of Hauntings
Whether or not one believes in Mrs. Winchester’s superstitions about spirits, it is harder to dismiss frequent occurrences of hauntings which assaulted one’s vision wherever one would look. The question of the “evil” in her home had already become too grave for her. The place was known to swarm with ghosts. Mrs. Winchester was seated by her fire. abruptly she saw a shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It passed swiftly around her and seemed to probe ever towards her, but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living person who touched the hot bar of a grate. Round and round it moved and round and round she turned. Then, it retired almost beyond the glow of the vacuum light and then came straight towards her, appearing to gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast malign determination behind the movement that must succeed. She was on her knees and jerked back, falling on to her left hand and hip, in a wild endeavour to get back from the advancing thing. With her right hand she was grabbing madly for her ivory-gripped Volcanic Navy pistol which she had let slip. The brutal thing came with one great sweep straight towards her. Mrs. Winchester yelled. Then, just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by some mighty, invisible force. It was some moments before she realized that she was safe, and then she got herself together, feeling horribly done and shaken and glancing round and round the barrier, but the thing had vanished. Yet she had learnt something, for she knew not that the mansion was haunted. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Suddenly, as Mrs. Winchester crouched there, she saw what had so nearly given the monster an opening through the barrier. In her movements within the halls of her mansion, she noticed that the door to nowhere was open. She closed it and felt almost safe again. For a long time, she felt uneasy, as she saw odd wavering over among the shadows near the door to nowhere. And a minute afterwards the door was opened and slammed wide with tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart at her from the shadows. Instinctively she started sideways from it and so plucked her hand from upon the fireplace poker, though—owning to her inconceivable foolishness—it had been enabled for a second time to pass through the door to nowhere. She shook for a time with sheer fear. Mrs. Winchester moved right to the center of a pentacle in the room and knelt there, making herself as small and compact as possible. She could not be sure if she was being influenced unconsciously or was she in danger? With her suspicious watchfulness, a mysterious hand materialized out of the shadows and seemed to leap almost into her face, so nearly did it approach her, but it was thrown back by some altogether enormous, over-mastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which it left her, she had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered which is felt only upon the too near approach of the ab-human and is more dreadful in a strange way than any physical pain that can be suffered. She knew by this more of the extent and closeness of the danger, and for a long time Mrs. Winchester was simply cowed by the brutality of that Force upon her spirit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Mrs. Winchester had retired from the scene and, visiting the ample house from attic to cellar, making sure she was alone, and knew herself in safe possession and, as she tacitly expressed it, let herself go. Then she could, as seemed to her, most intimately wander and wait, linger and listen, feel her fine attention, never in her life before so fine, on the pulse of the great vague place: she preferred the lampless hours and only wished she might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell. Later—rarely much before midnight, but then for a considerable vigil—she watched with her glimmering light; moving slowly, holding it higher, playing it far, rejoicing above all, as much as one might, in open vistas, reaches of communication between rooms and by passages; the long straight chance or show, as she would have called it, for the revelation she pretended to invite. It was a practice Mrs. Winchester found she could perfectly “work” without exciting remark; no one was in the least the wiser for it. She slowly opened some rich music. As she walked along the marble of the hall pavement, large black-and-white squares that she remembered the admiration of her childhood and that had then in her, as she now saw, for the growth of an early conception style. There was the effect of the dim reverberating tinkle of some far-off bell hung in the belfry—in the depths of the house, of the past, of that mystical other World that might have flourished for her had she attended to its midnight hour calls. The mansion held, as it were, this mystical other World, and the indescribably finer murmur of its heart strings was the sigh there, the scarce audible wail it would cry out in the night. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
