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He Began to Think, After All, Was Death the End?
A story of confession—man tells how he reached the true meaning of his experience of life, and that this meaning border directly on the eternal. Satan first appeared in the sixth century B.C., in Persia, under the name of Angra Mainyu. He was usually represented as a snake, or as part lion, part snake, which points up once again the recurring symbolism of the serpent and cat. The Zoroastrian religion was the official religion of Persia at that time, and it spread with the extension of the Empire until the Persian military might was crushed by the Muslim invasion of A.D. 652. The teachings of the prophet Zoroaster served as served as a vehicle by which the doctrine of ethical dualism, the eternal battle between good and evil, was to spread to the rest of the World. Zoroastrianism taught that there were two forces or spirits in the Universe from which all else emanated: Ahura Mazda, the Principle of Light, the source of all good, and Angra Mainyu, the Principle of Darkness, the source of all evil. These two were supposed to be carrying on a constant battle, each attempting to destroy the other, until the coming of the Judgement, at which time the forces of Light would triumph. The Earth and all the material Universe were created by Ahura Mazda to be used as a weapon by which to ensnare and defeat Angra Mainyu. Man was created by Ahura Mazda to be used as a weapon by which to ensnare and defeat Angra Mainyu. Man was created by Ahura Mazada for the same purpose, but having the faculty of free will, one could choose between good and evil. In preparation for the oncoming battle, both spirits created subsidiary spirits to help them in their fight, these sides being organized into vast military organizations, efficient and terrible. The development of this military hierarchy, with Satan commanding legions of horrible demons, was to have a tremendous impact on the thinking of Judaic, Christian, and even Islamic cosmologies, the idea coming into special prominence at times when each of the cultures was making moves toward military expansion.
In 586 B.C., Jerusalem was taken by King Nebuchadnezzar after a long and bloody war, the Hebrews being deported to Babylonia. In 538 B.C., Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylonia and issued a decree giving the Jewish people there a privileged status in the new social order. However, Cyrus was not only the harbinger of political freedom but also the carrier of a new spiritual awakening. Satan had appeared in the holy books of the Jewish people long before their contact with the Persians, but only in a very limited role. Satan translated from Hebrew means “accuser” or “adversary,” and that was precisely the role Satan played in Judaic angelology before the Persian influence. Satan was at the time, at the very most, slightly rebellious and resentful, perhaps wishing to work evil but forced to promote good due to the overriding influence of God. His function was to accuse men before God, expose their infidelity, and then bring about their punishment—but only under the auspices of God Himself. To the ancient Jewish people, who were hard-core realists, Satan symbolized man’s evil inclinations. It is very likely, in fact, that the introduction of Satan into Judaism was intended only in a figurative sense, and that he was not supposed to function as a distinct spiritual being at all. The contact with the Zoroastrians, at any rate, brought drastic changes in Jewish literature. The Jewish Sheol, once a place of eternal peace and sleep, was transformed into Hell, a place of damnation and punishment for the wicked. The serpent that tempted Eve became Satan in disguise, and the Devil became the originator of all evil, the author of death, a complete contradiction of the earlier Book of Isaiah, in which God proclaimed Himself to be responsible for all good and evil in the World, the creator of life and death.
The Judaic demonology, which had been up to that time relatively unimportant, took on a fresh look, and Satan as the archfiend came to head up a formalized hierarchy of storm troopers dedicated to the overthrow of the Heavenly forces. Demons consorted with humans to produce human offspring. Men went to bed at night fearing the coming of the bloodsucking she-demon Lilith or her consort, Samael, the Angel of Death, who cut men down in their prime and carried them off to Hell. In was in such a condition that Satan was transferred to the emerging Christian sect. In the New Testament, he become the “Old Serpent,” the “Great Dragon,” upholding his snaky image. Considering later developments, these reptilian descriptions are very relevant, for nowhere in Zoroastrian, Judaic, or Christian mythology was Satan described as a goat, as he was later portrayed by the Inquisitors. The Devil was a cosmic element to be taken seriously by any right-thinking Christians, of course, but at that time, Christianity was much too bus fighting for its own survival to search out Satan in any lair in which he might be hiding. In the Fifth century, in his treatise The City of God, Saint Augustine described the legions of demons that are active on Earth and the powers that they exert over humans. However, he went on to say that evil was a creation not of the Devil, but of God, in order to select the “elect” from the damned. In stating, “For we cannot call the devil a fornicator or drunkard or ascribe him any sensual indulgence though he is the secret instigator and prompter of those who sin in these ways,” he reflected an image of Satan far different from the one that was to emerge later on the Continent. The picture of Satan as sort of an immoral dope-pusher, getting weak persons hooked on his “junk” while he himself abstained and reaped the profits, was a far cry from the later lecherous goat, the Prince of Fornication, who as the witches’ Sabbats copulated with every woman present.
In the gray Celtic mists of Wales and Scotland, the remains of Druidism, a mysterious religious group that claimed to be able, by certain strange, magical rituals, to make rain, to bring down fire from the sky, and to perform other wondrous and miraculous acts was found. Druids would meet in the darkness of the forests, these sorcerers, among their sacred trees. In Greece, missionaries found the bloody rites of Dionysus, the goat-god, the god of vegetation. There also, in beautiful gardens, they discovered the people making offerings to Priapus, who bore the horns of a goat and who displayed proudly a huge phallus, a deity of productive power who protected the fields and the bees and the sheep. They encountered the god Pan waiting for them deep in the black forests, waiting for the transformation that would increase the limits of his kingdom a thousandfold. Wherever the Christian missionaries turned, they found the peasantry worshipping many animal gods, primary among them being the bull, the ram, and the stag. Among the northern Teutonic peoples, there were the war gods Thor and Odin, and the evil Loki, all wearing horned helmets as they went to battle. Freyja, the Scandinavian May queen counterpart of the southern Diana, donned antlers and was responsible for the revival of life in the spring. Dionysus, Isis, Priapus, Cernunnos, all were horned gods of fertility. Those woods and glades were populated with nymphs and goatlike satyrs, lesser spirits who played gleefully and licentiously in the summer sun. The horned god was to resist the oncoming Christian tide, become miraculously transformed into Satan, the ruler of the Earth in all its glory. With the conquest of the new pagan territories, Christians launched a spiritual assault on their new captives in an attempt to spread the gospel.
Most of the missionaries underestimated the power of the nature religions of the pagans. They viewed the holding of such religious beliefs to be due merely to error and believed that once such errors were revealed, the pagans would be blinded by the light of truth and embrace Jesus as their Savior. However, the pagans found the teachings of the Nazarene to be a little too distant and mystical for their liking. Thus, when the initial attempt at conversion failed, the missionaries found it necessary to change their views, and they began to incorporate many elements of the old religions into Christian doctrine in an attempt to kill them by subversion. Many of the pagan deities were transformed overnight into Christian saints, adding new pages to the growing Christian mythology. Elements of pagan rituals and ceremonies found their way into Christian services as each parish soaked up local traditions. As late as 1282, a priest at Inverkeithing was found to be leading fertility dances at Easter around the phallic figure of god, and the Catholic hierarchy, after investigation, allowed him to keep his benefice. From the sixth century, as more territory became opened to Christianity, the pagan kings began to convert one by one. Certain wicked women, reverting to Satan, and seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believed and professed that they would ride at night with Diana on certain beasts, with an innumerable multitude of women, passing over immense distances, obeying her commands as their mistress, and evoked by her on certain nights. Tales of nocturnal gatherings of witches who flew on animals to hilltop meetings were common enough to have been included in Boccaccio’s Decameron in 1350, but most of the high Christian officials saw these women not as practitioners of the abominations to which they confessed, but only as the unwilling victims of demonic tricksters.
Some, spurred on by the pessimistic view that the World was purposely created and maintained as a living Hell, existing solely to prepare humans for their future Heavenly existence, the pious conducted a “holier than thou” contest to see who could inflict the most self-abuse. They measured Earthly success in terms of how much pain they could force themselves to endure, or how many lice they were able to nurture in their hair. As asceticism came to be incorporated into Church dogma, all of nature came to be looked upon as something vile and corrupt. Knights Templar and various Gnostic heresies, were clear-cut reactions against the corruption rampant in the Church and they instituted strict vows of chastity and poverty among their priesthoods. Since the Templars were a wealth order and since the wealth of all those convicted of heretical crimes became the property of the state, it is possible that the episode was fabricated by King Philip of France to fill his badly depleted treasure. However, in 1312, the powerful Knights Templar, a fraternal organization of Christian Crusaders, which had ostensibly formed as a response to what its leader saw as corruption in the Church, was declared heretical by the Church, and its members imprisoned. Many disciples of the group cracked under the strain of torture and confessed to having practiced a variety of abominable rite, including the worship of a deity called Baphomet, described alternately as a breaded man’s head with one or three faces, a human skull, or a monstrous figure with human hands and the head of a goat, a candle sputtering between its horns. Initiates were forced to spit and trample upon the cross, renounce Christ as a false prophet, gird themselves with cords that had been tied to pagan idols, and perform homosexual acts.
Unfortunately, the Templars failed to develop a survival course geared to an unexpected enemy—their own church—and the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, was burned outside Paris in 1314. Regardless of the reality of the Satanic charges against them, the Templar legend would play an important role in Western magical tradition and in the belief systems of other secret societies—Satanic and non-Satanic—which traced their own practices to those of the Knights. In 1275, not long before Jacques de Molay’s execution, the first official execution for witchcraft was burned at the stake in Toulouse. Other executions followed. With most of the powerful heretical movements stamped out by the fourteenth century, the Christian fathers, intoxicated by the smell of burning flesh, searched frantically for new victims. The early witch executions set a valuable precedent, and the pantheon of nature gods of the peasant farmers was opened up for attack. By the time the concepts of heresy and witchcraft had become thoroughly confused, and the Inquisitors saw demons everywhere. The biblical edict, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” came into literal use on a grand scale. By the time that Pope Innocent VIII gave official sanction by a papal bull in 1484 for the witch prosecutions, executions for witchcraft had been in full swing in parts of the Continent for two hundred years. However, in 1485, a more detailed account of the dealings of witches was published by the Dominican Inquisitors Henry Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, entitles the Malleus Maleficarum. This work, which became a manual for Inquisitors and witch-hunters for the next two centuries, spelled out in great detail the methods of workings of witches, their treacherous league with the Devil, and described methods for securing convictions of the accused. The doors were thrown open for the blood bath.
The frenzy that shook Europe was monumental. The witch became for the European Christian, as H.R. Trevor-Roper terms it, the “stereotype of noncomformity,” a convenient scapegoat for jealousy and self-hatred. The craze reached such paranoiac proportions that between 1120 and 1741, when the madness finally subsided, ninety domestic animals had been tried before courts of law for murder and witchcraft. In 1314 at Valois, a bull that had gored a man to death was sentenced to death by strangulation. All of Europe was under the dark cloud of Satan, as neighbors and friends viewed each other with suspicion and families turned on one another in blind fear. The Reformation of the sixteenth century made Catholics even more certain that the Satanic forces were everywhere trying to undermine the authority of the Church. The Thirty Years War was seen as Armageddon, the Infernal Hierarchy more than ever assuming the aspects of a well-oiled military machine, with Satan leading Luther and his demonic Protestant hordes in a bloody assault on the City of God. The Lutherans entered the proceeding with vigor, for they were revolting against the corruption and laxity they saw in the Church, this decay being due to Satanic influences. Luther viewed his adversaries as bring inspired by the Devil, and even his own bodily ailments he attributed to demonic activity. The spiral of executions soared ever upward, each side tying to outdo the other to meet the challenge. One Protestant reformer by the name of Carpzov claimed personal responsibility for the deaths of 20,000 people. The property seized from the witches was a valuable source of capital with which to finance the war effort. Besides this, there were many carpenters, judges, jailers, exorcists, woodcutters, and executioners who had an economic reason to see the bloodbath continue.
By the time the people had regained their senses and the Inquisition had come to a screeching halt in the late seventeenth century, an untold number of victims had been burned, strangled, hanged, or tortured to death. Even higher than the reported deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, 9 million suspected witches had been terminated. However, while the tragic farce had been conducted, a strange metamorphosis had taken place. The Inquisition, which had convicted a multitude of peasants for worshipping the Devil, had found itself caught up in a self-fulfilling prophecy; it had created a new vision. Satan had begun to change in appearance by the time of the first mass executions for witchcraft in the fifteen century. He had shed his snakeskin and had grown a coat of fur and horns. He had become hoofed and shaggy. He had become Pan and Priapus and Cernunnos and Loki and Odin and Thor and Dionysus and Isis and Diana. He had become the god of fertility and abundance and lust. He was the lascivious goat, the mysterious black ram. He was all of nature and indeed life itself to the peasant, who had often lived on the verge of starvation due to the crushing taxes of the feudal aristocracy. He was pleasures of the flesh, and since to the peasant pleasures of the flesh was identical to creation itself, and was one of the few pleasures not open to taxation, he was their god. The Churches fanatical asceticism, its rabid identification of pleasures of the flesh with evil, added to the Devil’s strength. The Inquisitors, with an image of Satan and his hellish activities imprinted on their brains, slowly managed to stamp the image on the minds of peasantry. It was through their dogged efforts that Satan became the savior of man. When the Satanic hysteria gets to the point of absurdity, people start questioning the whole line of crap. It will eventually get so no one believes anything Christian ministers say anymore. When they hear about the Devil and how rotten he is, it just makes them curious about what the Satanic viewpoint might be.
In modern times, figures were produced as many as 100,000 people are sacrificed to the Devil every year in the United States of America alone. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, there was a site used by a cult. A form of a church. And it is probably still in use. Some symbols and artifacts were discovered that made some concerned. An officer from Albuquerque Police Department was more specific: “This is definitely witchcraft. And I’d stay away from there if there are any people around. They will hurt you.” Another “occult expert” observed that the symbol they found was “a very powerful spiritual symbol.” It essentially started a witch hunt in the community. If you recall a suburb called Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles, California. Centering on the popular McMartin Preschool day-car centre, it would become the most expensive trial in Californian criminal history up to that point. It began when some parents voiced suspicious that their children were abused by staff at the centre. Seven staff members were arrested to face 208 different charges. Then things got weird. The children began telling increasingly bizarre stories. They had been forced to drink blood and eat feces, had witnessed adults sacrificing animals and eating babies. To many, this seemed like a morbid, childish fantasy. However, the trial split the whole community, including those prosecuting the case. One prosecutor proudly announced the discovery of “toy rabbit ears, a cape, and a candle” proved the existence of a Satanic cult. Another resigned in disgust at the shabby proceedings. Meanwhile, things just got weirder. One child said he was kept in a cage with a lion. The case dragged on for many years. As the trial turned into a circus, it emerged that the mother who made the initial accusations had a history of mental problems. Five of the accused were released without charge because evidence against them was, according to the District Attorney “incredibly weak.”
The last defendant was released as the jury deadlocked on a verdict. That following July, a second trial produced the same result. This inconclusive verdict is emblematic of the Satanic ritual abuse myth. On one side, those who wanted to believe in it emphasized that the accused had never been fully exonerated. In the other, the secptics pointed out that nothing had been proved—despite huge public expenditure—and wondered aloud whether the therapist who interviewed the children had helped inspire their macabre tales of cultists and demons. We may pay the tribute of a tearful smile to the ashes of witchcraft, and express our opinion of the present-day beliefs of the simple country-folk by a pitying smile, feeling all the time how much more enlightened we are than those who believed, or still believe in such absurdities! However, the mind of a man is built in water-tight compartments. What better embodies the spirit of the young twenty-first century than a powerful motor car, fully equipped with the most up-to-date appliances for increasing speed or less vibration; in its tuneful hum as it travels at forty-five miles an hour without an effort, we hear the triumph-song of mind over matter. The owner certainly does not believe in witchcraft or phishogues (or perhaps in anything save himself!), yet he fastens on the radiator a “Teddy Bear” or some such thing by way of a mascot. Ask him why he does it—he cannot tell, except that other do the same, while all the time at the back of his mind there exists almost unconsciously the belief that such a thing will help to keep him from the troubles and annoyances that beset the path of the motorists. The connection between cause and effect is unknown to him; he cannot tell you why a Teddy Bear will keep the engine operating normally or prevent punctures—and in this respect he is for the moment on exactly the same intellectual level as, let us say, his brother-man of New Zealand, who carries a baked yam with him at night to scare away ghosts.
The truth of the matter is that we all have a vein of superstition in us, which makes its appearance at some period in our lives under one form or another. A. will laugh to scorn B.’s belief in witches or ghost, while one oneself would not undertake a piece of business on a Friday for all the wealth of Croesus; while C., who laughs at both, will offer one’s hand to the palmist in full assurance of faith. There are some marvelous tales about Sarah Winchester her mansion. In fact, thousands of words have been and will be written about the Mystery Hose and its Lady but the great question is yet to be answered, —Why? Why? Sarah Winchester was truly overcome by the loss of her month-old baby girl, Annie, and a grief magnified 15 years later by her husband’s sudden death. Doctors and friend urged her to leave the East, seek a milder climate and search for some all-consuming hobby. One physician did suggest that she “build a house and do not employ an architect.” William Wirt Winchester, the Husband of Sarah Winchester, was of an ancient family, and had inherited wealth. When he was at university, he fell into somewhat evil hands; for he made friends with an old doctor of college, who feared not God and thought ill of man, and spent all his time in dark researches into the evil secrets of nature, they study of dangerous poisons and many other hidden words of darkness such as drinking vitals of his own blood, conducting Satanic rituals in a deserted farmhouse, intercourse with spirits of evil, and the black influences that lie in wait for the soul; and he found William an apt pupil. William lived in a Victorian cottage near the university for some years till he was nearly thirty, seldom visiting his home, and writing but formal letters to this father, who supplied him gladly with a small revenue, so long as he kept busy with education.
Then his father, Oliver Fisher Winchester, died and William Wirt Winchester came home to take up his inheritance, which was a plentiful one. He also became the president of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. He lived in his father’s Victorian mansion in New Haven, Connecticut, which lay very desolate and gloomy. To serve him he had a man and his wife, Sarah, who were quiet and simple people and asked no questions; the wife cooked his meals, and kept the rooms, where he slept and read, clean and neat; the man moved his machines for him, and arranged his phials and instruments, having a light touch and serviceable memory. The door of the house that gave on the street opened into a hall; to the right was a kitchen, and a pair of rooms where the man and his wife lived. On the left was a large room running through the house; the windows on to the street were walled up, and the windows at the back looked on the garden, the trees of which grew closet to the casements making the room dark, and in a breeze rustling their leaves or leafless branches against the panes. In this room William had a furnace with bellows, the smoke of which discharged itself into the chimney; and here he did much of his working, making mechanical toys, as a clock to measure the speed of wind or water, roller skates, a little chariot that ran a few yards by itself, a puppet that moved its arms and laughed, hammers, planes, saws, footballs and bicycles. The room was filled up with dark lumber, in a sort of order that would have looked to a stranger like disorder, but so that William could lay his hand on all that he needed. From the hall, which was paved with stone, went up the stairs, very strong and broad, of massive oak; under which was a postern that led to the garden; on the floor above where a room William slept in, which again had its windows to the street boarded up, for he was a light sleeper, and the mornings sounds of the awakening city disturbed him.
The room was hung with a dark arras, sprinkled with red flowers; he slept in a great bed with black curtains to shut out all light; the windows looked into the garden; but on the left of the bed, which stood with its head to the street, was an alcove, being the hangings, containing a window that gave on the church. One the same floor were thirteen other rooms; in one of these, looking on the garden William had his meals. It was plain, panelled room. Next was a room where he read, filled with books, also looking on the garden and the next to that was a little room of which he alone had the key. This room he kept locked, and no one set foot in it but himself. There was one more room on this floor, set apart for guests (who never came), with a great bed and a press of oak. And that looked on the street. Above, there was a row of plain plastered rooms, in which stood furniture for which William had no use, and many crates in which his machines and phials came to him; this floor was seldom visited, except by the man, who sometimes came to put a box there; and the spiders had it to themselves; except for a little room where stood an optic glass through which on clear nights William sometimes looked at the moon and stars, if there was any odd misadventure among them, such as an eclipse; or when a fiery-tailed comet went his way silently in the Heavens. William had but two friends who ever came to see him. One was an old physician who had ceased to practise his trade, which indeed was never abundant, and who would sometimes drink a glass of wine with William, and engage in curious talk of men’s bodies and diseases, or look at one of William’s inventions. William had come to know him by having called him in to cure some aliment, which needed a surgical knife; and that had made a kind of friendship between them; but William had little need thereafter to consult him about his health, which indeed was now settled enough, though he had but little vigour; and he knew enough of drugs to cure himself when he was ill.