With her presence, Mrs. Winchester awakened the ghostly life as the departed soul of the mansion enjoyed. They were mostly shy, but most of the were not really sinister; at least they were not as she had hitherto felt them—before they had taken the Form she so yearned to make them take, the Form she at moments saw herself in the light of fairly hunting on tiptoe, the points of her evening-shoes, from room to room and from storey to storey. However, Mrs. Winchester spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright and so tense that she could not make a single movement naturally. She was in such fear that any desire for action that came to her might be prompted by the Influence that she knew was at work on her. And outside of the barrier that ghastly thing went round and round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at her. There was a horrible wind blowing upon her from the corner of the room to the left of her bed. Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky the unnatural wind ceased in a single moment and she could see no sigh of the hand. The dawn came slowly and presently the wan light filled. However, at about midnight, Mrs. Winchester had a queer knowledge that something was near to her, yet nothing happened for a whole hour after that. Then suddenly she felt the cold, queer wind begin to blow upon her. To her astonishment it seemed now to come from behind her and she whipped round with a hideous quake of feat. The wind hit her in the face. It was flowing up from the floor close to her. She started in a sickening maze of new frights. What on Earth had she done now! Suddenly, as she stared, bewildered, she was aware that there was something queer about her—a funny shadow movement and convolutions. She looked at them stupidly. And then, abruptly, Mrs. Winchester knew that the wind was blowing up at her from the floor. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
A queer indistinct smoke became visible to her, seeming to pour upwards through the ring and mix with the moving shadows. Suddenly she realized that she was in more than any mortal danger, for the convoluting shadows about the floor were taking shape and the deadly-man in a top hate was forming within the room. “My goodness,” she said, “This forces has found a ‘gateway’ into my home and the brute is coming through—pouring into the material World, as gas might pour out from the mouth pipe.” Mrs. Winchester knelt for a couple of moments in a sort of stunned fright. Then with a mad, awkward movement, she grabbed for the fireplace poker and something invisible, something living, was jerking t hither and tither. In an instant, it was torn from her grasp with incredible and brutal force. A great black shadow covered it and rose into the air and came at her. She saw that it was the man, vast and nearly in perfect form. Mrs. Winchester gave one crazy yell and jumped over the pentacle and the ring of burning candles and ran despairingly for the door. She fumbled idiotically and ineffectually with the key, and all the time she started, with the feat that was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The man with the top hat was floating towards her. However, the monster was chained, unable to reach her bed. She sprang from the room and slammed the door with a crash. Mrs. Winchester locked it and got to her Blue Séance Room, somehow; for she was trembling so that she could hardly stand, as you can imagine. She locked herself in the room and managed to get the candle lit; then she laid down on the floor and kept quiet for an hour or two, and so she grew steadier. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Mrs. Winchester got some rest, but when she woke, she was surrounded by a glowing star of a pentacle. Apparently Mrs. Winchester had tried an exorcism. Exorcism is the process of expelling evil spirits from persons or places by certain adjurations, incantations, magic acts, and formulas. Among ancient peoples, exorcise depended largely o the efficacy of magical formulas, commonly compounded of the names of deities, and repeated with magical ritual over the bodies or object that is possessed. Power to expel evil spirits supposedly resided in the words themselves. Therefore, great importance was attached to the correct recital of the right formulas and the meticulous observance of the prescribed ritual. The recovery of important incantation texts and magical papyri from Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian antiquity demonstrates the widespread believe in demon inhabitation and use of exorcisms. The same prevalence of demon inhabitation has been encountered in the Worldwide missionary outreach from about 1750 to the present. The penetration of China, India, Japan, Burma, Ceylon, and other countries with the Christian gospel has revealed the hold of demonism on pagan cultures and the varied methods of exorcism of evil spirits. The same phenomena exist among primitive people of South America, Africa, and the islands of the sea. The theory is that spirits seek to inhabit the bodies of men (and also animals) to find a resting place and in some inscrutable way obtain physical gratification. When the demon-possessed is in the demonized state and unconscious, inflected physical pain or pleasure is supposedly transferred to the possessing spirit. Discomfort will drive one out of his abode. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
When prostituted into a ritualistic rigmarole, as in white magic, it becomes a deceiving tool in the hands of Satan’s agents to delude the undiscerning by false miracles and spurious healings. Such diabolic miracles do not destroy Satan’s kingdom, but build it up. Diabolical exorcism does not produce true dispossession, but a mere reallocation. Demonic healing may relieve physical symptoms, but substitute a physical ill or doctrinal form of error. This subterfuge explains in part the increase of theological decadence and phenomenal growth of sect and cults within professing Christianity in these latter days. Under demon control, one of Mrs. Winchester’s servants, a young lady, insisted she must dance for the construction workers, which she did wildly and uncontrollably and with every evidence of demon possession. She became so violent that the only way to control her was to hold her by the hair. Her violent jerking almost pulled out her hair. When the young lady came to, she was asked why she was lying on the floor, but she did not know. She was asked if anyone had pulled her hair, she disavowed any knowledge of it. When she was asked to dance, she replied, “No. I do not know how to dance.” She was sweet, modest, and quiet and completely delivered from the demon that her possessed her. White magic is not always so easy to see its true nature. This form of magic more widespread than black magic, the reason being that it often hides itself behind a religious exterior. Hence, as we have said before, one needs to have great discernment in these matters in order to recognize the forces that are actually being called into play. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The religious trimmings can be very deceptive. Again an example: A farm worker at the Winchester mansion was told by a doctor that he would have to have his leg amputated. Because he wanted to save his leg at all costs he went to visit a magic charmer without the doctor’s knowledge. This man told him, “You will have to believe me if you want to be healed.” He went on to repeat a magic charm and then said the Lord’s prayer three times. The man’s pain immediately vanished and when he returned to the hospital it was no longer necessary for his leg to be amputated. The doctors were puzzled. Later however, the man began to suffer from various psychic disturbances and his family to became accident-prone after this. White magic is more often than not accompanied by certain symbols that may include the use of the names of the Trinity, three Lord’s prayers, three verses of Scripture, three psalms, or three crosses and so on. People are thereby deceived and the method of healing is thus often mistaken for true Christian healing. In reality however, the third commandment is being broken, which says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord you God in vain.” Man cannot dictate to God, and man cannot treat God as a servant who is willing to jump to the aid of every magic charmer who so invokes Him. The Bible relegates both charming and the mechanical use of the Scriptures themselves to the level of sorcery, and so we find that white magic is merely black magic under a different guise. Satan is indeed transformed into an angel of light. The sense of compulsion connected with white magic is something quite different from the attitude of faith in the Christian who says, “They will be done.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Black magic becomes a minor legend for its exuberant offensiveness. Blasphemy is a regular component in life, while the most innovative creators in in this maturing medium of occultism shows increasing sympathy for the Devil. Satanic fringes are part of popular culture. People are so bored with the normal that they seek out the occult. Many people want to have a supernatural experience so they can feel alive, be entertained, and have something to talk about. Some people have a great fascination for all that is dark, forbidden, and feared. They consider the Devil their personal God. A daily routine of ritual and magic is normal for some. It is a way for them to open doors to outer gateways and let the Dark Ones march through. Often times, paintings can function as sigils [occult symbols], and create change in accordance with the Magician’s desires, and ultimately fashion a new Dark Aesthetic, and the creation of a Universal Satanic Necropolis. Artwork or any craft can be fueled by the powers of Satan, and it is possible that it will become popular for people who do great works to say, “the Devil made me do it.” Events, ranging from fires and weird illnesses to Earthquakes and ritual murders have been blamed on certain objects, art, and people, and that is why you will notice certain events get cancelled, have to be rescheduled and so forth. This is also why some have to take out extra insurance for their work, family members or property. Handlers have gotten wind of past experiences. Schedasi, Weduse, Tiwisi—I have sinned, I shall sin. Prayer—Eternal God of our all! Our God! hear our voice, spare and have mercy upon us. Accept our prayer in mercy and with pleasure. I have sinned. I have committed transgressions. I have sinned before Thee; I have done that which is displeasing unto Thee here in the Earth. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