The other friend was a silly priest of the college, that made belief to be a student but was none, who thought William a very wise and mighty person, and listened with open mouth and eyes to all that he said or showed him. This priest, who was fond of wonders, had introduced himself to William by pretending to borrow a volume of him; and then had grown proud of the acquaintance, and bragged greatly of it to his friends, mixing up much tht was fanciful with a little that was true. However, the result was that gossip spread wide about William, and he was held in the town to very a very fearful person, who could do strange mischief if her had a mind to; William never cared to walk abroad, for he was of a shy habit, and disliked to meet the eyes of his fellows; but if he did go about, men began to look curiously after he as he went by, shook their heads and talked together with dark pleasure, while children fled before his face and women feared him; all of which pleased William mightily, if the truth were told; for at the bottom of his restless and eager spirit lay a deep vanity unseen, like a lake in the woods; he hungered not indeed for fame, but for repute—and he cared little in what repute he was held, so long as men thought him great and marvellous; and as he could not win renown by brave deeds and words, he was rejoiced to win it by keeping up a certain darkness and mystery about his ways and doings; and this was very clear to him, so that when the silly priest called him Seer and Wizard, he frowned and looked sideways; but he laughed in his heart and was glad. Now, when William was near his fortieth year, there fell on him a heaviness of spirit which daily increased upon him. He began to question his end and what lay beyond. He had grown to believe that in death, the soul was extinguished like a burnt-out flame. William began, too, to question his life and what he had done.
He had made a few guns, toys, and filled vacant hours, and had gained a kind of fame—and this was all. Was he so certain, he began to think, after all, that death was the end? Were there perhaps, not in the vast house of God, rooms and chambers beyond that in which he was set for awhile to pace to and fro? About this time he began to read in a Bible tht he had lain dusty and unopened on a shelf. It was his mother’s book, and he found therein many little tokens of her presence. Here was a verse underline; at some gracious passage the page was much fingered and worn; in one place there were stains that looked like the mark of tears; then again, in one page, there was a small tress of hair, golden hair, tied to a paper with a name across it, that seemed to be the name of his daughter who had died at six weeks old; and again there were a few withered flowers, like little sad ghosts, stuck through a paper on which was written his father’s name—the name of the powerful, demanding, silent man who William had feared with all his heart. William felt a sudden desire of the heart for a woman’s love, for tender words to sooth his sadness, for the laughter and kisses of his new born daughter—and he began to ransack his mind for memories of his baby; he could remember he being pressed to his heart one morning, with her fragrant hair falling about his. She had unusually long hair for a newborn baby. The worst was that he must bear his sorrow alone, for there were none to whom he could talk of such things. The doctor was a dry as an old bunch of herbs, and as for the priest, William was ashamed to show anything but contempt and pride in his presence. For relief he began to turn to a branch of his studies that he had long neglected; this was a fearful commerce with the unseen spirits.
William could remember having practised some experiments of this kind with the old doctor; but he remembered them with a kind of disgust, for they seemed to him but a sort of deadly juggling; such dark things he had seen seemed like a dangerous sport with unclean beings, more brute-like than human. Yet now he read in his curious books with care, and studied the tales of necromancers, who had indeed seemed to have some power over the souls of men departed. However, the old books gave him but little faith, and a kind of angry disgust at the things attempted. And he began to think that the horror in which such men as made these books lived, was not more than the dak shadow cast on the mirror of the soul by their own desperate imaginings and timorous excursions. One Sunday he was strangely sad and heavy; he could settle to nothing, but threw book after book aside, and when he turned to some work of construction, his had seemed to have lost its cunning. It was a grey and sullen day in November; a warm wet wind came buffeting up from the west, and roared in the chimney and eaves of the old mansion. The shrubs in the garden plucked themselves hither and thither as though in pain. William walked to and fro after his midday meal, which he had eaten hastily without savour; at last, as though with a sudden resolution, he went to a secret cabinet and got out a key; and with it he went to the door of the little room that was always locked. He stopped at the threshold for a while, looking hither and thither; and then he suddenly unlocked it and went in, closing and locking it behind him. The room was as dark as night, but William going softly, his hands before him, went to a corner and got a tinder-box which lay there, and made a flame. A small dark room appeared, hung with a black tapestry; the window was heavily shuttered and curtained; in the centre of the room stood what looked like a small altar pained black; the floor was all bare, but with white marks upon it, half effaced.
William looked about the room, glancing sidelong, as though in some kind of doubt; his breath went and came quickly, and he looked paler than usual. Presently, as though reassured by silence and calm of the place, he went to a tall press that stood in in corner, which he opened, and took from it certain things—a dish of metal, some small leather bags, a large lump of chalk, and a book. He laid all but the chalk down on the alter, and then opening the book, read in it a little; and then he went with the chalk and drew certain marks upon the floor, first making a circle, which he went over again and again with anxious care; at times he went back and peeped into the book as though uncertain. Then he opened the bags, which seemed to hold certain kinds of powdered, this dusty, that in grains; he ran them through his hands, and then poured a little of each into his dish, and mixed them with his hands. Then he stopped and looked about him. Then he walked to a place in the wall on the further side of the altar from the door, and drew the arras carefully aside, disclosing a little alcove in the wall; into this he looked fearfully, as though he was afraid of what he might see. In the alcove, which was all black, appeared a small shelf, that stood but a little way out from the wall. Upon it, gleaming very white against the black, stood the skull of a man, and on either side of the skull were the bones of a man’s hand. It looked to him, as he gazed on it with a sort of curious disgust, as though a dead man had come up to the surface of a black tide, and was preparing presently to leap out. On either side stood two long silver candlesticks, very dark with disuse; but instead of holding candles, they were fitted at the top with flat metal dishes; and in these he poured some of his powders, mixing them as before with his fingers. William felt a shudder ass through he veins.
He went down for supper. When his food was served, he could hardly touch it, and he drank cranberry juice as his custom was to do. Around midnight, William rose from his place; the house was now all silent, and without the night was very still, as though all things slept tranquilly. He took a black robe, and put it around him, so that it covered him from head to foot, and then gathered up the parchment, and the key of the locked room, and went softly out, and so came to the door. This he undid with a kind of secret and awestruck haste, locking it behind him. Once inside the room, he wrestled awhile with a strong aversion to what was in his mind to do, and stood for a moment, listening intently, as though he expected to hear some sound. However, the room was still, except for the faint biting od some small creature in the wainscot. After performing a ritual, suddenly William saw for a moment a pale light, as of moonlight, and then with a horror of what words cannot attain to describe, he saw a face hand in the air a few feet from him, that looked in his own eyes with a sort of intent fury, as though to spring upon him if he turned either to the right hand or to the left. His knees tottered beneath him, and a sweat of icy coldness sprang on his brow; there followed a sound like no sound William had dreamed of hearing; a sound that was near and yet remote, a sound that was low and yet charged with power, like the groaning of a voice in grievous pain and anger, that strives to be free and yet is helpless. And then William new that he indeed opened the door that looks into the other World, and that deadly thing that held him in enmity had looked out. His reeling brain still told him that he was safe where he was, but that he must not step or fall outside the circle; but how he should resist the power of the wicked face he knew not. He tried to frame a prayer in his heart; but there swept such fury of hatred across the face that he dared not. So he closed his eyes and stood dizzily waiting to fall, and knowing that if he fell it was the end.
Suddenly, as he stood with his eye closed, he felt the horror of the spell relax; he opened his eyes again, and saw that the face died out upon the air, becoming first white and then thin. Then there fell a low and sweet music upon their air, like a concert of flutes and harps, very far away. And then suddenly, in a sweet radiance, the face of his daughter, as she lived in his mind, appeared in the space, and looked at him with a kind of Heavenly loved; then beside the face appeared two thin hands which seemed to wave a blessing toward him, which flowed like healing into his soul. The relief from the horror, and the flood of tenderness that came into his heart, made him reckless. The tears came into his eyes, not in a rising film, but a flood of hot and large. He took step forwards rounding the altar; but as he did so, the vision disappeared, the lights shot up into a flare and went out; the house seemed to be suddenly shaken; in the darkness he heard the rattle of bones, and the clash of metal, and William fell all his length upon the ground and lay as one dead. But while he lay, there came to him in some secret cell of his mind a dreadful vision, which he could only dimly remember afterwards with a fitful horror. A door-to-nowhere opened. He stepped through. It was very damp and chilly, but there was a glimmering light; he walked a few paced down the hallway. The floor underfoot were slimy, and the walls streamed with damp. He thought that he could return; but the great door was closed behind him, and he could not open it. William felt like a child in the grip of a giant and went forward in great terror and perplexity. Then there came someone very softly down the passage and drew near—it was his wife Sarah. He followed her into the parlor where she received her morning tea. He could not get her attention, but while looking over her shoulder, he noticed the date on the Oakland Tribune was Sunday, December 30, 1900.
Then end soon came, for the tall man, who had brought William there, broke out into a great storm of passion; and William heard him say, “He hath yielded himself to his own will; and he is mine here; so let us make an end.” William made haste to go back, and found the door-to-nowhere ajar; but he as he reached it, he heard a horrible sin behind him, of cries and screams; and it was with a sense of gratitude, that he could not put into words, but which filled all his heart, that he found himself back in his home again. And then the vision all fled away, and with a shock coming to himself, he found that he was laying in his own room; he was cold and aching in every limb, and then he knew that a battle had been fought out over his soul, and moments later, he passed away, on March 7th 1881, but the evil had not prevailed. Upon William’s death, his wife Sarah inherited $20,000,000 and 777 shares of stock in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the death of her child and husband left a beautiful, bizarre, and impressive architectural reflection of her psyche. The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun That Won the West.” Each of us dwells in our own particular glass house, and so cannot afford to hurl missiles at one’s neighbours; milk-magic or motor-mascots, pishogues or palmistry, the method of the manifestation is of little account in comparison with the underlying superstition. The latter is an unfortunate trait that has been handed down to us from the infancy of the race; we have managed to get rid of such physical features as tails or third eyes, whose day of usefulness has passed; we no longer masticate our meat raw, or chip the rugged flint into the semblance of a knife, but we still acknowledge our descent by giving expression to the strange beliefs that lie in some remote lumber-room at the back of the brain.
However it may be objected that belief in witches, ghosts, fairies, charms, evil-eye, etcetera, need not be put down as unreasoning superstition, pure and simple, that in fact the trend of modern thought is to show us that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than were formerly dreamt of. We grant that humans are very complex machines, a microcosm peopled with possibilities of which we can understand but little. We know that mind acts on mind to an extraordinary degree, and that the imagination can affect the body to an extent not yet fully realized, and indeed has often carried humans far beyond the bounds of commo-sense; and so we consider that many of these elements of the above beliefs can in a general way be explained along these lines. Nevertheless that does not do away with the element of superstition and, we ma add, oftentimes of deliberately-planned evil that underlies. There is no need to resurrect the old dilemma, whether God or the Devil was the principal agent concerned; we have no desire to preach to our readers, but we feel that every thinking human will be fully prepared to admit that such beliefs and practices are inimical to the development of true spiritual life, in that they tend to obscure the ever-present Deity and bring into prominence primitive feelings and emotions which are better left to fall into a state of atrophy. In addition they crippled the growth of national life, as they make the individual the fearful slave of the unknow, and consequently prevent the development of an independent spirit in one without which a nation is only such in name. The dead past utters warnings to the heirs of the ages. It tells us already we have partially entered into a glorious heritage, which may perhaps be as nothing in respect of what will ultimately fall to the lot of the human race, and it bid us give our upward-soaring spirits freedom, and not fetter them with the gross beliefs of yore that should long ere this have been relegated to limbo.
Winchester Mystery House
This Friday, Aiden Sinclair is back at The Winchester Mystery House for two performances and an exclusive 13 guest Victorian Seance. Shows take place in Sarah’s iconic Grand Ballroom and Dining Room. You DON’T want to miss this 👀🔮Tickets available on our site! https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/aiden-sinclair/
Are You Brave Enough to Explore the House at Night?
The one problem with oral language is that after being handed down from generation to generation, the reasons for certain social laws are often forgotten and they become elevated to the stature of natural laws, the breaking of which is felt by humans to be detrimental to one’s survival as an organic entity. The laws begin to work independently of the reasons for their existence and in the process assume greater force. “Thou shalt not” is the basic of the concept of social evil. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s wife—all these are examples of social evils. If indulged, such acts are evil in that they would facilitate the breakdown of ties within the culture; they are prohibitions aimed at maintenance and control. Seldom have these evils been personified by any particular god, since they act in the capacity of universal laws and, as such, are mechanical, impersonal. Satan has not personified these social taboos in the same sense that Set personified the night and Horus personified the sun; he rather has skillfully manipulated these moral edicts in an attempt to undermine the forces of righteousness and good. Satan as personification of evil has beaten a consistent and clear path through the religious history of Western man and in each guise has been representative of the social type of evil. He has been uniformly antisocial, anti-humanity, anti-God throughout all the religious systems in which he has appeared, at least according to the tenants of the opposing side. However, only under one of the religions in which he appears, Christianity, did a separate movement materialize devoted to his worship as a symbol of the anti-God. The reason for this has been stated many times by writers and historians: historically, Satanism as a religion was the anomalous child of Christian repression.
The reason that Devil worship reached the degree of organization and the size that it did under Christianity, and under other monotheistic religious systems, is the Christian definition of evil. The idea of social evil for the Christians soon became aligned and synonymous with self-indulgence. The Christian idea of the Seven Deadly Sins (greed, pride, envy, anger, gluttony, lust, and sloth) is indicative of this aversion to self-indulgence. Pleasure came to be looked upon as being tainted. Man found it hard, nevertheless, to dissociate himself intellectually from self-indulgence and from his own carnality, from his emotions and from his physical delights. His self became divided and he found that he was being led in two directions at once. A gulf widened between man’s conscious and unconscious mind, and he found himself obsessed by images of his instinctual nature, his animal being. The Devil, conceived and cast in the form of the ubiquitous chtonic snake, functioning at an unconscious level as man’s animal being, was looked upon by the Christian theologians with stern foreboding. The people were told that the Devil was evil, that he represented carnality, pride, lust, gluttony, rebelliousness, all those centrifugal forces that would tend toward atomization and social disintegration. They were told that Satan was evil because he had dared to opposed God, the perfect and omnipotent creator of the Universe. The people nodded in agreement, for they knew that this was correct, but at a deeper level of consciousness something squirmed uncomfortably. It all struck a chord that was just a bit too familiar, for the Devil reminded them of somebody they knew very well—themselves. He was self-indulgent and so were they; he had great pride and so did they; he rebelled against tyrannical authority and so did they often use to.
Satan painted a colorful picture, to be sure, much more attractive than the one of an overpowering, intolerant, faultless God whom none could ever hope to approach in perfection. So the Devil remained intact as a symbol under Christianity; he was humanity in all its weakness, and it was from this manifestation that he originally derived all his strength. In other religions in which he played a major role, Satan had never achieved any great following simply because the theologians, in their mythmaking functions, were more careful in their social definitions of evil. All those religious systems in which Satan has appeared share one common trait: they are all monotheistic and, as such, need a negative balance for the beneficial construct of an all-powerful, all-good, and merciful God. Satan is necessary because there is no other way to dispose of the evil realities constantly confronting humanity. Since pestilence, famine, and death are formidable evils faced by all humans, and since it is difficult, to day the least, to attribute their origin to pure goodness, an evil source must be assumed to exist. In undertaking to relate some of my experiences in connection with the purchase and sale of haunted houses, I was successful in this class of business, but some of my adventures I went through were of such a character that I dared not continue. My nerves are fairly strong, but there are some things which I never wish to face again. I was first tempted to dabble in this unlucky class of business with what is now known as the Winchester Mystery House, which is an extravagant maze of beautiful Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. The Winchester Mystery House became known as “the house built by the spirits.” At the time of Mrs. Winchester’s death in 1922, there were rooms full of ornate treasures still waiting to find a niche in the massive home.
A client was anxious to see me one day, he wanted to make an immediate offer, at almost any price, for the most mysterious hose in the World. However, once he took a tour of the house, he said it was haunted and ran out the front door. The house became very hard to sell. It was all nonsense, of course; but the people in the neighborhood had it in their head that this was a haunted house; and now if any tenants come they are sure to hear of it directly, and get frightened. The result is that I had lost tenant after tenant, and the reputation of the Winchester mansion was so bad that I could not sell it. I assured the clients that the house was in thorough repair, but tended to be reluctant to answer the questions about the ghosts. Potential buyers would ask, “Are there any stories about the house?” Anything to account for its being haunted?” “No; no. What story should there be? It is a modern house—hardly been built for 36 years.” “And how long has it been your property?” “I bought it as soon as it was put up.” “And how long has it been haunted?” I frowned because I disliked to hear this word. “The hose has been talked about for some years now—20 or 30 years,” I replied. The client’s curiosity about the Winchester Mansion was so strong. When I took him on the tour of the estate, he was shocked at how beautiful it was. I had no, however, been able to find a caretaker because you must pay them for living in such a house. I had been trying to get someone to come and occupy it rent free for a time in order to live down its reputation, but often times the tenants would go missing. The client asked if there was any room particularly connected with the ghostly rumours. The grounds have their share of unexplained mysteries.
After a monetary hesitation, I led him upstairs into what was Mrs. Winchester’s principal bedroom. In the inner courtyard, there is a crescent shaped hedge that points to Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom—the one where she died. Coincidence? Maybe…but again, we will never know for sure. “Is this where the ghosts walk?” he asked as he glanced around the empty room. I was plainly annoyed by his insistence. “There are no ghosts, and they do not always anywhere,” I said irritably. I glanced up at the ceiling, and swiftly withdrew my eyes with a nervous tremor. I could tell the client was firmly persuaded that I had been the victim of some spectral horror, though I was anxiously trying to conceal it for fear of frightening him off. “Perhaps I had been not tell you anything,” I said, after considering a moment. “There is a great deal in the influence of suggestion, so it is said. If I were to tell you what the people who have slept in this room have seen, or dreamt they have seen, that might be enough to make you dream the same. Whereas, if a sensible man without any notions came and slept here, one would most likely never be disturbed.” Upstairs I showed him another room which was an unfinished attic space. The prospect from the widow showed hum that it was situated over the haunted chamber. “Is there something wrong with this room as well?” he demanded. “The servants do not like sleeping in it,” was my grudging admission. “It does very well as a boxroom.” The client was very anxious to secure an option to purchase the Winchester Mansion at the end of the month. My next step was to secure some attendance, and to send down some furniture for the many empty rooms which they mystery appeared to cling. All of Mrs. Winchester furniture had been sold at auction.
It took movers six weeks, six truck loads a day, to empty the mansion. Many of them often got lost. I was not very well pleased with the idea of taking the ghosts seriously. However, I knew that there were things in Nature which ordinary rules did not explain. I had seen things myself which could not be accounted for by natural means. I dared not tell the client that there had been a murderer lurking in the mansion ready to spring on potential clients and stab them. Suddenly, we heard a low moan—the moan of a creature in mortal terror, drawn out till it became a muffled scream. The moan was repeated, coming distinctly from the room below us. This is why I did not live having an open house at night. With candles in hand, as we reached the third floor landing the moan was repeated in a more terrible key—the key of horror instead of terror. At the same moment the door of one of the haunted rooms was thrown open, and suddenly Agnus, the maid, appeared on the threshold, with a cloak thrown over her shoulders, and a look of fear and distress on her face. “What is it?” I asked. “Merrill, she has seen something horrible, and I cannot get her to come to.” Without stopping to consider questions of etiquette, I dashed into the room. The gas had been turned full on, and by its light I saw the young lady lying stretched out on a couch at the foot of the bed, her features frozen into expression of one who looks upon some horrid sight, while from her parted lips there issued those appalling sounds which wounded like the stabs of a knife. I caught her by the shoulders and shook her, without making the slightest change in her swoon-like conditions. “Water!” I called out to Agnus, who stood wringing her hands, too dazed to act.
The water was brought, and I dashed half a glass in the face of the sufferer. At first it had no more effect than if she had been dead. Then came a startling change. The moans suddenly ceased, the victim opened her eyes, which showed the dull glassy stare of a somnambulist, and sitting half up, she commenced muttering so quickly and indistinctly that it was difficult to catch the words. “The blood, the blood, the blood, the blood, dripping, dripping, from the read lead in the ceiling, the red leak in the ceiling, in the ceiling, dripping on me, dripping on me, dripping on me!” The words rose into a wild shriek as her blank eyes were turned full on the ceiling overheard, the ceiling between the room she was in and the dressing room the size of three rooms. Involuntarily I looked up and the ceiling did not show the slightest mark. We lifted the unconscious lady and carried her out of the accursed room, and into one adjoining, where we laid her on the floor. Hardly had she passed the doorway of the haunted chamber when the dreadful screams began to die away, and the rigidity of the features to relax. In a short time the trance conditions passed away and we left Merrill to sleep. When she woke in the morning, we told her she had just has a bad dream, but she remembered nothing of what had passed in the night. At her own request, at breakfast, I described to her what had occurred, as minutely as possible. She was profoundly impressed. Of course, the client had bolted out of the house. However, Merrill, said with great conviction, “I am certain that what I saw represents something that actually happened in this house. Dreadful as it sounds, I firmly believe that somebody has been murdered in that attic with the witches cap, and that his blood did drip through the ceiling of the room below, as I saw it last night.”
As soon as the staff left the house, I went straight to a builder’s in the neighborhood, and engaged him to send some men to examine the flooring between two of the haunted rooms. The builder received my order with marked interest. “I knew there was something the matter with that house,” he observed. “It ain’t likely that tenant after tenant would come away sacred without something was wrong. Why, do you know, sir, in the last year since Mrs. Winchester died, I’ve white-washed one ceiling in the house thirteen times!” The builder’s interest led him to accompany his men, a carpenter and a plasterer, to the scene of action. I pointed out that place on the ceiling, as nearly as I could judge it, from which the ghostly dew had appeared to fall. Then men took measurements, and then, proceeding to the attic above, located a spot under the bed I used to sleep in. The bed was quickly removed, the flooring stripped off, and in the space between the joists there was exposed a mass of lime. Both the men, as well as their master, were quick to declare that the lime could not have been left there for no good,” the builder asserted. “If you want somethings hidden away and destroyed, there is nothing better than what lime is when it is fresh. It burns as well as fire, and makes no smoke.” “You mean a dead body?” I said shuddering. “I don’t say nothing about that,” the builder answered, pulling himself up. “It ain’t for me to say what that lime’s been used for. All I say is it wasn’t me that left it there, nor yet my men.” The two men began clearing the stuff away. The volatile element had evidently evaporated long ago. As they struck downward with their tools, one of them went through the plaster of the ceiling below, and a shaft of light came up.
An exclamation from one of the men followed. I bent down and peered into the cavity. On a large beam which here crossed the floor I saw a deep black stain, the stain of long-dried blood! A moment after the carpenter stood suddenly, griped about with one hand amid the woodwork, and drew forth to the light a small sharp stiletto, rusted with the same dismal stain. Nothing more was found. I gave the builder an order to entirely renew the flooring between these two haunted rooms. The most extraordinary part of the story remains to be told. The report of what had taken place having got abroad in the county, the local police came to me to obtain the stiletto, which I had been careful to preserve. By its means they were enabled to unearth a crime which had gone unsuspected till that hour, and to extort a confession from the murderer. Into the details of this terrible case, I do not care to enter. However, it is sufficient to say that the victim had perished while asleep in the attic, and that his blood had actually soaked through the ceiling into the room below, which was that of his murder—the Butler! Later that night, I was alone in the Winchester Mansion. A bright moon was out that night, and I heard a noise like a million soldiers, thrampin’ on the road, so I looked, and the hallway was full of little men, the length of my palm, with gray coats on, and all in rows like one of the regiments; each spoke with a pike on their shoulders and a shield on their arms. One was in front, byway he was the general, walking with his chin up as proud as a peacock. They marched right out the door-to-nowhere and there was another army of men with red coast. The two armies had the biggest fight you have even seen, the grays against the reds.
After looking on a bit, I got excited, for the grays were beating the reds like blazes. And then the sight left my eyes and I remembered no more until morning. I was laying on the floor, in the hallway, where I had seen them, as stuff as a crutch. Typically old castles, deserted graveyards, ruined churches, secluded glens in the mountains, springs, lakes, and caves all are the homes and resorts of fairies, as is very well known on the west coast. The better class of fairies are fond of human society and often act as guardians to those that they love. They are believed to living in the Winchester Mansion to receive the souls of dying and escort them to the gates of Heaven, not, however, being allowed to enter with them. On this account, fairies love graves and graveyards and of course this 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester rifle. They have often been seen walking to and fro among the rooms and gardens. There are, indeed, some accounts of faction fights among the fairy bands at or shortly after a new soul enters the mansion. The question in dispute being whether the soul of the departed belonged to one of the other faction. The amusements of the fairies consist of music, dancing, and ball playing. In music their skills exceed that of men, while their dancing is perfect, the only drawback being the fact that it blights the grass, “fairy-rings” of dead grass, apparently caused by a peculiar fungous growth. Mrs. Winchester used to host fairy balls in her Grand Ball Room, the music for which was furnished by an orchestra which the management had no doubt been at great pains expensive to secure and instruct. All around the fairies would dance like angels the fireflies giving them light to see by, and the moonbeams shinning on the lake for it was light to see by. Even now, staff who have been at the Winchester Mystery House sometimes hear the soft strains of their voices in the distance, and will hurry away least they discover one’s presence and be angry at the intrusion of their privacy.
When in unusually good spirits the fairies will sometimes admit a mortal to revels, but if one speaks, the scene at once vanished, one becomes insensible, and generally finds oneself by the roadside the next morning, with the drudgery of pains in one’s arms and legs and back, that if thirteen thousand devils were after one, one could not stir a toe to save the soul of one, that is what the fairies do be pinching and punching one for coming on them and speaking out loud. Black magic has not changed since the Middle Ages. The term “black art” was then applied to magic because the proficient in it were considered to be in league with the powers of darkness. The term “black magic” refers to the art of producing supernatural effect by direct league with Satan and demons. Frequently those who practice black magic make an actual pact with the powers of darkness, signing their allegiance to the devil in their own blood. This ceremony had come down from the Middle Ages to present-day Europe, where it is practiced in parts of Germany, France, and Switzerland. The ritual of signing an agreement involves a complete sell-out to the devil. Some magic involves the direct solicitation and help of demons, specifically the devil. It is the most terrible and powerful form of occult art, majoring in enchantment for persecution and vengeance, but also employing diabolical powers for defense and healing. An example of this nefarious practice is found in the death spells cast by witch doctors among aboriginal people, such as the Papuans on the island of New Guinea. Enchantment for persecution and vengeance, as well as for defense and healing, is still practiced today, not only in pagan cultures but also in civilized lands where occultism flourishes. Literature on magic was found in the Winchester Mansion and auctioned off with the rest of Mrs. Winchester’s belongings. There were incantations, charms, and spells.
One of the movers, who have never been troubled with psychic disturbances, returned home from taking the items to San Francisco to be auctioned off, and suddenly found himself suffering from acute fear dreams. He had the feeling during sleep that a neighbor lady, the mother of his coworker who was still missing after moving items out of the mansion, was strangling him. The tormented man went to an occultist who told him he was under magic persecution. The neighbor woman was seeking revenge on him for his good fortune in the light of her son’s bad fortune. With the occultist’s help, the terror-dreams creased. (That is why theft from the Winchester Estate is not tolerated. It is said to bring curses on those who remove sacred items without permission or payment.) Then the former mover found himself under a new attack: the neighbor was causing his cattle to die, head after head. The conjurer promised to remedy this new menace. Scraps of paper inscribed with magical formulae were to be mixed with the food of the cattle. The astonishing result was the cessation of the cattle epidemic. In addition to many cases of persecution and self-defense by black magic, occult healing are also common. A local farmer at the Winchester estate went to Mrs. Winchester for counseling and related the traffic results of charming by black magic. The farmer’s son had become paralyzed after an illness. The doctor could not help. However, Mrs. Winchester healed the boy through black magic, so that the paralysis disappeared completely. She had developed this skill after the death of her six-week-old daughter and her husband. Ancient and modern pagan religions, as well as those who subscribe to Christianity, have produced such psychically endowed mediums who have improved their gifts by the study and practice of the magical arts.
From what source people derive their power is not always clear—probably neither to they themselves nor their devotees have ever set themselves the task of unravelling that psychological problem. If they were turned wizards or witches, and indeed they only represented white witchcraft in a degenerate and colourless stage. Their entire time is not occupied with such work, nor, in the majority of cases, do they take payment for their services; they are ready to practice their art when occasion arises, but apart from such moment they pursue the ordinary avocations of rural life. The gift has come to them either as an accident of birth, or else the especial recipe or charm has descended from father to son, or has been bequeathed to them by the former owner; as a rule such is used for the benefit of their friends. Seen from the parapsychological point of view, magic persecution is a mediumistic problem similar to that of materialization. In the same way that a medium can emit energy that can be transformed into the phantasm of a man, so he is able to transform the same energy into the form of an animal. We have on record many cases of the materializations of dogs, cats, frogs, snakes, and even cases where the apparition was half man and half animal. If a phantasm is injured in some way at a spiritistic séance then the medium also suffers in a similar way. The same holds true in the case of animal phantasms. We are thus justified in coming to the conclusion that magic persecution is on the same level as materialization. Many methods of defence magic are based on this fact. If the victim is able to injure the phantasm that is assaulting one, it is reckoned that one has as good won the battle. We have seen then that certain forms of spiritistic offensive and defensive magic are based on materializations.
In 1888, a large black cat was found to be hanging around the Winchester mansion. In one of the cottages, on the estate, a farmer’s wife was about to give birth to a child. The cat would not go away until finally someone threw an axe at it, thereby injuring its leg. Next day it was discovered that an old woman on the estate also hurt her foot. The servants knew this woman to be a master of black magic, and indeed a few days later she took her revenge. On visiting the mother, Ida, of the new-born child, the witch murmured something and at the same time patted the child on the head. Thereafter the child cried continuously for days on end and could not be pacified. It was also discovered that as the child grew up its memory was particularly weak. Afterward the woman had three miscarriages, suffered the early death of her mother and disappearance of her father, but the source of her mental problems was far more spectacular than these mundane tragedies. Using hypnosis, Mrs. Winchester discovered that this mother to a new born had been repressing memories of an horrific past in which she had been an unwilling member of a murderous Satanic cult. Recollections would have convinced many mental-health professionals that she was suffering from pathological delusions. Her “memories” revealed a cult, led by the a monstrous Joris-Karl Huysmans, who indulged in acts of unbelievable brutality in the name of the Devil, such as blood-drinking, and other unspeakable acts. Mrs. Winchester considered the woman to be of nervous debility and easily influenced. When she had the servants cottage searched, they discovered a secret room, holding an apparently sacrificial altar with a wooden dagger suspended above a glass bowl.
In our files, there are about 40 examples involving cats, and almost all of them deal with the same problem, that of a person causing an apparition to appear in the Winchester Mystery House or elsewhere on the estate. Hamilton Howard was once hired for a job on the estate. The young man was on the verge of being dismissed because he very mysterious. He had a fair share of Satanic drawings in the cottage he was allowed to stay in, while working at a farm hand, and he never had meals with the other men. He belonged to a blood drinking cult. This might explain why stories began circulating about the carcasses of cows being discovered on Mrs. Winchester’s farm and other nearby farms drained of blood, with their eyes, lips, and private organ removed. The mystery of where the blood had cone, and how and why these animals had been operated on with seemingly surgical precision, gave birth to stories of Dracula in California and the California Cannibals. Occasionally, starving people have resorted to cannibalism for survival necessity. It is no secret, however, that Mrs. Winchester had her fair share of hauntings. One night, she heard footsteps going from the basement to the attic and then back again. There were also footsteps in the hall and at first, they thought that it was a burglar. Often her staff would search for an intruder. In addition to the footsteps the lights were sometimes turned on, and the gas too. No amount of careful investigation was able to produce any evidence as to the cause of the apparent haunting. One night, Mrs. Winchester had a séance in her Blue Séance Room. The spirit with whom she had made contact started that he had been a Catholic priest who had lived in the house 200 years before she renovated the original farm house and turned it into a mansion. He had murdered his housekeeper and had buried her in the basement. Since then, he had had to haunt the scene of his crime.
When asked in which room he had murdered the housekeeper the table suddenly began to move across the floor. It then hit the door of the room so hard that the wood was chopped. As Mrs. Winchester opened the door, the table rushed into the adjoining room and slid into the corner. In the course of doing this it hit an oak bedstead so hard that it left a permanent impression on it. The spirit was questioned further and when she asked is there was anything that could be done for him, he replied, “Yes, you can pray for me.” Mrs. Winchester did in fact pray for the restless ghost after that, and for a number of years the mansion was no longer haunted. The mansion has been haunted for several generations before its expansion. However, more than one ghost was attached to the property and it became a nexus for spiritual activity. Every person possesses one’s own home spiritually. This possession continues to live on in the house after the departure of the person concerned. Humans do not only leave behind their physical body when they die, but also a spiritual “larva.” When one dies, one leaves a spiritual complex behind that has an independent existence in the astral World, and which sometimes only disintegrates centuries later. This spiritual complex is supposed to cause the phenomen on ghost and apparitions. For some, the real of the dead is not so much a place as a state of being, and some think that there are times, as for example at one’s deathbed, when this realm of the dead becomes visible to our Earthly eyes. The idea that human beings have to remain in the mortal sphere after their death until they are freed from all the thing that once tied them to the World is widely accepted. This idea is similar to the popular opinion that criminals and other such people have to haunt the place of their crime until they are taken out of this sphere to a higher or lower level of existence. Ghosts do not occur only in connection with spiritism, but we have dealt with them here since the problem arose.
Winchester Mystery House
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NEVER MISS A MYSTERIOUS MOMENT
As enshrined in legend as Mrs. Winchester is her beautiful mansion, the Winchester Estate (now known as the Winchester Mystery House). No casual visitor can see it all. Palatial elegance unfolds with each turn. Nowhere is there more conspicuously displayed occult history, habits, and characteristics of the Victorian people. According to the most reliable of the honorable grounds’ keepers, the rural “fairy-men,” a race now nearly extinct, the fairies were once angels, so numerous as to have formed a larger population of Heaven. When Satan sinned and drew throngs of the Heavenly host with him into open rebellion, a large number of the less warlike spirits stood aloof from the contest that followed, fearing the consequences, and not caring to take sides till issue of the conflict was determined. Upon the defeat and expulsion of the rebellious angels, those who had remained neutral were punished by banishment from Heaven, but their offence being only one of omission, they were not consigned to the pit with Satan and his followers, but were sent to Earth where they still remain. Many of them took up residence at the Winchester mansion, not without hope that on the last day they may be pardoned and readmitted to Paradise. They are thus on their good behavior, but having power to do infinite harm, they are much feared, and spoken of, either in a whisper or aloud, as the “garden people.” These fairies are not solitary, they are quite sociable, and always live in large societies, the members of which pursue the cooperative plan of labor and enjoyment. They helped to build the Winchester mansion, and are also responsible for making the grounds so beautiful. They travel in large bands, and although their parties are never seen in the daytime, there is little difficult in ascertaining their line of march, for, sure they made the terriblest little cloud of dust ever raised, and not a bit of wind in it at all, so that fairy migration was sometimes the talk of the country.
Though, be nicer, they are not the length of your finger, they can make themselves the biggness of a tower when it pleases them, and with that ugliness that you would faint with the looks of them, as knowing they can strike you dead on the spot or change you into a dog, or a pig, or a unicorn, any other beast they please. As a matter of fact, however, the fairies are by no means so numerous at present as they were formerly. Someone was rapidly driving them out of the Winchester mansion, for the suspect(s) hated learning and wisdom and are lovers of discord and dysfunction. Many people were envious of Mrs. Winchester’s estate. A mansion is not a mansion and Mrs. Winchester was just as attentive to the exterior of her estate as she was to the rambling labyrinth. The fairies helped Mrs. Winchester by planting rare and exotic plants, flowers, trees, shrubs, and herbs from over 110 countries around the World. Some of the original plantings still flourish today—among them, 140-year-old rose bushes, ferns, and feather and fan date palms, as well as evergreen trees. Mrs. Winchester loved to spend time in her gardens, and she had gazebos built where she could sit and enjoy her trees and flowers. Nearly 12,000 boxwood hedges were planted along the pathways tht wind through the gardens. In addition, all the laws were replanted, and some 1,500 major plants, shrubs, and trees were replaced. Today the home and its garden are still the showplace of the Satan Clara Valley, a reminder of the gracious past, which we will discuss more of. Mrs. Winchester gave her estate, Llanada Villa, a mysterious name. The words are Spanish for “house on flat land,” but no one knows what special meaning they had for Mrs. Winchester.
The Winchester mansion is priceless. It has had more people begging to purchase it than any estate in the World. Many people also desire to invest it the mansion and restore it to its former glory. However, the owners like to leave some rustic evidence of the past, but are restoring some of the rooms that were damaged in the 1906 earthquake to their former glory. It now contains 160 room (but was significantly larger), 25,000 square feet (that is about the size of 20-40 houses, and maybe more because the attics and basements are not counted in the square footage), there are 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, and 47 fireplaces built of rosewood, cherry, mahogany, Italian marble, oak, teak, and pipestone; all hand carved and no two alike. Not including the fairies, commonly, 16 carpenters were employed at one time, some having worked for 20 years without change. They produced the largest, most complicated, and exclusively private residence in the United States of America. There are five different heating systems and three elevators, one hydraulic and two electric. Some of the 13 bathrooms lacked privacy; they have glass doors! One rambling room has four fireplaces and five hot-air registers. A spiral stairway has 42 steps, each two inches high. Other stairways melt into blank walls. A second story door opens into the great outdoors and a 20-foot step. A linen closet has the area of a three-room apartment; a nearby cupboard is less than one-inch deep. A skylight is placed in the middle of a room, in the floor! Another floor is apparently a series of trap-doors. Exterior faucets project unexpectedly from under second-story windows. The visitor must stoop through one door to enter, the next gives clearance for an eight-foot giant. Many stairways turn posts are set upside down. Entire walls are built entirely of half-inch “half-round” strips. Many of these oddities may have been to accommodate the fairies.
Everywhere prevails that strange deference to the number 13; 13 stairsteps, 13 hangers in a closet, 13 wall panels, 13 lights in the chandeliers, 13 windows to a room and if necessary to make that number, some placed in an inside wall. Although Mrs. Winchester’s arrival in California was sensational, the fairies were in the country long before the coming either of human beings or animals. The bodies of the fairies are not composed of flesh and bones, but of an ethereal substance, the nature of which is not determined. One can see themselves as plain as the nose on one’s face, and can see through them like it was a mist. They have the power of vanishing from human sight when they please, and the fact that the air is sometimes full of them inspires the respect entertained from them by humans. Sometimes they are heard without being seen, and when they travel through the air, as they often do, are known by a humming noise similar to that made by a swarm of bees. Whether or not they have wings is uncertain. John Hansen, who was caretaker of the estate, thought they had; for several seen by him a number of years ago seemed to have long; semi-transparent pinions, like them that grow on a dragon fly. Young lady fairies wore pure white robes and usually allowed their hair to flow loosely over their shoulders; while fairy matrons bind up their tresses in a coil on the top or back of the head, also surrounding the temples with a golden band. Young gentlemen elves wore green jackets, with white breeches and stockings; and when a fairy of either gender has need of a cap or head-covering, the flower of the fox-glove is brought into requisition. Male fairies are perfect in all military exercises, for, like the other inhabitants of the Winchester mansion, fairies are divided into factions, the objects of contention not, in most cases, being definitely known.
One night, the wind was roaring; and the windows rattled and the mansion creaked like it was moving to a different location. Mrs. Winchester then knew her house was possessed of unusual powers. She could feel the reaper. The next day, Ezra Benson, the head chef, was not down stairs at five in the morning preparing Mrs. Winchester’s breakfast, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor at nine. As the servants went into the kitchen, a glass ball came flying into the room, and all the doors and windows had been shut! The ball fell at the feet of Agnus who picked it up. It felt hot, but was undamaged. On the ball was a picture of Mrs. Winchester. She claimed that ball had been in the living room, and so the servants when to investigate. The ball in the living room had disappeared! As the servants continued to search around searched around the house for Ezra, they saw 135 objects fly through the rooms in an inexplicable manner. Hereupon the servants went and knocked at his chamber door. The door was opened at last from the outside, and they found Ezra dead and black. No marks of violence appeared at the moment, but the window was open. As was, natural, in the great swelling and blackness of the corpse, there was talk made among the neighbors of poison. The body was very much disordered as it laid in bed, being twisted after so extreme a sort as gave too probable conjecture that Ezra had expired in great pain and agony. And yet what is as yet unexplained, Aimee du Buc de Rivery was entrusted with the lay-out of the corpse and washing it, being both sad and well respected, she went to Mrs. Winchester in pain and distress of both mind and body, saying, what was indeed confirmed upon the first view, that she had no sooner touched the breast of the corpse with her naked hands than she was sensible of a more than ordinary violent smart and aching in her palms, which, with her whole forearms, in no long time swelled so immoderately the pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved, during many weeks she was forced to lay be the exercise of her calling; and yet no mark seen on the skin.