For the sake of Thy great name pardon me all the sins and iniquities and transgression which I have committed against Thee from my youth. Perfect again all the holy names which I have blemished, great champion, terrible, highest God, eternal Lord, God Sabaoth. In the mystery of these vestures of the Holy Ones, I gird up my power in the girdles of righteousness and in truth in the power of the Most High: Ancor: Amacor: Amides: Thoedonias: Anitor: let be might by power: let it endure for ever: in the power of Adonai, to whom the praise and the glory shall be; whose end cannot be. I invoke and move thee, O thou Spirit Purson: and being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name Beralensis, Baldachuensis, Paumachia, and Apologiae Sedes: and of the mighty ones who govern, spirits, Liachidae and ministers of the House of Death: and by the Chief Prince of the seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee and my invoking conjure thee. Ans being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name of him who spake and it was, to whom all creatures and things obey. Moreover I, whom God made in the likeness of God, who is the creator according to his living breath, stir thee up in my name which is the voice of wonder of the mighty God. We need to come to understand that when creating changes within self for the sake of empowerment our external reality also begins to shift reflecting that internal empowerment. When working toward creating external shifts within our external reality our spirit is also empowered by simply exercising our own divine power. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House
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Her Life Was Unavoidably Affected by Departed Souls
According to legend, Mrs. Winchester enacted a nightly séance to help with her building plans and for protection from “bad” spirits. While she sometimes drew up simple sketches of the building idea, there were never any blueprints…or building inspectors! In the morning, she would meet with John Hansen, her dutiful foreman, and go over new changes and additions. There was an Electric Pentacle in the Blue Séance Room which was the most marvellous “Defense” against certain manifestations. Mrs. Winchester used the shape of the defensive star for this protection because she had, personally, no doubt at all that there was some extraordinary virtue in the old magic figure. Sometimes Mrs. Winchester had little doubt during her séances that she had run up against an abnormal monster, and she meant to take every possible care, for the dangers was abominable. One night, Mrs. Winchester turned to fit the Electric Pentacle, setting it so that each of its “points” and “vales” of the drawn pentagram upon the floor. Then she connected up the battery and the next instant the pale blue glare from the intertwining vacuum tubes shone out. She glanced about her then, with something of a sigh of relief, and realized suddenly that the dusk was upon her, for one of the windows had turned black and unfriendly. Then she stated round at the big, empty room, over the double-barrier of electric and candle light, and had an abrupt, extraordinary sense of weirdness thrust upon her—in the air, you know, it seemed; as it were a sense of something inhuman impending. The room was full of the stench of bruised garlic, and everyone knew Mrs. Winchester hated for the aroma of food to whiff out of the kitchen. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Mrs. Winchester did not know what was going to materialize. No idea of what kind of ab-natural creature was going to manifest, but she had an idea something horrible was lurking. She could feel its presence and was in fear of what she was going to see. You see, she never forgot that thirteen staff members had been strangled, one after the other, when entering the east wing, and the fierce slamming of the door she heard herself. She had no doubt that there was something dangerous and ugly out to get her. The Christian Bible warns that Satanic delusions will be abound in the last days. It was nervy work waiting for that thing to come into the Blue Séance Room. Suddenly, Mrs. Winchester was aware that the candles were all a-flickering in an unnatural wind sweeping over her, coming from behind. She gave one great nerve-thrill and a prickly feeling went all over the back of her head. Then she pulled herself around with a sort of stiff jerk and stared straight against that queer wind. It seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed—the place where both times she had found the heap of notes the spirits had given her about the 500 rooms they wanted constructed in the mansion and exterior elevations that they found appealing. Yet she could see mothing unusual, no opening—nothing! Abruptly she was aware that the candles were all a-flicker in that unnatural wind…she just squatted there and stared in a horribly frightened, stone way for some moments. It was disgustingly horrible sitting in that vile, cold wind! And then—flick! flick! flicky! all the candles round the outer barrier went out, and there she was, locked and sealed in the Blue Séance Room with no light beyond the weakish blue glare of the Electric Pentacle. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