Upon hearing this, Mrs. Winchester made as careful a proof as she was able by the help of a small magnifying lens of crystal of the condition on the skin on this part of Aimee’s body: but could not detect with the instrument she had any matter of importance beyond a could of small punctures or pricks, which Mrs. Winchester then concluded were the spots by which the poison might be introduced. So much was to be said of the symptoms seen on the corpse. There was on the table by the bedside a Bible of the small size. Mrs. Winchester took it and went into her Blue Séance room where she was going to try to get a message from the superstitious practice of drawing. Proficiency in occultism in general combined with abilities and gift in magical arts in particular is not an accident. Endowment with magical powers may be the result of a number of factors. First, and perhaps foremost, is heredity. Also important are occult transference, subscriptions to Satan, and occult experimentation. The general history of occultism shows that mediumistic powers can often be traced through four generations. It is a common thing for a dying father to bestow upon his eldest son or daughter his magical abilities. As Mrs. Winchester was writing to find the cause and events of these dreadful events. She went into a trance, and wrote “Cut it down. It shall never be inhabited; her young ones also suck up blood.” Ezra was laid to rest. His room was not slept in by anyone else. A certain amount of interest was excited in the city when it was known that a famous witch, Ursula Southeil, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed. She had supposed moved to San Jose, California 1885 and shortly after was buried. People believed that maybe she had been hexing the Winchester estate. And the feeling of surprise and indeed disquiet, was very strong when it was found that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust.
Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it was difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a body otherwise then for the use of dissecting-room. Mrs. Winchester knew the secrets of this terrible death was mystery. Many believed that the spirit of Ursula had using Mrs. Winchester’s mansion as her lair and needed to be forced out. They found below a white oak a rounded hollow place in the Earth, wherein were two or three bodies of creatures, and at the side of this den, against the wall, was crouching the anatomy of skeleton of a human being, with the skin dried upon the bones, having some remains of brown hair, which was pronounced by those that examined it to be undoubtedly the body of a woman, and clearly dead for over hundred years. The history of magic is replete with extraordinary extrasensory phenomena that involved the spirit realm and every phase of the natural World as well, including human beings, animals, plants, and inorganic matter. Spirit-rapping, apparitions, ghosts, moving of furniture, and playing of musical instruments by invisible hands, stones falling from a ceiling, magical killing of cattle, unexplained creatures, and blighting of crops, et cetera, are just a few of the weird occurrences that took place at the Winchester mansion that fill the annals of occult practice. Incredible as it may seem, even in modern scientific age millions are now, or have been at some time, involved in some manner with ancient magic practices and rites, ranging from using spells, magic herbs, and hex signs on houses and barns (which can still be seen in some areas of the estate and other places). The precise character of magic has been even more heatedly disputed than its definition. One lauds it as a gift from God. Another denounces it as an operation of Satan and demons. Another denies it any moral quality and views it merely as the working of neutral forces of nature, which can be employed either positively or negatively.
The liberal theologian sees magic as the crystallization of time-bound ideas and customs. They psychologist looks at the magically subjected person as wrongly adjusted to life and the natural World. The psychiatrist sees the whole magical complex as symptomatic of mental aberration. The Christian Bible condoms magic, it clearly recognizes the reality of its power. (Exodus 20.1-6; Deuteronomy 18.9, 10). Human history will end with a tremendous demonic revival (Revelation 9.1-20) that will culminate in the reign of Antichrist, who will be attended by diabolic signs and magical wonders (2 Thessalonians 2.9-12; Revelation 13.13-18). Armageddon will be a demon-energized revolt and a satanic attempt to take over the Earth (Revelation 16.13, 14). Just as modern humans have inherited their ideas of God and the Universe from their Christian predecessors, so had they inherited the Devil. Satan is an archetype, a force embedded in humans’ unconscious, a remnant of their psychological evolution. Satan is the child of fear, and fear is innate in all humans. Eve from the Garden of Eden used to roam around and take up with animals. Nothing was amiss to her, in the animal line. She trusted them all, they trusted her; and because she would not betray them, she thought they would not betray her. The snake advised her to try the fruit of the forbidden tree, and told her the results would be a great and fine and noble education. Adam told her there would be another result, too—it would introduce death into the World. That was a mistake—he should have kept that remark to himself; it gave her an idea. Adam escaped that night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Garden and hide in some other country before the disaster should fall. Eve had eaten the fruit and death was come into the World.
Eve found Adam outside the garden. He was not sorry she had come, for there was absolutely nothing to eat, but meagre pickings here, and she brought some of those apples, and Adam was obliged to eat them, he was so hungry. It was against his principles, but he did it anyway. Evil, as it has appeared through human history, has a schizoid development, manifesting itself in two forms. The most elementary of these forms is purely internal, deriving from humans’ instinctual drive toward self-preservation, the concept “self” here including humans’ own physical being and the physical beings of related others. The object of this type of fear is anything that humans might see as impairing one’s fight for survival. As the primitive human sits in a jungle clearing by his fire at night and hears the sounds of animals stirring in the bushes around him, he fears for his safety. He feels powerless and is overcome by a seemingly unbridgeable gap between knowledge and environment. He feels himself to be a mere pawn, a plaything, victimized by nature’s capricious ways. Drowned by nature’s angry waters, baked by her merciless sun, attacked by her vicious animals, starved, beaten, bullied, he is at a loss for an explanation. Though fully aware mentally, he finds himself totally blind in the face of her inscrutable ways. What recourse does he have? He must attempt in some way to make these strange and wonderous forces less capricious and more subject to his control. So he recreates them in his own mind, makes them more tangible, more related to his own experience. He takes them out of their detached state to give them more personal meaning. Once he has done this, he had some recourse for his grievances: now he may make offerings, get down on his knees and ask the god for a good crop or an abundant herd, attempt to cajole or coerce the god into granting his request.
Those deities that humans have traditionally created to represent evil have stemmed from those forces of nature that they have found to be most uncontrollable; the shapes into which they have been cast being those shapes and forms that they have feared the most. Primitive humans saw hideous demons with six heads and fierce claws waiting from them in the darkness, and they were forced to respond to the danger. The popularity of heavy metal rock acts in the 1970s gradually started to work against them, as audiences associated them with big business rather than rebellion. However, the music changed. Heavy metal had moved out of the Californian sunshine and cosmic otherworldliness of the late 1970s, back into the rainy alleyways and gloomy English pubs that were its birthplace. Satanism had also secured a prominent position in the iconography of the New Wave. For most bands, it was nothing more than an exciting image that sold records. However, the Devil could be a risky card to play—as is His nature, for every potential fan He attracted, He also incited hostility. Iron Maiden’s 1982 album Number of the Beast, which sported a leering Satan on the cover, proved to be their commercial breakthrough. The title track, like the eponymous “Black Sabbath,” describes stumbling across an horrific Satanic ritual. Despite bassist Steve Harris’ limp insistence that “Number of the Beast” is an anti-Satan song, the record not only took them to the top of the charts but also to the top of the hate list for Christian anti-rock campaigners. The band were more than a little complicit in this, hyping the album with spooky stories about its cursed conception: mysterious power failures, radio interference and exploding amps apparently plagued the recording sessions: most sinister of all, the producer had a car crash at the time, his repair bill coming to $666.
More petitely, as Anton Lavey once noted, you cannot employ Satanism without promoting it. True to this dogma, other young bands utilized Satan not as a throwaway reference but as the core of their identity. Their new sub-genre would become knows as black metal, after a 1982 album titled by the band Venom. In many ways black mental is the musical genre that never was—its style is basically the rawest, most malignant heavy metal, with a strong occult element in the lyrical content. The Satanic tag attracted a strange regiment of musicians who wished to test the musical and moral boundaries of what the rock business deemed acceptable. Prominent among these bands was Witchfynde, founded in 1976. They never enjoyed much success, and were almost universally spurned by the music press, but some of their material retains a darkly naïve charm—especially on their 1980 debut Give ‘Em Hell. According to press releases of the time, “It is no secret that guitarist Montalo does more than dabble in the occult and that both he and the band draw upon these sources for guidance.” Though Anglewitch, disassociated themselves from the darker edges of the occult—notably in the song “Hades Paradise,” in which they accuse Satanists of being “sick in the head,” there were suggestions that Angelwitch’s occultic roots were darker than they would have their audience believe. Most unusual in their approach were Demon. Unlike their contemporaries, who boosted their Satanic imagery with aggressive guitars, Demon’s keyboard-anchored sound emphasized more mystical, subtly sinister aspects. Like Black Sabbath, Demon hypocritically warned against the subject that clearly fascinated them. The audience that eluded Demon flocked to a number of black metal acts who matched extreme Satanic lyrics with extreme, blistering tones. At the forefront were the Danish band Mercyful Fate, led by the unashamed Satanist King Diamong—who, taking the stage in black and white face paint, would influence the visual image of Satanic rock for decades to come.
Formed in 1981, the band debuted with the mini-album A Corpse Without a Soul. The cover boasted a scandalous sketch inspire by the song “Nuns Have No Fun.” Mercyful Fate’s first full-length album, Melissa, came out in 1983, inspired by a skull Diamond which he liked to believe once belonged to a witch. Don’t Break the Oath, which followed the year after, contained a title track which was Diamond’s most brazen dedication to Satan: “By the symbol of the Creator, I swear/A faithful servant of his most puissant Archangle/The prince Lucifer/Whom the Creator designated as his Regent/And Lord of this World. Amen.” King Diamond followed this same devotional approach to Satanism in interviews and everyday life. His inspiration was Anton LaVey, who Diamond visited in San Francisco (during this visit, the eccentric LaVey regaled his Danish guest with a keyboard rendition of “Wonderful Copenhagen”). In return, King Diamon received an honorable mention in LaVey’s 1990s biography, The Secret Life as a Satanists, as the only Satanic rocker then paying proper dues to the Prince of Darkness. He won the respect of figures in both the occult ad rock Worlds for his well-mannered sincerity. The shell of Mercyful Fate went off to form the uninspired Fate, while in Diamond’s new band, the modestly-titled King Diamond, Satan was conspicuously by his absence. However, the songs were atmospheric mini-horror movies, and the anti-Christian slant remined—most notably on their best release The Eye, which retold a historical tragedy surrounding the Catholic Inquisition—though records sold disappointingly. Often times, it is the band’s Satanism, however, that convinced many young metal fans to buy the album. On the band Venom’s debut album Welcome to Hell ran the blurb on the back of the sleeve, “We’re possessed by all that is evil. The death of your God we demand. We spit at the virgin you worship. And sit at Lord Satan’s left hand.”
One could day that concerts are Satanic rituals because one is definitely letting so much energy loose. If one did it the right way, one could probably turn it into one of the most powerful Satanic rituals. My God it would be powerful. Satanism is a lot to do with a life philosophy. There are also the steps of how to perform a ritual. However, there too you have to be careful. Not just everybody can do it, you have to have certain features and abilities so you can release the right energies at the right moment. If you cannot do that, nothing will come of it. Many artists perform Satanic rituals at home, but not on stage because they do not want to take advantage of the audience. Satan stands for the powers of the unknow, the powers of darkness, that are all around us which we can use for our or other people’s benefit. Satanism sells because it is the twisted horror of it. Horror sells, death sells, anything nasty sells. You just have to turn on your TV and watch the news and there is more and more violence in your face. Why? Because people like to see it. They like to sit there and know it is not them—that they are better off. Sometimes it is healthy because these things happen, you cannot avoid them. There is no way you can erase that part of life. I do not think we have more or less bad in the World since I have lived. It just moves around a bit. It Is always going to be there, you might as well try and learn to live with it. People like black metal because it gives you a shiver up your spine. There are different purposes to music and different songs that generate different basic emotions—pathos or a marching tune, for example. Successful music feeds upon your emotional needs, while dissonant music feeds humans’ habitual masochism. If you watching the 2001 Anne Rice film, Queen of the Damned, you can get a feeling at the excitement of black metal and Satanism, but as experts recommend, be careful. The star of the film, the beautiful Aaliyah died in a plane crash just months before the film was released. She was only 22, but the film is really intense, and Queen of the Damned is also a great sound track.
Satanists are on the move. Other Satanists might not be quite as “understanding,” but there is a warning to those who tap into Satanism for economic advantage; they should be careful not to slander their seminal roots. They may not care now, but they may vert well have to care in the future. Aaliyah really got into the dark roots and even studied Egyptian culture and loved rock music, but experts are not joking with their warnings. It is a dangerous hobby and way of life. Magic and the fall of man—magic came into being with the spiritual fall of man at the threshold of human history. Demonic forces are engineering the gigantic apostasy of the end of time that will culminate in the rise of Antichrist and the greatest demonstration of diabolic miracle and demonic wonders the World has ever seen (2 Thessalonians 2.8-10; Revelations 13:1-18). One can imagine tht in the hands of a person of criminal tendencies such a spiritistic ability would be the cause of much harm. Mrs. Winchester reported that for several years she had been frightened each night by the appearance of one of her neighbours between 12 and 1 o’clock. Passers-by also heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion. Every time this had happened, Mrs. Winchester had woken up with a start. She had been terribly frightened. It was not a dream for she has always seen the apparition as she was actually waking up. The phantom was in fact that of one of them women in the county. This particular woman had the reputation of being an evil person who indulged in plaguing people through black magic. After the woman’s death, Mrs. Winchester ceased to have these strange experiences. I guess the bell in the belfry summoned her with the incoming flights of spirits, and then tolled again to warn her, along with other visitors, to return to their sepulchers.
A young farmer on the Winchester estate had the experience of being beaten up at night in his Victorian cottage on the estate. Sometimes he was beaten so badly that he actually bled. The whole village had seen him on numerous occasions with black and blue weals across his body. As is only to be expected in a country where the majority of the inhabitants were engaged in agricultural pursuits, most of the strange doings are not only connected with ghost, but with cattle as well. One of the herdsmen at the Winchester estate had wounded a hare, which he had discovered sucking on one of the cows under his charge, tracked it to a solitary cottage near the mansion, where he found an old woman, smeared with blood and gasping for breath, extended almost lifeless on the floor. Certain witches had the power of turning themselves into hares and in that shape sucking cows. The early demons, however, were never complete personifications of evil in the social sense. They were always incomplete in their evilness, due to their rather personal nature. For the most part, they were projections of man o nature and, as such, most of them had at least some of humans’ character in them, rendered both consciously and unconsciously. This can be seen in the mythologies of the winged serpent, for, in fact humans’ ambivalence toward oneself and nature is reflected in one’s casting of one’s many demons and gods in this shape. The wings are symbolic, at an unconsciously level, of a loftier striving, an attempt at spiritual transcendence, while the snake has always been an object of instinctual fascination for humans. Humans’ ancient dichotomy of intellect versus instinct is apparent in this symbolism. The old gods, then, were oddly like men, so that they could either heal or destroy, assist man or plague him, depending on whether he awoke in the morning with heartburn or had had a satisfying night with his wife. Evil structuralized in society is socially harmful, and it threatens social rather than person disintegration. Evil inspires fear and awe and thus assume the proportions of a force of nature.
When Mrs. Winchester’s safe was open, after she went to Heaven, an ivory tablet was found that said, “Lord Satan approves.” However, it was not in Mrs. Winchester’s hand writing. The ivory tablet was authenticated. Radio carbon dating indicated that it dated back to the 17th century. One of the movers thought someone from a satanic cult was monitoring them when they opened the safe. One of the guys quickly quit and dedicated his life to Christ. And just a few years ago, as the Winchester Mystery House was closing for the night, a glass rose into the air, then slowly put itself back down on the table. Some of the tour guides feel very comfortable when they see things like that happen because they believe the spirits are their protectors, guardian angels, and feel very comfortable that they are still in the mansion that was built by spirits. Magical powers may be acquired by signing an agreement with Satan, often in one’s own blood. (Please do not try this. Self-harm is not acceptable.) This is an age-old phenomen. Isaiah mentions “making a covenant with hell” (28.15). Such blood-bound occultist frequently become endowed with astonishing magic capabilities. However, they become demonic captives and may be delivered only with the greatest difficult. Often they become hopelessly shackled. The practice of a satanic blood pacts is not a mere superstitious hangover from medieval witchcraft and hobgoblins. It is a well-known and fairly common custom today in various rural districts of Europe where magic literature has circulated for centuries and magical powers have passed from one generation to another. Magical powers can also be acquired through dabbling in the occult. In the late 1900s, a farmer at the Winchester mansion wanted to become rich like Mrs. Winchester. He became enamored with tales of easy money made by occult healers and mesmerizers. He purchased some magical literature and stated mastering charms and spells, underwent devils’ ceremonies, and began healing experiments. His magical healing ability developed rapidly. He soon found his income far exceeded his former wages. Numerous forms of magic exist. Among them are black magic, white magic, neutral magic, mental suggestion, criminal hypnosis, and magical mesmerism. When any of these forms enlist demonic powers, they are authentic cases of magic. In the absence of occult power, the phenomena do not belong to the field of magic.
Happy Earth Day! Mrs. Winchester was very “green” for her day – before it was popular!
An example can be found in the North Conservatory – not wanting to waste resources, she had the floor built at an angle so that excess water would flow down to the exterior gardens below!
Victorian Seance? Fate & Fortune Telling? Count us in 🙋🏻♀️ Join us on April 29th as we welcome back Aiden Sinclair to The Winchester Mystery House. Purchase your tickets today – they are going FAST! https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/aiden-sinclair/
I Have Enough Trouble Conjuring Myself Out of Bed in the Morning
Returning from her global trip, Mrs. Winchester arrived in San Francisco, California USA and finding this area seldom subject to thunderstorms, she purchased an unfinished farmhouse four miles west of San Jose. She hired an architect, a foreman and an army of carpenters and work began; architect and foremen quit the first day. The story of their fate was told by one generation to another, but in course of ages the natural cause, well known to the unfortunates at times of the calamity, was lost to view, and the story of the disaster began to assume supernatural features. There was a legend that Mrs. Winchester’s estate contains not only her mansion, but village of Victorian cottages. In the center of the hundred of acres of land was a fountain guarded by spirits, fairies, elves, and leprechawns, who guarded the Winchester Estate. Things went well, the fairies and the people on the estate sharing the benefits of Mrs. Winchester’s farmland, which included orchards of apricots, plums, and walnut trees to supplement Mrs. Winchester’s income. Mrs. Winchester’s financial resources were virtually unlimited; upon her husband’s death, she received $20,000,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $692,780,722.89) in cash and 777 shares of stock in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Upon her mother-in-law’s death in 1897, Mrs. Winchester received 2,000 more shared, which meant she owned under fifty percent of the company’s capital stock. This provided her with an income of $1,000 (2022 inflation adjusted $34,639.04) a day—back in the days before income taxes. The combination of her wealth and her eccentric building project gave rise to many rumors in the local community. It was the biggest house that most people had ever seen in their lives with, at the time, over 500 rooms, and 125,000 square feet, four stories high, and a nine-story observation tower.
On the Winchester Estate, there lived two woodcutters; Albert Jennings Fountain and Louis Le Prince. At the time of which I am speaking, Albert was an old man; and Louis, his apprentice, was a lad of twenty years. Every day they went together to a forest situated about a mile from the estate, which was still on Mrs. Winchester’s vast landholdings. On the way to that forest there used to be a wide lake to cross; and there was a boat. Albert and Louis were on their way home, one very cold evening, when a great rain storm overtook them. They reached the boat; and they found that the boatman had gone away, leaving the boat on the other side of the lake. It was no day for swimming; and the woodcutters took shelter in a cottage in the forest. There was a fire place in the cottage and a couple of bedrooms. At first they did not feel cold, but they made a fire anyway. They fastened the door, and lay down to rest with the blankets over them. They thought the storm would be over soon. Albert almost immediately fell asleep; but the boy, Louis, lay awake a long time, listening to the awful wind, and the continual slashing of the rain against the door. The lake was roaring; and the cottage made creaking noises. It was a terrible storm; and the air was every moment becoming colder, even though the fire was blazing in the fireplace; and Louis shivered under his blankets. However, at last, in spite of the cold, he too fell asleep. The door to the cottage was forced open; and, by the moonlit rain, he saw a woman in the room—a woman in all white. She was bending above Albert, and blowing her breath upon him—and her breath was like a bright white mist. Almost in the same moment she turned to Louis, and stopped over hum. He tried to cry out, but found that he could not utter any sound.