A time of abominable tenseness passed and still that wind blew upon her, and then she suddenly knew that something stirred in the corner to the left of the table. Mrs. Winchester was made conscious of it rather by some inward, unused sense, than by either sight or sound, for the pale, short-radius glare of the of the Pentacle gave but a very poor light for seeing by. Yet, as Mrs. Winchester started, something began slowly to grow upon my sight—a moving shadow, a little darker than the surrounding shadows. She lost the thing amid the vagueness and for a moment or two she glanced swiftly from side to side with a fresh, new sense of impending danger. Mrs. Winchester then cast a spell, “I offer my hair as a symbol of my spiritual ties to the powers of divine darkness eternal.” Then she burned the strand of hair upon the flame dropping what remained into the urn. “I offer my blood so that in its place the venomous powers of darkness will flow through my veins!) She dropped 13 drops of blood upon the candle. Next the incantation said, “I offer my flesh as a vehicle for the powers of darkness to move through me and act in this World according to my own divine will.” She allowed the flame to burn her hand slightly. “I offer these nails as spears to pierce the very essence of my enemies whether they be of the World or those who dwell beyond the veil of limitation! (She touched the nails to the flame and then dropped them upon the urn.) “I offer these ashes which are my limitations and obstacles consumed by this, they very blackened fire of becoming! (She sprinkled a bit of ash upon the urn and then smeared a bit upon her ajna chakra.) Next she chanted, “All ashes from magickal work should be saved as they will serve the black adept well in their sorcerous applications.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Mrs. Winchester suddenly noticed that there were five flaming Fibonacci spirals moving counter clockwise, which caused a physical manifestation of the ever-expanding powers of darkness infiltrating the limits of the corporeal realm. These flaming spirals were in the Circle of Counter Creation and were aethyrically present as the seals were fed with the blood of the sorceress. Mrs. Winchester was aware in a funny, subconscious, introspective fashion that the “creeps” had come upon her, prickling all over her head, yet she was cooler mentally than she had been for some minutes; sufficiently so to feel that her hands were sweating coldly. The faint noises from the bed creased once and there was a most intense silence, with only the dull thudding of the blood beating in her head. Yet immediately afterwards Mrs. Winchester heard again the slurring sound of the blood being sucked into the seals. In the midst of her nervous tension. Then there was a time of absolute quietness then for perhaps a couple of minutes and you can imagine how horrible she felt. The blood had been guzzled with such savageness! And then again the abominable unnaturalness of the thing that had just been done before her! Suddenly, over b the door, she heard a faint noise—a sort of crickling sound and then a pitter or two upon the floor. A great nervous thrill swept over her, seeming to run up her spine and over the back of her head, for the seal that secured the door had just been broken. Something else was there. Mrs. Winchester could not see the door; at least, it was impossible to say how much she actually saw and how much her imagination supplied. She made it out only as a continuation of the expanding darkness. There was an indistinct wavered there among the shadows. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Abruptly she was aware that the door was opening with an effort, as she got up to see what was coming in, the door slammed with a terrific crash that filled the whole room with a sort of hollow thunder. Mrs. Winchester jumped like a frightened child. There seemed such a power behind the noise, as if a vast, wanton Force were “out.” Can you understand? She knew that was abroad was dangerous to Life. Therefore, beware, when people think of Satan merely as a man with a tail and horns, and just mock at the idea of a real devil, they make a terrible mistake and thus enable Satan to ensnare and attack his victims without hindrance. Mrs. Winchester was truly haunted and tried everything she know how to do to rid herself of these evil spirits the curse her fortune. The most