The white woman bent down over him, lower and lower, until her face almost touched him; and he saw that she was very beautiful—though her eyes made him afraid. For a little time she continued to look at him—then she smiled, and she whispered: “I intended to treat you like the other man. However, I cannot help feeling some pity for you—because you are so young. You are a pretty boy, Louis; and I will not hurt you now. However, if you ever tell anybody—even Mrs. Winchester—about what you have seen this night, I shall know it; and then you will regret it. Remember what I say!” With these words, she turned from him, and passed through the doorway. Then he found himself able to move; and he sprang up, and looked out. However, the woman was nowhere to be seen; and the rain was pouring hard. Louis closed the door, and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it. He wondered if the wind had blown it open—he though that he might have been only dreaming, and might have mistaken the gleam of the moonlit rain in the doorway for the figure of a white woman: but he could not be sure. He called Albert, and was frightened because the old man did not answer. He put out his hand in the dark, and touched Albert’s face, and found that it was ice! Albert was stark and dead…by dawn the storm was over; and the boatman returned to his station, a little after sunrise, he found Louis lying senseless beside the frozen body of Albert. Louis was promptly care for, and soon came to himself; but he remained a long time ill from the effects of the cold of that terrible night. He had been greatly frightened also by the old man’s death; but he said nothing about the vision of the woman in white.
As soon as he got well again, he returned to his calling—going alone every morning to the forest, and coming back at nightfall with bundles of wood for Mrs. Winchester’s Hall of Fires. Because of the mansion’s immense size, it contained forty-seven fireplaces and seventeen chimney. One rambling section in particular, the Hall of Fire, was designed to produce as much heat as possible—perhaps to ease Mrs. Winchester’s extreme arthritis. In addition to many widows that let the sunlight stream through, the three adjoining rooms have four fireplaces and three hot air registers from the coal furnace in the basement. One evening, in December of the following year, as Louis was on his way to the Winchester mansion, he overtook a girl who happened to be travelling by the same road. She was a tall, slim young lady, very good-looking; and she answered Louis’s greeting in a voice as pleasant to the ear as the voice of a song-bird. Then he walked beside her; and they began to talk. The girl said her name was Theodosia Alston; that she had lately lost both her parents; and that she was going to visit Mrs. Winchester for tea, who might help her to find a situation as a servant. Albert soon felt charmed by this unusual girl; and the more that he looked at her, the more beautiful she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed; and she answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in turn, she asked Louis whether he was married, or pledged to marry; and he told her that, although he had only a windowed mother to support, the question of an “honourable daughter-in-law” had not yet been considered, as he was very young. After these confidences, they walked on for a long while without speaking; but you know the saying, “When the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth.”
By the time they reached the village, they had become very much pleased with each other; and then Louis asked Theodosia to rest awhile in his cottage on the estate. After some shy hesitation, she went there with him; and his mother made her welcome, and prepared a warm meal for her. Theodosia behaved so nicely that Louis’s mother took a sudden fancy to her, and persuaded her to speak to Mrs. Winchester about a job in the mansion. And the natural end of the matter was that Mrs. Winchester was very pleased with Theodosia and hired her right away. Later on Louis and Theodosia were married. She proved a very good maid and daughter-in-law. When Louis’s mother came to die—some two years later—her last words of affection and praise for the wife of her son. And Theodosia bore Louis thirteen children, boys and girls—handsome children all of them, and very fair of the skin. Mrs. Winchester’s staff thought Theodosia a wonderful person, by nature different from themselves. Most of the women on the estate aged early; but Theodosia, even after having become the mother of thirteen children, looked as young and fresh as on the day when she had first come to the estate. One night, after the children had gone to sleep, Theodosia was sewing by the light of Tiffany lamp; and Louis, watching her said: “To see you sewing there, with the light on your face, makes me thin of a strange thing that happened when I was a lad of twenty. I then saw somebody as beautiful and white as you are now—indeed, she was very like you.” Without lifting her eyes from her work, Theodosia responded: “Tell me about her…Where did you see her?” Then Louis told her about terrible night in the Victorian cottage in the forest—and about the White Woman that had stopped above him, smiling and whispering—and about the silent death of Albert.
And Louis said: “Asleep or awake, that was the only time that I saw a being as beautiful as you. Of course, she was not a human being; and I was afraid of her—very much afraid—but she was so white! Indeed, I have never been sure whether it was a dream that I saw, or the Ghost Woman of the Winchester. Theodosia flung down her sewing, and arose, and bowed above Louis where he sat, and shrieked into his face: “It was I-I-I! Theodosia it was! And I told you then that you would regret this if you ever said one word about it! But for those children asleep there, I would curse you right this moment! And now you had better take very, very good care of them; for if every they have reason to complain of you, I will treat you as you deserve!” Even as she screamed, her voice became thin, like a crying of winds—then she melted into a bright white mist that spired to the roof-beams, and shuddered away through a chimney. Never again was she seen. Soon after there were reports of graves being opened, and bodies stolen. Reports of rash cattle mutilations, and killing of two hundred dogs, cats, and pigs in that area. When Louis went back to the cottage, he found a fire containing animal bones, along with a crude Satanic altar, as a group of youth were interrupted conducting a conjuring spell. There were Satanic pentagrams on the walls. Some years later, a woman at the Winchester mansion believed that another desired to steal the butter she had just churned, flew in a passion, assaulted her and threw her down, breaking her arm in the fall. The woman was burnt, not because she was a witch, but in the belief that the real servant had been taken away and a fairy changeling substituted in her place; when the latter was subjected to the fire it would disappear, and the servant would be restored. Thus the underlying motive was kindness, but on, how terribly mistaken!
By chance there came onto the Estate an angel who had been sent from Heaven to observe the servants of the Winchester mansion and note their piety. In the garb and likeness of a man, weary and footsore with travel, the angel spied the castle (mansion) from the hills above the lake, came down, and boldly took a night’s lodging in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. Mrs. Winchester asked him, “Where would you like to sleep, beautiful creature?” The angel pointed to a spot nearby the parlor, told Mrs. Winchester he would be happy there and to build and prosper; then, as the awe-stricken widow kneeled before him, his clothing became white and shining, wings appeared on his shoulders, he rose into the air and vanished. And one night, on a day of the thunder and lighting and big rain there did a ghost come into Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. Objects were thrown through the air and furniture moved around by its. A heavy oak wardrobe moved six feet across the room. Some knocking and scratching noises were heard in the house, and again objects were seen to fly through the rooms for no apparent reason. It was observed that the object sometimes travelled in a rectangular course which is physically impossible. These events grew even more complicated, and things began to appear and disappear in both closed rooms and containers. Mrs. Winchester was very annoyed as her bed started levitating. A lady came to her that night while she was elevated, she was dressed in white, with a wreath on her head, and said Mrs. Winchester was in danger. She then told the maid, “If you receive this woman’s pension-book without taking off her clothes and cleaning them, and putting out her bed and cleaning up the house, you will receive a curse. The ravings of this creature were accepted as gospel truth.
A torrent of rain fell from the sky, and drowned several of the farmers, and a lake was formed over the spot where they stood when the curse was pronounced. And sometimes, they say, when the mansion is quite still, one may hear the groans of the lost souls that where once chained at the bottom. A lot of supernatural activity happened on the estate than many cannot explain. Mrs. Winchester may have been trying to confuse evil spirits. There were no budget ceilings or deadlines to meet. This resulted in many of the 600 rooms, and features being dismantled, built around, or sealed over. Some rooms were remodeled many times. However, because so many rooms were redone, and astounding 160 rooms still remain today. This naturally resulted in some peculiar effects, such as stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that ho nowhere and that open onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof! Mrs. Winchester once had some silverware stolen and she suspected a young mad who worked for her and who already had quite a bad reputation. Mrs. Winchester turned to a spiritist for help. This man was both a clairvoyant and a medium, and he also possessed the remarkable powers of materialization and dematerialization. This spiritist went with the woman into the back yard of her house and there put himself into a trance. Suddenly they were disturbed by a strange noise from the roof of the house, and then the stolen silverware fell from the roof on to a pile of hay beside the house. Mrs. Winchester had no idea how this was accomplished. One might be able to find a natural explanation for this occurrence, as for example someone throwing the stolen articles out of the skylight at that moment. It could not have been the maid though, for she had already been given notice. However, it could have been one of the other employees with whom she had been friendly, and who may have received the stolen articles from her.
The word “divine” is derived from the Latin divinus, meaning “divinely” inspired and pertaining to a deity (divus).” Thus a diviner is one who practices divination. One processes to predict future events or to reveal occult things by supernatural means. Divination is a specialized for of magic. In magic, demonic agencies are resorted for performing superhuman feats. In divination, magic is used to foresee the future. Divination relates to magic as prophecy relates to miracle. Both divination and prophecy imply special knowledge. In divination it is unclear if it is godly or demonic. However, magic is supposed to be Satan’s imitation of God’s miracles. Genuine fortune-telling or divination assumes the existence of superhuman spiritual beings. It also assumes that these beings possess knowledge which humans do not have and that they are willing, upon certain conditions that are familiar to diviners, to transmit this information to humans. In ancient times, the convictions prevailed widely that not only oracles but omens of all types were given to humans by the gods. In the cases of supernatural invention, the various forms of fortune-telling were real divinatory phenomena. Divination supposedly invites the activity of demon spirits because it seeks secret knowledge. Rock music has an incessant throbbing beat, the same beat that people in primitive cultures use in their demonic rites and dances. If the beat is monotonous enough it can induce a state of hypnosis. The fundamentalists and their allies attributed powers to rock music that were inherently supernatural, sorcery wrapped in a thin veil of pseudoscientific gibberish. Since its inception by British bands Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, heavy metal has always had a heady whiff of brimstone about it. As the genre took off, and mental bands have been filling stadiums with fans, the Devil increasingly symbolized their bombastic form of rebellion.
Satan translated from Hebrew means “accuser” or “adversary,” and that was precisely the role Satan played in Judaic angelology before the Persian influences. Satan was at the time, at the very most, slightly rebellious and resentful, perhaps wishing to work evil but forces to promote good due to the overriding influence of God. His function was to accuse humans before God, expose their infidelity, and then bring about their punishment—but only under the auspices of God Himself. To some, Satan symbolizes man’s evil inclinations. The sign of the devil’s horns—index and little fingers extended from a fist—replaced the peace sign as youth culture’s salute. Many may not know this, but AC/DC stands for “Away from Christ/the Devil Comes,” while KISS is “Kids in the Service of Satan.” Many artists are accused of producing backward, or “back-masking,” music on records. The back-masking myth contends that messages recorded backwards and camouflaged with music can enter a person’s mind without them knowing it, as a subliminal form of brainwashing. Like the hypnotic effects of the “druid beat,” many considered it as sorcery. In 1986, evangelist Jim Brown of Ohio led 75 young people in the mass burning of records containing the theme tune to Mr Ed, the popular TV comedy show about a talking horse. If the song “A Horse is a Horse” was played backwards, Mr. Brown explained, the message “Someone sung this song for Satan” could be heard. Some evangelist believe that all rock music was “a carefully masterminded plan instigated by Satan himself.” However, in dealing in the extraordinary phenomena that undulate between the natural and the supernatural, the physical and superphysical, some discount any theory that postulates evil supernaturalism. Yet, to be fully meaningful, the scientific studies in parapsychology must take into consideration the reality of the spirit World of evil (Satan and demons).
To limit the scientific to the natural plane of existence is to omit some of the data responsible for certain natural effects. The result of such study is a tendency to explain away rather than objectively explain supernatural events and to end up with learned theories that ignore part of the evidence. This is where current parapsychological studies stand. They are, however, exceedingly valuable in focusing scientific interest on the supernatural realities behind occultism. If they would recognize the influence of evil supernaturalism in psychic activities, they could advance to great achievements. As an ingredient of idol worship, magic goes back to antiquity. By virtue of their multiplicity and limited knowledge and power, the gods (demons) of paganism are incapable of establishing stability and security in society. This deficiency forced both gods and men to make use of magic—an inactive power independent of god and men, but which could be activized by the assistance of incantations and rituals in order to accomplish supernatural deeds. Magic—like divination—is the divinely forbidden art of bringing about results beyond human power by recourse to superhuman spirit agencies (Satan and demons). In the widest sense of this definition, divination is but a species of magic employed as a means of securing secret and illegitimate knowledge, especially of the future. If magic is genuine and not ere deception or hocus-pocus, it must be personal. Living, intelligent spirit beings become the real agents. Humans, by incantations and ceremonies, actually influence and even control these spirit agents. The activity of such superphysical agents of evil produces the extrasensory phenomena of magic, that is, occurrences the transcend the normal operation of physical law and the perception of human’s five senses. This is how the Winchester Mystery House became known as “the house built by the spirits.”
The Winchester Mystery House is open all weekend until 5PM! Ghostly tales are bountiful at Sarah Winchester’s Mystery House. Come explore the beautiful & bizarre Winchester Estate.
The Cathedral of the Fallen Angel
During a Connecticut thunderstorm, Mrs. Winchester’s husband and baby lost their lives in a tragic fire. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and wizards in Europe and India. Foretelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. In the afternoon of Tuesday, July 10, 1888, the inhabitants of Santa Clara Valley, were greatly excited by the sudden appearance, far out in the fields, of a mansion where none was known to exist. The people of the town were farmers and knew the area well. The day before, they had been out on their horses and rode over the spot where the unusual mansion appeared, and where certain that the locality was the best farmland in the valley. And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, for the day was clear and the mansion could be seen as plainly as they saw the hills to the south. It was massive. The estate was surrounded by a six-foot hedge, densely wooded; here and there were deep shadows in its sides indicating glens heavily covered with undergrowth and grasses. At one end the mansion rose almost precipitously from the from the land; at the other, the declivity was gradual; the thick forest of the estate gave way to smaller trees, these to shrubs; these to green meadows that finally melted into the valley. It was patrolled by a pack of ferocious hellhounds, plus, of course, Mrs. Winchester’s staff of armed bodyguards. Hundreds of people from all over California came to investigate; when, as they neared the spot, the beautiful but bizarre mansion became dim in outline, less vivid in color, and at last vanished entirely, leaving the wonder-stricken farmers to return, fully convinced that for the first time in their lives they had really seen this enchanted mansion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
For once there was a topic of conversation that would outlast the day, and the enchanted Winchester mansion passed from lip to lip, both story and the mansion grew in size till the latter was little less than a continent, contain a labyrinth mansion with towers and steeples, stupendous mountain range views, fertile valleys, and wide spreading plains; while the former was limited only be the patience of the listener, and embraced the personal experience, conclusions, reflections, and observations of every woman, man, and child in the valley who had been fortunate enough to see the mansion, hear of it, or tell where it had been seen elsewhere. This is the invariable history of its appearance. No one had ever been able to come close to its grounds, but it had been so often seen on the west coast, that a doubt of its existence, if expressed in the company of farmers, will at once establish for the sceptic a reputation for balderdash of the common affairs of every-day life. In Santa Clara, for instance, the Winchester mansion had been seen by hundreds of people, while many more could testify to its appearance near San Francisco. In San Jose, all the population saw it a few years ago, and shortly before, the villagers of Oakland, saw it, if not by themselves, at least by some of their friends. The Enchanted Winchester mansion, it should be stated that its resemblance to a Victorian/Gothic castle is sometimes very close, and shows that the “enchanter” who has it under a spell knows her business, and is determined to keep her mansion for herself changes its appearance as well as its location in order that her property may not be recognized nor appropriated. At night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion. Mrs. Winchester’s arrival was a sensational event. They talked about Mrs. Winchester! Gossiped would be a more fitting word, gossip no one claimed to like-but everyone enjoyed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
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. Populations said it just appeared out of nowhere two years ago. Sure two twins could not be like her, and when it appeared in Santa Clara, the mansion would move around to different locations. It had also appeared in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, but it went no further than the Bay Area. Concerning Mrs. Winchester’s mansion, legendary authorities differ on many material points. Some believed that its architecture was due to geometry or some other enchantment, while opponents of this materialistic view were inclined to the opinion that the mansion was not what it seemed to be, that was to say, not Earth, wood, and stones, like as those most people see, but only an illusion that evil spirits or the devil created to deceive the town. Public opinion on the west coast was therefore was strongly divided on the subject, unity of sentiment existing on two points only; that the island had been seen, and that there was something quite out of the ordinary in its appearance. People believe that it would come and go in the night like a light in a bog, and when you do see it, you can see through it. An old fisherman of San Francisco called Ebenezer Thornton knew all about the enchanted Winchester mansion, having not only seen it himself, but, when a boy, learned its history from a “fairy man,” who obtained his information from “the good people” themselves, the facts stated being therefore, of course, of indisputable authority, what the fairies did not know concerning the doings of supernatural and enchanted circles, being not worth knowing. He said that the Winchester mansion was full of temples and round towers all covered with gold and silver till they shone so one could not see it for the brightness. There was a great enchantress in the mansion, and she had all kinds of secrets, and knew where to dig for a pot of gold. She built the castle in one night, and could make herself disappeared when she wanted and could take any shape she pleased. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
Ebenezer when on to say that Mrs. Winchester’s husband gave her a charm before he died to use when she was in mortal danger, he also left her a ton of diamonds and millions of dollars. She was a pretty smart woman. One night, Mrs. Winchester was awakened by a noise in one of the kitchens. She tole down, and found her old housekeeper, Madge, with half a dozen of her kidney, sitting by the fire drinking whisky. When the bottle was finished, one of them cried, “It’s time to be off,” and at the same moment she put on a peculiar red cap, and added:–“By yarrow and rue, and my red cap, too, hie over to England!” and seizing a twig she soared up the chimney. As the latter was making her preparations Mrs. Winchester rushed into the kitchen, snatched the cap from her, and placing herself astride of her twig uttered the magic formula. She speedily found herself high in the air over the Irish Sea, and swooping though the empyrean at a rate unequalled by the fastest airplane. They rapidly neared the Welsh coast, and espied a castle afar off, towards the door of which they rushed with a frightful velocity; Mrs. Winchester closed her eyes and awaited the shock, but found to her delight that she had slipped through the keyhole without hurt. The party made their way to the cellar, where they caroused heartily, but the spirits proved too heady, and somehow Mrs. Winchester was captured and dragged before the lord of the castle, who sentenced her to be hanged. On her way to the gallows an old woman in the crowd called out in Irish, “Ah, the enchantress herself, Sarah Winchester alanna! Is it going to die you are in a strange place without your magical charm?” She reached into her pocket and held it in her hand. On reaching the place of execution she was allowed to address the spectators, and did so in the usual ready-made speech, beginning, “Good people all, a warning take by me.” But when she reached the last line, “My parents reared me tenderly” instead of stopped she unexpected added, “By yarrow and rue, good-bye I love you,” with the result that she shot up through the air, to the great dismay of all beholders. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
Magic persecution. Genuine magic is the art of bringing about results beyond human powers through the enlistment of supernatural agencies. Black magic deliberately involves the devil and demons, and the resulting enchantment is used for persecution and revenge. A spiritistic circle of twenty members furnishes a good example. Working with black magic, these spiritis experimented to see if they could cause psychic harm or even illness in people they disliked. A strong medium of this occult group chose a minister as a target and vowed to afflict and eliminate her. The minister suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to work for several months. Some phenomena must be eliminated from the spiritistic magic field. In the psychiatric realm, for example, many schizophrenics claim to be magically persecuted. In reality this is only a symptom in the course of psychotic disease. Eliminating all such cases, there are still large-scale, genuine phenomena, especially in areas where occultism has flourished for many years. One common form of magic persecution is beatings by an invisible attacker. Parapsychology also sees magical persecution as a mediumistic problem in the sphere of materializations. Strong mediums (when under demon control) send out energy with which to build up human phantasms and are also able to transform this energy into animal forms, including dogs, cats, frogs, snakes, or human bodies with animal heads, etcetera. This explains the bizarre spiritistic persecution through phantoms in the form of various animals of human bodies with nonhuman heads. These animals bite, scratch, or otherwise torment their victims. Examples, of these occult phenomena abound in areas where the black arts are practiced. However, such occurrences are denied by many intellectuals. Often peasants and country people, especially in Europe, know more about magic than university graduates, who claim to swindle or hocus-pocus trickery are used instead of occult powers. #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
Magic defense. Magic defense enlists supernatural agencies to counteract or unto the mischief wrought by magic persecution. Various kinds of spells, charms, or incantations are employed. In spiritistic séances it is an established fact that injuries inflicted upon a phantasm are sustained by the medium, even in the case of animal phantasm. Many defensive customs develop to combat this threat since magical persecution involves materialization. If a victim can injure an aggressive phantasm one has won the struggle. Many in the West wanted to remove Satan from the equation of black magic and demonic aspects of life. However, more serious discontent came from Satanists whose concerns were completely the opposite. Anton LaVey did not believe in Satan as a literal entity—He was a name for the dark, brutal aspects of humans and nature, as well as a symbol for the potency of humans’ untrammeled will. The Church of Satan was not a religion, and did not worship deities. For many, however, this was not enough. They wanted a real Devil to worship—belonging to a dark, mysterious coven, in the traditional gothic style, seemed much more appealing than being part of some cultural and social elite. Some believed that Satan, although thrown out of Heaven, was reinstated as the son of God and is directly in contact with him. If any coven members offends, they are a bit evil now and again, given corporal punishment, or is expelled from one’s coven and cursed. However, this is said to be for the members own good. They really believe in love, the sanctity of woman as the child bearer and procreator of life, and in worshipping Satan their master. Aleister Crowley was grooming Kenneth as his successor. Mr. Grant’s work examined lost gods, strange spiritual traditions and forbidden symbols, often leading him to some disreputable spiritual neighborhood where devils and demons might be expected to reside, like the Winchester Mystery House. #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
If you have a lot of magic in you, you can be a Satanist and have no idea. As if they are the mafia or something, sometimes those who are suspected of being Satanists have their offices broken into like they are the Mafia or something. The Church of Satan, however, has saved lives because it has given them power, power to come out and be themselves when traditional churches would not accept these people. The Dark Lord, was said to be an anthropoid but faceless. Looking at the concept as a diamond, much like the ones left to Mrs. Winchester by her husband William Wirt Winchester, Satan or Lucifer was just other facets of that diamond, purely ways of achieving workings which encompassed the whole. So, if you are particularly drawn to the gothic Satanist current, fine, use rituals based around that. In the Temple of Darkness one could equally have Satanists, Setians, or followers of other paths, the principle being that the whole thing is a psychodrama anyway. Magic is basically the Western version of yoga. Everything that happens in magic happens first in your head. Set, the Egyptian god of evil, was an older deity than Satan. Satan derives from Set. Set, who is defined as the Prince of Darkness, is a force about which you could say, “As we are now, he once was.” When you die your force can survive. Magic is mind enhancing. When one perishes or passes, instead of going into the cosmic whole—becoming one with the goddess or whatever—by sheer force of the will the existence of that magician’s mind can be sustained. This is the whole idea of the Temple of Set, and they use the word “xeper,” meaning “to become,” to define this. Spiritistic cults. If you did not know, Mrs. Winchester was a spiritists. Spiritism is considered a form of Christianity, practically in all civilized countries. A typical meeting consists of hymns, prayer, and a sermon as in a Christian service. The sermon, however, is allegedly given by a spirit from the other World, through a medium. These cults are said to be affected by the “doctrines of demons” and press into the supernatural World. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
However, even born-again Christians often cannot differentiate between the spiritual and the psychic-demonic when under the spell of doctrinal errors, particularly those concerning the work of the Holy Spirit. The result can sometimes be confusion, division, and promotion of certain spiritual gifts accredited to demons. We have sometimes seen people end up suffering from mediumistic psychosis. Quite a number of patients who have suffered serious psychic disturbances through the misuse of such practices have become split personalities. The spirits which they called, confused them. One who tries to discover the promises of the other side through superstition endangers oneself to fall a prey to the dark side of one’s psyche. However, many Christians say that spirits of loved ones cannot be brought back from the dead, and the it is just a demon impersonating them. Yet, consider the case of Saul’s visit to the spiritistic medium at Endor (1 Samuel 28.3-25). Samuel’s spirit was actually brought back from the spirit World when the medium Endor tried to contact him. Yet, God brought the spirit back. The Lord stepped. Still one must be careful because many become enslaved and oppressed by occult powers and become victims of various manifestations of spiritistic phenomena. While overwhelming evidence from Christian counseling confirms the fact that spiritistic complicity serious damages the believer’s spiritual life, adherents of Buddhism, Island, or even false cults of Christianity sense no ill effects. Spiritists claim that spiritism has strengthened their belief in life after death and deepened their religious devotion. Psychiatry, psychology, and medical treatment are not sufficient for the healing of the whole human. The gospel of Christ and the liberating power of the Word of God can fully heal body, soul, and spirit. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
Mrs. Winchester had a pain in her right forearm. At first the pain was treated as rheumatism but one day the Mrs. Winchester made the interesting discovery that the pain would suddenly subside if she wrote a letter. Having discovered this, whenever the pain became unbearable, she would always take a pencil and begin to write in order to alleviate the pain. However, after a period of time the Mrs. Winchester when go into her Blue Séance Room, where she developed a writing compulsion. She would write things down that she could normally speaking never have written. Often times, this is where the blueprints from her mansion came from. Added to this the written material on each occasion turned out to be some form of religious treatise. Mrs. Winchester took the articles to her minister to let him examine them. He was surprised at their intellectual content. Mrs. Winchester had become a spiritistic writing medium. The parapsychologist would merely see in this example a psychic automation involving the expression of subconscious thoughts. It is true that we need not consider the Mrs. Winchester to be in direct contact with the dead, or putting it another way we need not assume that this is a case of direct demonization, but God could be speaking to her. This is why some believe Mrs. Winchester to be a prophetess. During one of her spiritistic seances, as it happened, a phantasm did in fact appear during a séance. However, it is still not necessary to believe that a spirit really did appear in this instance. Depth psychology suggest that a phantasm can be produced in the following way. The medium through emitting energy causes matter to form as a result of this. In nuclear physics we have the idea that matter is nothing more than concentrated energy. Einstein’s formula E=M.c^2 illustrates this relationship. A comparison can also be drawn from another branch of physics. It is found that both particles and anti-particles are formed at the cathode of an X-ray tube when a current is passed through it at a very high voltage. Energy in the form of electro-magnetic waves is in this way transformed into matter. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
The next step in the mediumistic process involves the unconscious tapping of the information from some source or other, and then the newly formed matter is physically shaped according to this information. The final step is made when the phantasm is brought under the control of the medium. Looking at it from this point of view there is no necessity to believe that the dead person has in any way been disturbed. An animistic explanation based on the powers of the subconscious is thus sufficient to explain the phenomenon of materialization. Yet this is not to say that the rationalistic explanation does justice to the facts of the case. The problem is not as simple as that. However, we do not have the time to delve further into the scientific side of the issues. We have, on many occasions witnessed a disintegration of the personalities of both mediums and participants where materializations have taken place. In addition to this in every case where a person has frequently taken part in spiritistic séances, there is some kind of reaction, even if it is not immediately notice or if there is no manifestation—something happens. There are also people who are able to practise the excursion of the soul. Spiritists affirm that people can send out an astral body from their material body, and commission it to do whatever they ask. Perhaps that was the case when Mrs. Winchester appeared in another country? Spiritism haunts the dark jungle of human aberration. During a séance as the Winchester mansion, Mrs. Winchester noticed that time was passing somewhat wearily. She could hear an occasional thud, thud. Some time must have elapsed before she became, dimly at first, and then distinctly, aware of a bluish phosphorescent emanation from a skeleton. This seemed to rise above it like a faint smoke, which gradually gained consistency, took form, and became distinct; and she saw before her the misty, luminous form on an unclothed man, with wolfish countenance, prognathous jaws, glaring at her out of eyes deeply sunk under projecting brows. #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
Although she thus descried what she saw, it gave her no idea of substance; it was vaporous, and yet it was articulate. Indeed, she could not say for sure if she saw this apparition with her eyes, or whether it was a dream-like vision of the brain. Though luminous, it cast no light on the wall of the Blue Séance Room; if she raised her hand, it did not obscure any portion of the form presented to her. Then she heard: “I will tear you with the nails of my fingers and toes, and rip you with my teeth.” “What have I done to injure and incense you?” she asked. No word was uttered by either of them; no word could have been uttered by this vaporous form. It had no material lungs, nor throat, nor mouth to form vocal sounds. It had but the semblance of a man. It was a spook, not a human being. However, it proceeded through the walls, odylic force which smote on the tympanum of her mind or soul, and thereon registered the ideas formed by it. So in a like manner Mrs. Winchester thought her replies, and they were communicated back in the same manner. If vocal words had passed between them neither would have been intelligible to the other. No dictionary was ever compiled, or would be compiled, of the tongue or prehistoric man; moreover, the grammar of the speech of that race would be absolutely incomprehensible to humans now. However, thoughts can be interchanged without words. When we think we do not think in any language. It is only when we desire to communicate our thoughts to other humans that we shape them into words and express them vocally in structural grammatical sentences. The beasts have never attained to this, yet they can communicate with one another, not by language, but by thought vibrations. Mrs. Winchester knew as she conversed with him that she was not speaking to him in English, nor in French, nor in Latin, nor in any tongue whatever. Moreover, when she used the words “said” or “spoke,” she meant no more than that the impression was formed by her brain-pan or the receptive drum of her soul, was produced by the rhythmic, orderly sequence of thought-waves. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
When, however, she expressed the words “screamed” or “shrieked,” she signified that those vibrations came sharp and swift; and when she said “laughed,” tht they came in a choppy, irregular fashion, conveying the idea, not the sound of laughter. “I will tear you! I will rend you to bits and throw you in pieces about this mansion!” shrieked this demon man. Mrs. Winchester remonstrated, and inquired how she had incensed him. However, yelling with rage, he threw himself upon her. In a moment she was enveloped in a luminous haze, strips of phosphorescent vapour laid themselves about her, but she received no injury whatever, only her spiritual nature was subjected to something like a magnetic storm. After a few moments the spook disengaged itself from Mrs. Winchester, and drew back to where it was before, screaming broken exclamations of meaningless rage, and jabbering savagely. It rapidly cooled down. “Why do you wish to ill me?” She asked again. “I cannot hurt you. I am spirit, you are matter, and spirit cannot injure matter; my nails are psychic phenomena. Your soul you can lacerate yourself, but I can effect nothing, nothing.” “Then why have you attacked me? What is the cause of your impotent recement?” “Because you are the heiress to the Winchester Rifle, and I lived eight thousand years ago. Why are you nursed in the lap of luxury? Why you enjoy your comforts, a civilization that we new nothing of? It is not just. It is cruel on us. We have nothing, nothing, literally nothing, not even lucifer matches!” Again he feel to screaming, as might a caged monkey rendered furious by failure to obtain an apple which he could not reach. “I am very sorry, but it is no fault of mine.” “Whether it be your fault or not does not matter to me. You have these things—we had not. Why, I saw you just now strike a light on the sole of your boot. It was done in a moment. We had only flint and ironstone, and it took half a day with us to kindle a fire, and then it flayed our knuckles with continuous knocking. No! we have nothing, nothing—no lucifer matches, no commercial travellers, no Benedictine, no pottery, no metal, no education, no elections, no chocolat menier.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
“How do you know about these products of the present age, here, buried one hundred feet of soil for eight thousand years?” “It is my spirit which speaks with your spirit. My spook does not always remain with my bones. I can go up; rocks and stones and earth and your labyrinth mansion heaped over me do not hold me down. I am often above. I am in the gasolier overhead. I have seen your servants plough the fields. I have seen a bottle of Benedictine. I have applied my physical lips to it, but I could taste, absorb nothing. I have seen commercial travellers there, cajoling the patron into buying things he did not want. They are mysterious, marvellous beings, their powers of persuasion are little short of miraculous. Why do you think of doing with me?” “Well, I propose first of all photographing you, then soaking you in gum Arabic, and finally transferring you to a museum.” He screamed as though with pain, and grasped: “Do not! do not do it. It will be torture insufferable.” “But why so? You will be under glass, in a polished oak or mahogany box.” “Do not! You cannot understand what it will be to me—a spirit more or less attached to my body, to spend ages upon ages in a museum with fibulae, triskelli, palstaves, celts, torques, scarabs. We cannot travel very far from our bones—our range is limited. And conceive of my feelings for centuries condemned to wander among glass cases containing prehistoric antiquities, and to hear the talk of scientific men alone. Now here, it is otherwise. Here I can pass up when I like into your mansion, and can see the maid and butlers cleaning, the roses and trees growing, the farmers working the field and the magnificent glow of your fine estate. Give me life. There is a sort of filmy attachment that connects our psychic nature with our mortal remains. It is like a spider and its web. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
“Suppose the soul to be the spider and the skeleton to be the web. If you break the thread the spider will never find its way back to its home. So it is with us; there is an attachment, a faint thread of luminous spiritual matter that unites us to our Earthly husk. It is liable to accidents. It sometimes gets broken, sometimes dissolved by water. If a black beetle crawls across it it suffers a sort of paralysis. I have never been to the other side of the of your mansion, I feared to do so, though very anxious to see your architecture and furniture.” “This is news to me,” replied Mrs. Winchester. “Do you know of any case of rupture of connection?” Yes,” he replied. “My old father, after he was dead some years, got his link of attachment broke, and he wandered about disconsolate. He could not find his own body, but he lighted on that of a young female of seventeen, and he got into that. It happened most singularly that her spook, being frolicsome and inconsiderate, had got its bond also broken, and she, that is her spirit, straying about in quest of her body, lighted on that of my venerable parent, and for want of a better took possession of it. It so chanced that after a while they met and became chummy. In the World of spirits there is no marriage, but there grow up spiritual attachments, and these two got rather fond of each other, but never could puzzle it out which was which and what each was; for a female soul had entered into an old male body, and a male soul had taken up its residence in a female body. Neither could riddle out of which each gender was. You see they had no education. However, I know that my father’s soul became quite sportive in that young woman’s skeleton. Each generation makes some discovery that advances civilization a stage, the next enters on the discoveries of the preceding generations, and so culture advances stage by stage. Man is infinitely progressive; even the brute beast is.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
At that moment, Mrs. Winchester heard a shout—saw a flash of light. The construction workers had pierced the barrier. A rush of fresh air entered. She staggered to her feet. She felt dizzy. Kind hands grasped her. She was dragged forth. Brandy was poured down her throat. When she came to herself, she said, “Thank you. Talking with spirits can be terrible dreadful. When you are trying to summon one, souls get crossed and the one you are seeking may not cross through. They are so desperate to find a medium to communicate with.” As an ingredient of idol worship, magic goes back to antiquity. By virtue of their multiplicity and limited knowledge and power, the gods (demons) of paganism are incapable of establishing stability and security in society. This deficiency forced both gods and men to make use of magic—an inactive power independent of gods and men, but which could be activized by the assistance of incantations and rituals in order to accomplish supernatural deeds. Because of widespread denial of the reality of supernatural power—both divine and demonic, confusion abounds concerning the nature of magic. The history of magic is replete with extraordinary extrasensory phenomena that involve the spirit realm and every phase of the natural World as well, including human beings, animals, plants, and inorganic matter. Spirit-rapping, apparitions, ghosts, moving of furniture, and playing of musical instruments by invisible hands, stones falling from a ceiling, magical killing of cattle and blighting of crops, etcetera, are just a few of the weird occurrences that have happened at the Winchester Mystery House in its 134 years. However, there have also been beautiful supernatural events such as apparitions getting married, giant spirits of light in the shape of a man peering out guests, and on occasion, even rainbows and angels have appeared. Not all spirits or evil or angry, some or loving and welcoming. Few of thousands of annual transient guests are disappointed for here one finds visible truth even stranger than all the weird Mystery House features. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
Winchester Mystery House
Beautiful weather calls for a walk around Sarah’s iconic gardens ⛲️🪴Open 10AM – 5PM this weekend!