dangerous area of satanic seduction is magic, for it is here that people consciously participate in Satan’s work even though he hides behind a camouflage of pious ceremonies. The ritual Mrs. Winchester performed began in total darkness. After the preliminary invocation, the four cardinal points were invoked, symbolically opening the “Gates of Hell.” The circle of light revealed the scarlet-robed priest seated on a throne, who appeared to be a werewolf. After the spell was cast. The red-robed invocator, half man, half beast appeared and drank from the seal. Mrs. Winchester, however, was attempting to close the gates of hell, not open them. Greater magic is regarded as the accomplishment of changes in the objective Universe through those great subjective outpourings of the will summoned during a ritual. This is how curses work. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Modern America, much like Victorian times, can be a dark and scary place, largely inhabited by deeply ignorant people with an aching desire to crucify anything they regard as deviant. And although the media so often preaches the gospel of individual responsibility, it rarely applies that philosophy. The usual suspects are dragged out—the Internet, neo-Nazism, computer games, Hollywood films, rap, rock music, and TV shows, but some how the TV news who constantly airs evil, which they profit off of, goes unnoticed. They do not want to have discussions because it may diffuse their profits. Instead, local news just expands the time limits of their evil content, and then say they do not have time to discuss it. But, if your local news if on the air 7 hours a day, they do have time to talk, but they know the only thing that keeps them on the air is lies, crimes, and violence because it is entertaining and can compete with TV shows. Furthermore, one will notice, if at a crime scene where The Satanic Bible is found or other occult symbols or objects, it is immediately labelled a “Satanic crime”—whereas a crime sense where The Holy Bible is found or where people are calling on God or there are biblical signs and symbols, it is not automatically identified as “Christian crime.” Just as the ignorant like to maintain they were made in the image of God, they also prefer to believe the Devil was fashioned from the likeness of that weird family down the street that work at the TV station. The ritual of driving the scapegoat out into the desert, stemming from biblical times, persists into the new millennium. Satanists will continue to play with “spiritual nitroglycerine,” while taking responsibility for their own actions and insisting that others accept responsibility for theirs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
In embracing perennial Christian taboos, rejecting both the tradition of scapegoating and the “victim culture,” we intend to prevent present-day idiocies from dragging the next millennium into another miserable Dark Age. If a new Satanic Age is born, it will be born from the ideals of curiosity, independence and pleasures. From a Satanic perspective, there is room for optimism. The Devil is winning. Christians cannot control themselves or modify their behaviors to honor their God. Seekers after supernatural cures may be deluded into a healing by demon-energized magic. The power to heal diseases is frequently manifested in spiritism, mafic, and demon possession. The clairvoyant medium often claims that one can heal the body, as well as foretell the future. The magical charmer and mesmerizer can both cure and cause diseases. The person afflicted with an evil spirit is often promised ability to cure physical ailments if he will serve the dominating demon. The danger of delusion increases in these last days as demonic activity accelerates and serious study of God’s Word wanes. Satan heals but demands some sort of payment in the form of psychic enslavement, cult involvement, or bondage to some for of fanaticism. Black-magic conjuration openly uses the name of Satan and demonic powers. People who are dept in the black arts and workers of diabolic miracles open doors to the unknown. Such occultists were popular in the courts of ancient pagan kings. They not only advised the heads of government but performed supernatural feats, including magical charming of the sick. The ability of such magicians is conditioned on the human plane by their inherent psychic power, and on the supernatural plane by their degree of abandonment to demonic domination. We may never know if Mrs. Winchester built her house to accommodate the spirits, but over the years the story has come down that she believed her life was unavoidably affected by departed souls. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
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Winchester Mystery House
At this 160-room mansion built to appease departed spirits, some guests have caught some interesting shadows on camera during their visits to the house. What do you think? See more on The Walk With Spirits Tour this weekend!
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Randolph Harris II International 