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle , or who were jealous of its wealth 👻
Where the Wind Blew and the Stars Sone Down
Haunting, eerie, mystical even at times a little frightening to those outside the shadowy half-World of the occult but compelling and demanding out attention. In 1884, Mrs. Winchester left New Haven, Connecticut, and the graves of her husband and only child, moved to San Jose, California, and began the obsession that was to last for the rest of her life. She purchased an unfinished farmhouse outside the small agricultural town, and for the next 38 years, the sound of construction on Mrs. Winchester’s house never stopped. She used to maintain, I remember, that there was no apparition or supernatural manifestation, or series of circumstances pointing to such a manifestation, however strongly substantiated they appeared to be, that could not be explained on purely natural grounds. However, there was a notable instance of what was by many supposed to be a supernatural manifestation that occurred in the water tower on the estate. It was a horrible sight. Barney Ackers and his wife Everly had evidently been waylaid and killed by a blow of an axe just as he was entering the yard gate, and then the door of the water tower had been broken open and his wife had been killed, after which Barney’s body had been dragged into the water tower, and it had been fired with the intention of making it appear that the water tower had burned by accident. However, by one of those inscrutable fatalities, the fire, after burning half of two walls, had gone out. Still, it was a horrible sight and the room looked like shambles. Barney had plainly been caught unawares while leaning over his gate. The back of his head had been crushed in with the eye of an axe, and he had died instantly. The pleasant thought which was in his mind at the instant—perhaps, of the greeting that always awaited him on the click of his latch; perhaps, of his success that day; perhaps, of Mrs. Winchester’s kindness to him for the work he did—was yet on his face, stamped there indelibly by the blow that killed him. There he lay, face upwards, as the murderer had thrown him after bringing him in, stretched out his full length on the floor, with his quiet face upturned, looking in that throng of excited, awestricken men, just what he had said he was: a man of peace. His wife, on the other hand, wore a terrified look on her face. There has been a terrible struggle. She had lived to taste the bitterness of death, before it took her. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Satan’s presence was haunting. It haunted Mrs. Winchester for years, and for many nights she could not sleep. No one ever found out who did it, and she found herself unable to forget it, or to have peace as she used to. On the night of the 3rd of January 1888, some thieves attempted to commit a robbery on the estate of Mrs. Winchester. They entered the mansion, armed with a dead man’s hand with a lighted candle in it, believing in the superstitious notion that is such a hand be procured, and a candle placed within its grasp, the latter cannot be seen by anyone except him by whom it is used; also that if the candle and hand be introduced into a house it will prevent those who may be asleep from awaking. The inhabitants, however, were alarmed, and the robbers fled, leaving the hand behind them. No doubt the absolute failure of this gruesome dark lantern on this occasion was due to the fact that neither candle nor candlestick had been properly prepared! The Winchester mansion is full of apparitions and specters and perhaps some of them foiled the bulger’s plan. The mansion was continually disturbed by a nocturnal house-spirits. At night heavy steps were heard as of one carrying a heavy load. On occasion a form appeared in a monk’s cowl. Certain ghosts are confined to the Winchester mansion and they plague particularly people. A certain butler, Elton Abram, was an active spiritist while employed for Mrs. Winchester. For years he practiced table-lifting and considered this to be a way of communicating with the dead. He continued with his occult practices so intensively that psychic disturbances set in. The effects of his spiritistic interests also appeared in his children and grandchildren. His oldest son committed suicide. His next son suffered from a persecution mania. His oldest daughter ended up in The Great Asylum for the Insane. Another daughter suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Among his grandchildren the same picture emerged. One of them was a schizophrenic. Another suffered from weak nerves and hypersensitivity, and another lived a dissolute life, and had given birth to an illegitimate child. The first of the man’s great-grandchildren became a psychopath and a delinquent. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
From the scientific point of view, one might consider these effects to have a different cause from that of spiritism. The psychiatrist will be interested in the question whether the practicing of spiritism was rather the effect than the cause of the ensuing mental and emotional disorders. Or again, was there some latent disposition in the family that was merely triggered off by the spiritistic activities? The parapsychologist will explain the table-lifting phenomenon as psychic automatism, that is an activation of subconscious forces. The Christian however is concerned essentially with the frequency in which psychic disturbances appear in connection with the practice of occultism. It was well known that Mrs. Winchester donned herself with ceremonial robes and communed nightly with the spirits in the Winchester mansion, and it was the midnight rendezvous for legions of ghosts, with special attention accorded those created by a Winchester rifle slug. It is possible the Mr. Abram stole something from the Winchester mansion, which brought on a curse to him and generations of his family members. A person’s thoughts and actions are like people who populate a community: friendly, contentious, kind, malicious, virtuous, evil, virile, cowardly, optimistic, cynical. We prosper in a pure mental neighborhood and wither in a foul one. And we can choose our mental neighborhood. Tired minds and bodies are signals to be careful. Demonic oppression is not easily discerned. Some people mistakenly blame demons for unrepentant self-will and psychological abnormalities. The source is not always clear, but demon oppression is usually marked by an emotional inability of the individual to do what one wants to do. A young maid staying in the Winchester mansion called Bythesea Atterton, had been a founding member of a thriving witches coven in Essex and the group’s other three members all shared her dedicated to the occult. She began to complain about various mental disturbances which included being tired of life and having depressions. Added to this she often had violent fit of temper, and her marriage was being undermined by her own frigidity. It has also happened that the husband had seen strange figures in the house at night. He had not told his wife about this so as not to upset her, but after a while she too had seen similar strange and maimed figures about the house. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
Mrs. Winchester questioned the woman about her past illnesses and about the general health of her parents and grandparents, but she was the only one to have suffered in this way. In answer to Mrs. Winchester’s questions about contact with occultism, after a lot of thought Bythesea told her the following story. She had stolen Mrs. Winchester’s sixteenth century book about magic, and saw a black shadow at the end of her bed. It was a horrible presence that frighted the life out of Bythesea. While Mrs. Winchester was asleep, she would invite her Protestant girl’s group over. The minister’s wife, who had become the leader, used to practice table-lifting with all the girls in the Blue Séance Room. The sessions had always begun with the question, “Spirit, are you there?” One knock had meant “yes,” two had meant “no.” When the spirit had been willing to answer they had all taken part in asking it questions. The minister’s wife had continued this practice for many years until she was paralyzed by a stroke. Bythesea told Mrs. Winchester that all the girls had subsequently been afraid to visit their leader since her face had been changed into a terrible grimace by the stroke. Medical science would classy this example together with the precious one. However, with regards to the stroke, we would like to point out that in the numerous cases connected to the Winchester mansion of suicides, fatal accidents, stroke, and insanity, they usually involve the occult and someone who has in someway broke a rule, stole from the mansion, or offended the spirits somehow. The miles of twisting hallways in the mansion are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might he following her. Mrs. Winchester never slept in the same bedroom two nights in a row, in order to confuse any evil spirits that might be waiting for her. Music has always played an important role in cultural outlook and identity. Hymns, marching songs, lullabies—there are a thousand different aspects of life which are ordered or inspired by a musical beat. Music helps to define your cultural tribe. Even the ghost at the Winchester mansion reportedly had parties at ungodly hours. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The Satanic underground was celebrated—and eventually propelled into the mainstream—by musicians at the tail-end of the psychedelic era. While the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the public faces of the 1960s youth culture, other voices of that same social and spiritual revolution sang dark hymns of rebellion. Some think that Black Arts Festivals have gone too far, one in particular. Coven might have achieved the popular success that ultimately eluded them. The band’s first album went under the uncompromising title Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, boasting a gatefold sleeve featuring the band engaged in a Black Mass—complete with attractive blonde singer Jinx Dawson serving as a naked altar. The album features a recording of this Black Mass at the tail end of side two: “Two the best of our knowledge, this if the first Black Mass to be recorded in written words or in audio,” explain the sleeve notes. (Anton Lavey recorded his own Black Mass shortly afterwards.) “It is as authentic as hundreds of hours of research in every know source can make it. We do no to recommend its use by anyone who has not thoroughly studied Black Magic and is aware of the risks and dangers involved.” The rite bears the hallmark of serious study, with notably authentic elements from medieval Gnostic and witchcraft lore. The overall effect, however is curiously naïve, with the high priest’s command to “kiss the goat” sounding more Monty Python than Aleister Crowley. The music that precedes the Black Mass is standard—if well-executed—1960s folk rock. It is something of a jolt to realize that, behind the gentle acoustic guitars, the lyrics are exclusively about Devil-worship and black magic, while the alluring Miss Dawson’s vocals give the effect of a demonically-possessed Join Mitchell. Ultimately, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls is an interesting musical exploration of the witchcraft tradition which suffused rural America ever since the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New England over four centuries ago. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The infamous Salem witch-trials—which took place in Massachusetts during 1692—had been one of the last major incidents of state extermination by religious fanatics from the “Old World,” making the term “witch-hunt” synonymous with the persecution with marginalized groups. As such, it elicited the sympathy of twentieth-century hippies like Coven toward their satanic predecessors. (In sacrificing the lives of twenty suspected “witches” to the fantasies of hysterical children, it also predated the “Satanic panic” of the 1980s-90s.) Coven’s second album Blood on the Snow followed but, despite its demonic sleeve, the Satanic elements were fare more restrained. By the third album, imaginatively titled Coven, the sinister elements had all but disappeared, replaced by standard hippie material. Robbed of the distinctive image of their early days, Coven faded away. It is interesting that the British rock band Lucifer, formed in 1971, were a curious collection of characters whose sardonically-devilish promotional photos portrayed a Mansonesque image, enlisted the Devil to fight the capitalist-pig system. Lucifer issued two albums, Big Gun and Exit, and a single, entitled “F*ck You,” which was seized by the police. Most outre of the Satanic psychedelicists, Roky Erickson had been the leader of the mid-1960s Texan garage band the Thirteenth Floor Elevators until a bust for marijuana possession. Facing a long prison sentence under the Lone Star State’s sanctimonious laws, he committed himself to a psychiatric institution instead. This was a bad mistake. Three years later, in the early 1970s, the hallucinogen-loving Erickson came out of the lunatic asylum considerably more troubled than when he went in. An obscure cult figure who became known for lyrical tributes to his favorite 1950s horror movies, in the hospital he had formed a close relationship with his own personal Satan. “Ah’m not afraid of the Devil, the Devil is mah friend. He chose me to do his biddin’,” drawled the usual but loveable Erickson. “Those doctors and nurses…They could not mess with the Devil’s chosen one.” To cement this unholy pact, Erickson later vocalized his personal infernal visions in wildly sincere songs like “I Think of Demons” and “Don’t Shake Me Lucifer.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Ny far the most interesting of the Satanic-psychedelic bands were Black Widow. Their 1970s debt album, Sacrifice, was the result of guitarist Jim Gannon’s research into the Black Arts, with occultic lyrics accompanying a blend of traditional folk music and progressive rock. The almost-ubiquitous Alex Sanders warned the band they had done their homework too well, and would attract dark forces. He was right for one, though only inasmuch as Gannon’s lyrics boast a fair degree of authenticity, and some songs—like the catchy “Come to the Sabbat”—are highly evocative of the medieval-European Satanic tradition. Other moments—like the horrible saxophone solo Satan uses to tempt some poor innocent on “Seduction”—are diabolical in a different sense. The band enhanced their image with an elaborately Satanic stage show, professionally choreographed by a Leicester theatre company, complete with sacrificial daggers and an unclothed young woman to adorn the altar (at one point this was Alex Sanders’ wife, Maxine). They reaped the reward for their oddly entertaining work, with Sacrifice reaching the top 40 in the UK album charts. However, their second album, Black Widow, lacked both the Satanic themes and the power of its predecessor. The official explanation for this was that, true to Sanders’ warning, weird things stated to happen—most alarmingly, near-fatal car crashes. (Satan seems particularly keen on causing road accidents, however much more impressive lightning bolts or stampeding elephants might seem.) What is more likely is that, like many rock bands that use powerful Satanic imagery, Black Window may have begun to believe that same imagery was holding back their career. As many have learnt to their cost, however, it is more often the other way around—few dabbling rock stars regain the early excitement once they stop playing the Devil’s music. Suffice to day, Jim Gannon, the major creative force behind the band, cannot have been unduly worried by the curse, as he tried to mount a stage musical version of the Black Widow show on Broadway. Sadly, it never came off, and Black Widow—devoid of Devil worship—dwindled into obscurity. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Prosaic accounts of Black Sabbath’s flirtation with occult imagery claim they were impressed by the interest Black Widow had enjoyed in their Satanic stage show. The truth is probably a combination of all these stories. Whatever, it is fair to say that intense interest in their demonic aspects surprised Black Sabbath as much as anyone else. Their eponymous 1969 debut album was recorded in to days for six hundred pounds, treated with contempt and indifference by the press, and rapidly became a commercial success. The Christian Science Monitor, or all publications, noted approvingly that the band did not “condone or promote the less seemly aspects of…an interest in occult matters.” They were right. The song “Black Sabbath” describes the narrator’s state of terror at witnessing a Black Mass. Their attitude to Satan was chiefly the traditional one of fear and loathing, their lyrics even sometime entreating listeners to turn to God as the only source of love. However, the audiences were not listening—they wanted a Satanic band, and that is what Black Sabbath ostensibly became. (Rumor has it that their management had the large cross that decorated the inside of their first album inverted without the band’s knowledge of approval.) Satan appeared in Black Sabbath’s songs as a constant source of fascination and fear, an entity who brings colour into drab existence but can also represent the overwhelming evil of the World. In the classic “War Pigs,” Satanic witched are equated with the evil of politicians and generals who callously kill millions in their power games. (According to guitarist Tony Iommi, the title was derived from “Walpurgis,” the night when evil traditionally rules the World.) However, the most fascinating manifestation of Satan in a Black Sabbath song is also the rarest: when they briefly allow the Prince of Darkness to speak for Himself. In this strange and haunting “N.I.B,” Lucifer, the creator, sings a plaintive love song to His greatest creation and fellow sufferer, humankind. (The song “Lord of this World,” also recognizes Satan as god of the Earth.) #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
N.I.B.’s title is the source of some confusion: according to drummer Bill Ward it was simply his nickname, derived from when the band were stoned and though he resembled a pen nib. Typically, the fans perceived a more Satanic significance—to them, “N.I.B” stood for “Nativity in Black.” Inevitably, the band were quizzed on such apparent occultic beliefs during interviews. “We are into God,” Iommi unhelpfully explained to which Ward added, “But sometimes I feel Satan is God.” Perhaps they were expressing the beliefs of the early Satanic Gnostic groups, fifteen hundred years before. Led Zeppelin emerged in 1968 from London’s lively rhythm and blues scene. The band took off completely and became a huge commercial success. They were also said to have a Satanic influence with their roots being in traditional black blues music—though guitarist Jimmy Page’s outfit, much closer in its sympathies to the blues than to heavy metal, was far more preoccupied with the tradition. The Devil also makes His presence felt, either as a symbol of the inevitable fate awaiting the debauched bluesman, or as the hard-living musician’s comrade and inspiration. The delta blues—the school that had the greatest influence on the rock-guitar style—became known as “the Devil’s music.” Delta bluesmen included Peetie Wheatsraw, who liked to be known as “the Devil’s Son-in-Law and High Sheriff of Hell,” and Robert Johnson. Johnson, the acoustic-playing grandfather of rock guitar, best illustrates the enduring legend of the bluesman who sold his soul to acquire musical talent. (As testified by Satanic Rock star Glenn Danzig during our interview with him: “A lot of the old blues songs are very heavily rooted in occultism. There is Robert Johnson, all the voodoo and juju stuff—‘Got my Mojo Working,’ ‘Black Cat Bone.’”) Johnson’s pact with Satan was said to be struck at the “Crossroads”—one of his best-know song, and a traditionally magical location in many cultures—and thereafter he always claimed to live, as another song put it, with a “Hellhound on My Trail.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Led Zeppelin, and Jimmy Page in particular, were heavily influenced by Johnson, lifting parts of his songs for their own compositions. As with Johnson, so the popular rumour went, Led Zeppelin has made a pact with the Devil, asking the Prince of Darkness to tune their instruments in return for their souls. Only Satanic aid, reasoned the myth, could explain the enormous success the band enjoyed so rapidly, or the power involving pleasures of the flesh these modern pied pipers had over young ladies. These same legends had been linked with musicians from Robert Johnson to Elvis Presley and beyond, but with Led Zeppelin the Satanic-pact myth has proved especially enduring. If you study the supernatural, you cannot ignore evil. The “ZOSO” symbol that became Led Zeppelin’s band’s trademark was also partly derived from the work of another influential British occultist, Austin Osman Spare—a contemporary of Crowley, and occultic artist, best known for his “automatic drawing,” which he claimed worked as a conduit for supernatural forces. One more than one occasion, Page hinted that much of Led Zeppelin’s material (particularly their meditative anthem “Stairway to Heaven”) had been conceived in a similar fashion. (If you recall, this is also how Mrs. Winchester received the plan on how to build her mansion.) Kenneth Anger asked Page to record a soundtrack for his magic ritual film Lucifer Rising, but was bitterly disappointed with the results, saying, “I had asked him for intimacy and strength, rhythms and counter-rhythms. But he gave me a short fragment of chanting voices and sounds that I thought were quite sombre and morbid.” In October of 1976, the two fell out in grand style. Page threw Anger out of the basement of his London house, where he had granted the American magus use of a fil-editing suite. Anger responded with a press conference. Asked if he felt vindictive toward Page, Anger reposed, “You bet I do. I’m not a Christian turn the other cheek kind. In fact, I’m ready to throw a Kenneth Anger curse.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
Asked about the incident in an interview the following year, Page observed, “The whole thing about ‘Anger’s Curse,” they were just these silly little letters. God, it was all so pathetic…I had a lot of respect for him. As an occultist he was definitely in the vanguard.” Despite Page’s scepticim, many fans and commentators linked the personal tragedies that were to strike the band with some kind of hex. On 26 July 1977, vocalist Robert Plant’s young son Karac died of a respiratory infection. Three years later, on 26 September 1980, the band’s drummer, John Bonham, died after a drinking binge. Enough was enough. On 4 December 1980, it was announced that Led Zeppelin were no more. The band’s demise only served to fuel rumours. The more lurid stories held that all of Led Zeppelin, with the exception of Bonham, had signed pacts with the Devil for Earthly pleasure, supposedly explaining the drummer’s untimely death. One fanzine reported that black smoke had been seen billowing from Page’s house on the day following Bonham’s death, and that the guitarist was overheard uttering strange curses in unknown tongues. Even the mainstream press got in on the act, with the London Evening News quoting an anonymous source: “It sounds crazy, but Robert Plant and everyone around the band is convinced that Jimmy’s dabbling in black magic is responsible in some way for Bonzo’s death and for all these other tragedies.” What are we to make of the “Led Zeppelin curse”? Many young people still need to hear guitar music that conjured the Devil, and Satanic rock does show a tenacity that surprised all but its most fervent disciples. Kip Trevor from the band Black Widow tells the story about their album Sacrifice and the stage show of the same title. “There is a guy who has lost his wife as a result of an accident to do with some kind of occultic ceremony. Something goes wrong, and she is killed. He comes back through the centuries, is reborn, and remembers this in a dream. In this dream he realizes his wife can be returned to him, if he can perform another ceremony, like the one which had gone wrong. This time he would turn the tables on the Lady Astoroth, draw her, overpower her, and sacrifice her, then she would be banished and his wife would come back. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
“So in the first song, ‘In Ancient Days,’ tells the story of this guy travelling through the centuries. Then there is the conjuration in which we bring Lady Astoroth and the girl appears. We’d have a lot of fun with that, as she would appear from all sorts of odd places, depending on where we were playing. We toured with it all over Europe for around eighteen months. When Black Widow broke up, Jim and myself went off to try and revive the idea of the occultic stage show. We spent a lot of time, money and effort on this new black magic concept, but it did not work out. Black Widow’s first album was quite an achievement, but it would have been lovely to have developed it. The problem was that the band politics got in the way—some of them wanted to be a “normal” band and thought the whole black magic thing was not them. They thought it was overshadowing their playing. The show was written with Jim’s research, using proper conjuration ceremonies. The whole thing was done authentically as we could possibly do it. We drew the magic circles, used all the props—fire, earth, water, and air. We did it exactly as you were supposed to do it. Doing that has an effect, even if it is only psychological, because you know you’re doing it in the correct fashion. You’re stepping over the line. Combined with the power of the music and the power of the audience’s involvement, weird things would happen.” God did not create the devil as such. Lucifer, one of God’s mighty cherubs, rebelled against Him and became the devil. Satan is thus the product of his own evil choice. God created a superbly beautiful and wise being and invested him with power above all the other created beings. His name, Lucifer, means “son of the morning,” “bright and shining one,” or “light bearer.” He had many angels at his beck and call and was prince over all the Earth. A fee moral agent with the power of choice, he was filled with an ambition to which he had no right—to rise above God. Unwilling to rule over the World as a vice-general under God, he became “Satan,” meaning “adversary,” or opponent. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
There is only one devil; there are many demons. A familiar spirit in the service of Satan knows human beings so well that he can disguise himself as those people; there are different kinds of spirits—some are sensual and lewd, and others appear ethical; demons are wandering spirits belonging to the legions of Satan, a class of beings distinct from angels—some are on Earth seeking embodiment in human beings and animals, other already are imprisoned in the bottomless abyss; Satan wins followers by psychic and supernatural phenomena that approximate the power of God; Satan is a created being who presently exercises authority over his domain, the Earth realm, but he can do only what God allows him to do, and eventually he will be deprived of all power and glory. As one can see, it is not only Mrs. Winchester who had experiences with the occult, curses, and spirits. Many people have. Occasionally other theories turn up in the literature of modern parapsychology. Some speak of a magical astral World-soul. This entails the idea of an inner World in which all the occurrences of the visible World have their inner equivalent. The World-soul is supposed to be outside of our concept of space and time. The past and the future, the near and the far are said to be all on the same level. Everything is synchronized and simultaneous. A person who is capable of contacting this World-soul enables such a person to enter into a sphere of higher intelligence where the limitations of space and time no longer hold true. Prophecy is inspired either by the Holy Spirit of by the Devil. The wide scope of the occult power possessed by spiritists helps explain why they can cause so much mischief. Through the phenomena of levitation, apports, telekinesis, and materializations, it is not difficult to see how a person endowed with strong mediumistic powers can do a great deal of harm, especially in closely associated realm of magic. Genuine magic is the art of bring about results beyond humans’ power through the enlistment of supernatural agencies. Black magic deliberately involves the devil and demons, and the resulting enchantment is used for persecution and revenge. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Sarah Winchester was reportedly trapped in her Daisy Bedroom during the 1906 earthquake. Her workers had to pry her out of the room, and the crowbar mark is still on the door to this day… See it on the Mansion Tour!
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Summoning Devils on Film and in Real Life
Much like the Winchester mansion and Mrs. Winchester, the Hellfire Clubs and medieval Sabbat believed that devils and demons should not be stern masters or slaves, but welcome house-guest, which is why Mrs. Winchester built what is now known as the Winchester Mystery House. It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. However, if you had $20,000,000.00 (2022 inflation adjusted $556,305,882.35) and all the time in the World to help you cope, can you imagine what you would do? Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her 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 personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun that Won the West.” The Winchester Mansion raised its castellated walls and towers in every direction commanding magnificent prospects; like emeralds in a setting of deeper green, gemmed the surface of the surface of the rural landscape and contributed to increase the beauty of scenery not surpassed in the World. Ages ago the voice of prayer and the song of praise used to ascend from this sacred estate. Presented on the estate was a happy country, none better calculated to inspire love and harmony. However, there was a lack of happiness in the circumstances of life for Mrs. Winchester. At first glance, there seems to be no degree of truth in this statement because of all the riches she inherited and her beautiful mansion. Many people assumes that for the rich, enjoying their riches, are likely to be contented and to look no further than this World. There were also a group of seven Victorian houses on the estate, not connected to the main house, of goodly size, and a Holy Cross. The seven Victorian Houses which, according to tradition, were built there under Mrs. Winchester’s direction, along with a graveyard on her 760 acres of land. #RandolphHarris 1 of 15
In the garden of the mansion was a curious stone cross, of considerable size, evidently monumental, though the inscription has been so defaced as to be illegible. On the front of the cross there is a deep indentation much resembling that made by the hoof of a cow in soft Earth, the bottom of the indentation being deepest at the sides and somewhat ridged in the middle. Concerning this cross and the depression in its face, the following legend was related by one of the farmers on the estate. “Mrs. Winchester built this mansion, houses, and the church, you see. When she lived, she owned all the land round about. But there was a devil here. If you had meet him on the grounds, you would know in a minute that it was himself and no other that was in it, and so make ready, either for to run away from him, or to fight him with praying as fast as you can, because, you see, it is no use for to strive with the devil any other way, seeing that no weapon can make the last dint on his carriage. In them days, and before the mansion was built, I am telling you, the devil was all as one as a man, a tall felly like a soldier, with a high hat coming to a pint and feathers on it, and fine boots and spurs and a short red jacket with a cloak over his shoulder and a sword by his side, as fine as any gentleman of the good old times. So he used to go about the country, desiring men and women, the latter being his choice as being easier to deceive, and taking them down with him to his own place, and it was a fine time he was having entirely, and everything his own way. As soon as Mrs. Winchester started construction on her mansion, the devil took up his quarters there, to make it as sure as he could. But when he heard what Mrs. Winchester was doing, a four-story mansion, of 500 or 600 rooms, and a nine-story observation tower, he came out to see the castle was rising before his eyes. He heard the construction singing and started cursing to himself, and at 5.13am on Wednesday April 18th, 1906, Satan stomped his cloven hoof into the ground causing a 7.9 Earthquake and brought down that tower. #RandolphHarris 2 of 15
After the Earthquake, while the devil was laying about in the bushes a-watching the work, and the tower of the big mansion was lifting itself above the trees, this time just not as high as it used to be. Everyone knows that Satan is slicker than a weasel, and has a memory like a miser’s box that takes in everything and lets nothing go out. When you do anything, sore a bit that it scrapes the devil, and he hugs it close till a time comes when he can make a club have it to bate you with, and so he does. You may think it is queer, but it is no wonder to one that understands it, for the devil can take any shape he pleases and look like any one he wants to, and so he does for the purpose of tempting us poor sinners to destruction, but there is one thing by which he always knows; when you have given up to him or when you have beaten him on the face, no matter which, he has got to throw off the disguise that is on him and show you who he is, and when he does it, it is not the elegant, dressed-up devil that you see and that I was just telling you about, but the rale, old, black anger with a rancorous, without a haporth of rages to the back of him, and his horns and tail a sticking out, and his eyes as big as an oxen’s and shinning like fire, and great bat’s wings on him, and, saving your presence, the most nefarious smell of sulfur you have smelled. However, before, he looks all right, no matter what face he has, and it is only the goodness of God that the devil is bound for to show himself to you, because, Glory be to God, it is his will that humans shall know who they are dealing with, and if they give up to the devil, and after finding out who is in it, go on with the bargain they have made, sure the fault is their own, and they go to hell with their eyes open, and if they bate him, he has got to show himself for to let them see what they have escaped. #RandolphHarris 3 of 15
Satan was flying around the Winchester mansion, there were the farmers all along the day job, and the construction workers were building as fast as they could and a bottle of holy water were at their side to throw at the devil when he would come. So he went from the and would fly back and forth watching then working, and they restored the Winchester mansion. Old beliefs die hard, especially when their speedy demise is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Magic is only a physical or psychological effect that has yet to be explained, which means for many it is uncomfortable to entertain now. All good occultists must be skeptical—believe nothing in preference to believing everything. All proto-sciences could be defined as magic. You can see the ritual chamber as a kind of intellectual decompression of chamber to prepare your mind for other atmospheres. People who limit themselves to the occult curricula and profess to be wizards are laughable—magic is an interdisciplinary pursuit. You must consider all the options—investigating like a police officer. To perform a summoning, for example, would involve finding the right environment, appropriate retrieval cues, the right atmospheric conditions. The effects of magic are demonstrable. A lot of simple magic is just to do with self-confidence, how much your antennae are up, how open you are to the World around you. Rituals and magical words are not necessary, merely tools or exercises to help train your mind. Scientists are now coming to the conclusion that there is a lot more interconnectedness between man and his environment than they originally supposed, which is a basic occultic concept. The only really dangerous characters are the ones who think they are generational Satanists and their grandfather told them with his dying breath what to do, or whatever. There are a lot of armies of one out there, a lot of coffee-bar revolutionaries. New information technology has bred a lot of desktop Satanists and bulletin boards mean that cyberspace seems to be just full of Satanists. The Christian heretics rarely get much further than designing letterheads. #RandolphHarris 4 of 15
Many Satanists are fans of people like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears and applaud their outrageous sexuality. They are also huge fans of Aaliyah for making that film Queen of the Damned. Many Satanists are quietly applying Church of Satan philosophy to their lives in their own fashion in a very real way. The best thing they could ask for is that people pass them a nod of respect. In the modern World, the spirit of the age often looms down upon us in strange, distorted forms from the cinema screen. Major production companies spend millions of dollars trying to trap the latest cultural trends on celluloid, while audiences make surprise blockbusters from movies which—accidentally or otherwise—tap into the anxieties and enthusiasms of the day. In the late 1960s and 1970s, 2000s the films which came to be regarded as four “Satanic blockbusters”—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), and Queen of the Damned (2002)—all took the box-office by storm, transforming themselves into cultural phenomena which attracted public interest far beyond that of most “mere” films. Cinema has been the most potent legend factory of the centuries. Despite constant predictions that TV would devour the silver screen, the spectable and ceremony of the cinema helped retain its status as the most sacred of modern temples. Film presents a super real version of the World—louder, larger, essentially more mythic. More people take cues on how to live, love, fight—even on how to die—from the silver screen than from the pulpit or the gospels. Pagan worship is alive and well and being practised at your local multiplex, with Hollywood stars as the gods of our age. And, just as cinema has given us new gods, so it has supplied us with a new hierarchy of devils. The relationship between Satan and the silver screen is a notable one. The father of fantastic cinema was a Frenchman named Georges Melies, who made delightful short films crawling with demons and devils. Melies was himself a Faustian figure, a stage conjurer and photographic illusionist who appeared out of the rump of the French Decadent era. Summoning devils on film, he defended this new sorcery in time-honoured fashion as “white magic.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 15
In The Laboratory of Mephistopheles (1897), Melies made Satan’s head detach itself and float around the room—to the enchantment and horror of audiences in darkened “picture palaces, resembling nothing so much as séance chambers. Hollywood’s dream factory was not even at the planning stage by the turning of the century, but the pioneer of US cinema, Edwin Porter (partner of the man who virtually invented the movies, Thomas Edison), produced his own version of Faust and Marguerite in 1900. The most striking cinematic fantasies came from Germany at this point—stark, angular exercises in shadow and nightmare. The Student of Prague was an updated version of the well-worn Faust tale, based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, which transformed the lead from an ambitious academic to a devil-may-care student and Mephistopheles into a rakish devil called Scapinelli. The story was retold onscreen in 1913, 1926, and 1936. The 1926 version was by the master of German Expressionist cinema, F.W. Murnua—the last film he made before leaving his artistic roots for Hollywood, where he met with a tragically early death. As a minor masterpiece, it was a suitably grandiose climax to a career which produced Nosferatu (1922), the first gothic vampire film. Now, it is always important to be safe on the road and sometimes to listen to the heartfelt advice of others. Jayne Mansfield, a buxom B-move actress died in a tragic car crash with her lawyer in and lover Sam Brody. Brody had disliked his beloved’s new guru from the start, and the friction led to LaVey placing a ritual curse on his rival. The Black Pope (Anton LaVey) warned the pugnacious lawyer—known to be a dangerous driver—that he would suffer a series of automobile accidents. It was no great surprise when a car crash ensued—but it made World headlines for taking the life of Jayne Mansfield, as well as the top of her cranium. LaVey grimly stated that on the night preceding the crash, as he cut out a newspaper clipping of Jayne, he accidently snipped off the top of the blonde beauty’s head. (By the way, I had no idea The Black Pope was dead, until today. I feel he is very much still alive. I have always felt like he is here, in San Francisco in his black church.) #RandolphHarris 6 of 15
The physical phenomena of spiritism are often closely connected with psychical manifestations, such as spiritistic visions, automatic writing, speaking in a trance, materializations, table lifting, tumbler moving and excursions of the psyche. There is no doubt that today, as in the time of Isaiah (Isaiah 6.1-5), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1.4-28), Paul (Acts 9.1-8), Peter (Acts 10.9-16), and John (Revelation 1.10-18), God may give His people a genuine vision, particularly in great times of great stress. However, genuine experiences of this nature are always accompanied by true spiritual grace and modesty. Sensationalism betrays a lack of authenticity. Unfortunately, genuine experiences are rare, and counterfeit ones about. Christian counselors find that the “ratio is about nine to one over the genuine experiences.” Mrs. Winchester used to have visions. She reported that she saw visions of Christ at night, and it left her feeling a sense of uneasiness and fear. The so-called visions of Christ were mediumistic. They came as a warning. Weeks after the visions started, Mrs. Winchester saw her husband William Wirt Winchester’s spirit departing from his body as he expired in 1881. The visions of Mrs. Winchester bear evidence of the occult, as do the visions of Joseph Smith (1805-1844), who fathered Mormonism. Many of the founders and promulgators of modern cults have had alleged visions from God. However, some say these visions promote “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4.1) among the credulous and those unable to discern spirits (1 Corinthians 12.10; 1 John 4.1-2). When humans depart from God’s Word, they supposedly expose themselves to demon imposture and deception. Automatic writing—some persons endowed with mediumistic powers are able—either in a waking state or trance to write letters, words, or sentences which spiritists consider to be message from the spirit World. This is how Mrs. Winchester came up with the architecture of her mansion, the blueprints were often dictated to her in her Blue Séance room as she took down the notes on napkin. Also, the persistent pain in her legs and back vanished whenever she sat down and dictated these blueprints. #RandolphHarris 7 of 15
One day as Mrs. Winchester was taking dictation, a spirit named Apollonius Tyannaeus appeared and said, “In the name of the Lord Jesus, our blessed and exalted Savior.” The spirit then told the woman that she had been chosen by God for special revelations. She would become a prophetess and bless humankind with these revelations. The case is patently that of a simple farm woman turned indeed into a spiritistic writing medium. Rudolf Tischner, a parapsychologist, points out the danger of automatic writing when practiced in immoderation. Although he regards these writing phenomena only as “motoric break up the integrated psychic structure with ensuing peril to mental and physical health. This simply means that occult enslavement can result from mediumistic writing, or from dependence upon the Ouija board or other spiritistic devices to obtain alleged messages from the spirit World. Speaking in a trance—a trance is a condition in which a spiritistic medium loses consciousness and passes under the control of demonic power to effect alleged communication with the dead. The demon (or demons) takes over and actually speaks through the spiritistic medium, deceptively imitating the deceased. As a result this ruse innumerable spiritistic clairvoyants claim communication with the dead, often with famous deceased people allegedly appearing to speak to the living. One evening, Mrs. Winchester went into a trace and soon the “Apostle Paul” approached and preached to the audience. The apostle was not visible but only spoke through the medium who lay in trance. Some critic said it was only another constant instance of deception by demons who ape the deceased but cannot produce them. Other believe it was real. Perhaps the most remarkable phenomena of spiritism are materializations. These are supernatural appearances and disappearances of material images in connection with the activities of a spiritistic medium. #RandolphHarris 8 of 15
Materializations have been exhaustively studied and photographed and have been found to be manifestations of various degrees of teleplastic morphogenesis. The first stage is the evolution of a gauzelike substance of rubbery consistency from the body cavities of the medium. The second stage is the forming of the various parts of the body in outline—arms, head, etcetera. Frequently in the case of teleplastic forms of this kind, a threadlike connection is maintained with the medium. The third stage consists of the composition into completely outlined forms, which are visible as phantoms near the medium. These three stages of materialization manifest purely visual phenomena. The fourth stage displays telekinetic phenomena. There is an energy output from the teleplasm (telekinesis), such as the ringing of a bell, at night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion. The bell in the belfry high in the gables tolled regularly at midnight to summon incoming flights of spirits. Later it tolled again to warn these visitors to return to their sepulchers. However, once a week, these departed ones relaxed and danced in the Great Ball Room. In other stages of materializations come automatic writing of a typewriter, and the automatic playing of a musical instrument. In addition to the active energy output of the materialization, there is frequently a passive pain experience of the teleplasm. The fifth stage of the materialization is the penetration of material substance. To his phase belong “apports,” that is, the appearing and disappearing of objects in closed rooms or chests and containers. From locked and cemented containers, for example, enclosed coins are brought out, or stones and other objects fall inexplicably from the ceiling. This often happens in the Winchester mansion, as documented by Mrs. Winchester. In this stage many mediums allegedly have the ability to penetrate solid material substance while they are in a trance. While Mrs. Winchester sat in a small cabinet, a phantom built itself up on the floor outside the cabinet and formed itself into a male person, who moved in and out among the participants of the séance. While the materialization extended his hand to one of those present and she held it, dematerialization began to occur before the eyes of all the participants. Soon there was only a lump on the floor and this rolled up into the cabinet. #RandolphHarris 9 of 15
Another example is during a séance, Mrs. Winchester was able to call and help the materializing of the spirit of the deceased German romantic poet, Johann Ludwig Uhland (1787-1862). At the memorable séance a white phantasm was seen, from which the audience demanded a poem. Instead of reciting a poem, the phantasm tore a page from a book in the library. With a pencil from a briefcase in the room, secured through the leather without opening the briefcase, the hand jotted down a few verses and vanished. The page was left and still exists. The examination of the mysterious writing by a graphologist proved to be sensational. He confirmed the ghost writing to be actually the handwriting of the deceased poet. Afterward there was a trial in Berlin over the ownership of the page. The court awarded it to the medium, who afterward kept it among her prized possessions. The phenomena of materialization and dematerialization in case of strong mediums illustrated the conversion of psychic energy into matter and matter changed back again into psychic energy. The problem is illustrated by nuclear physics. Einstein’s formula (E==MC^2), energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared, simply declares that it is theoretically possible to convert energy to mass and back again to energy. We have historical evidence of materializations. Missionaries claim that Mrs. Winchester’s mansion was never actually built, but that it materialized itself on the grounds, and (re)construction only began after the Earthquake caused by Satan. Some say this mansion is to be regarded as a miracle of Satan (2 Thessalonians 2.8-10; Revelation 13.15). Many people used to wonder how Mrs. Winchester used to travel so fast back and forth from San Jose to San Francisco to pick up items she ordered from overseas. Researchers believed that she would be spiritually transported miles away, and this may have been an example of this phenomenon or simply a miracle of transportation of unaltered physical body. It is debatable rather if these are miracles of God or that of Satan. God says He is the Alpha and the Omega. I wonder what that means? #RandolphHarris 10 of 15
Mrs. Winchester was said to possess tremendous occult gift and was reported to be able to make tables fly through the air for a space of one hundred feet. Above all, she was extremely adept in telekinesis, materialization, levitation, and black magic. Where Satan’s power remains virtually unchecked, miracles of evil supernaturalism abound. In Victorian days, the supernatural predated the mass hysteria about Satanism. As you may know, long before Mrs. Winchester arrived in California, there was a Devil worshipping conspiracy at large. However, her mansion seamlessly blends the ordinary and nightmarishly surreal. It is a rare treat for fans of demonic conspiracy and occult synchronicity. Some people have believed themselves to be demonically possessed after visiting the Winchester Mystery House, others claimed to have spoken to Mrs. Winchester directly. Directors of the Queen of the Damned claimed that the film was a makeshift occultic ritual, and Aaliyah unleashed the demon within herself. They also said the film poses some kind of supernatural power and they had to edit and voiceover a lot of the footage because not only did the characters act their own version of the script, but there were also some subliminal sounds and images on print. When many of these errors were re-examined, they also saw footage of the original Winchester mansion on the negatives, but rumors began that the original print had been withdrawn, replaced by an expurgated cut to protect the filmgoers from the movie’s insidious effects. The powers behind these manifestations were no doubt demonic. The director faced a terrible psychic assault on 25th August 2001, before they finished filming the movie. However, when the reel was played, the directors found they had all the footage they needed, even some they did not remembering filming. It was so intensified that the demonic oppression became that he was compelled to give up making other Anne Rice books into movies, especially after Aaliyah’s plane crashed later that evening. Although the film was unfished, with the blessing of her family, it was released to the public in February of 2002. #RandolphHarris 11 of 15
Certain psychic clairvoyants claim that their souls can travel great distances at their command. They always said she makes a room come alive. Much like Mrs. Winchester, Aaliyah had a lot of psychic phenomena around her death. When directors took photos of Aaliyah and Queen Akasha to a clairvoyant, while concentrating on the photographs, the medium declared that one of the women was apparently dead, while the other one, reportedly killed in 2001, was still alive. After more concentration, the clairvoyant said: “I can get in touch with this woman (pointing to Queen Akasha). I see her in a great stone building southeast of Ireland.” By psychic excursion and by psychometry (selecting an object belonging to the missing person and beginning to search from there) the clairvoyant was able to establish contact by occult assistance. The cinema is the Devil’s lantern. In March of 1922, Mrs. Winchester said, “Though it should be borne in the mind that in the persecution of witches many women were put to death on the latter charge, albeit they were really benefactors of the human race; the more so as their skill in simples and knowledge of the medicinal virtue of herbs must have added in no small degree to the resources of our present pharmacopoeia.” In August of 1807 an extraordinary affair took place in the house of Mrs. Winchester. She had a cow which continued to give milk as usual, but of late no butter could be produced from it. An opinion was unfortunately instilled into the mind of Mrs. Winchester, that whenever such a thing occurred, it was occasioned by the cow having been bewitched. Her belief in this was strengthened by the fact that every woman on this estate was able to relate some story illustrative of what she had seen or heard of in times gone by with respect to the same. At length the Mrs. Winchester was informed of a woman named Mary Butters, who resided in Oakland at the Cohen Bray House. Mrs. Winchester went to her, and brought her to mansion for the purpose of curing the cow. About ten o’ clock that night war was declared against the unknown magicians. #RandolphHarris 12 of 15
Mary Butters ordered old Klaus and a young man named Konrad to go out to the cow-house, turn their waistcoats inside out, and in that dress to stand by the head of the cow until she sent for them, while the butler, the made, and an old woman named Klara Lee remained in the house with her. Klaus and his ally kept their lonely vigil until daybreak, when, becoming alarmed at receiving no summons, they left their post and knocked at the door, but obtained no response. They then looked through the kitchen window, and to their horror saw the four inmates stretched on the floor as dead. They immediately burst in the door, and found that the butler and the maid were actually dead, and the sorceress and Mrs. Winchester nearly so. The latter soon afterwards expired; Mary Butters was thrown out on a dung-heap, and a restorative administered to her in the shape of a few hearty kicks, when had the desired effect. The house had a sulphureous smell, and on the fire was a large pot in which were milk, needles, pins, and crooked nails. At the inquest held at the Winchester mansion on the 19th of August, Jurors stated that the three victims had come by their deaths from suffocation, owning to Mary Butters having made use of some noxious ingredients, after the manner of a charm, to recover the sick cow. She was up to The Great Asylum for the Insane, but was discharged by proclamation. Her various of the story was that a black man (usually indicates a demon or the devil, not one of African descent) was summoned through the floor with a huge club, with which he killed the three person and stunned herself. This paranoid horror fantasies terrified the congregations, as well as the gross superstition displayed by the participants as for its tragical ending, yet it seems to have aroused no feelings in the greater community than those of risibility and derision. However, there is also another version of events. #RandolphHarris 13 of 15
A farm-hand had brought an action against Mrs. Winchester for wages alleged to be due to him. It transpired in the course of the evidence that on one occasion he had been set to banish witches that were troubling the cows. His method of working illustrates the Winchester case. All left the house except Mrs. Winchester, and the farm-hand, who locked himself in, closed the windows, stopped al keyholes and apertures, and put sods on top of the chimneys. He then placed a large pot of sweet milk on the fire, into which he threw rows of pins that had never been used, and three packages of needles; all were allowed to boil together for half an hour, and, as there was no outlet for the smoke, the farm-hand narrowly escaped being suffocated. If the forces of darkness triumph, it is a warning not a celebration. Many religious people come close to depicting what evangelists are preaching from their pulpits, or TV shows. Does it not seem strange for fundamentalist Christians to attack them as sinful and dangerous? Sin sells, in a way that the bland platitudes of Christian morality never will. Many of these popular and historical figures will be remember long after the credits have rolled. You could say that it is an “inside job.” Satanism sells, it captures the metaphysics of fear. People like to be haunted and scared, but only when they consent to it. No one wants their house broken into, their children kidnapped, their cars constantly vandalized, or to be attack by a hate group who haunts them like demons of the night. People simply want to tune into a scarry movie or visited a haunted house and leave the fear behind when they walk out the door or turn the TV off. They do not want to fear for the lives like Sharon Tate did for years without anyone to protect them. Humans are often more harmful than any ghost, devil or demon you can ever imagine meeting. Satan, speaking through a beautiful serpent—perhaps as a parakeet “talks” to us—promises know that would make Eve “like God” if she would eat the fruit of the tree forbidden by God. #RandolphHarris 14 of 15
Meanwhile, if the view of the power and knowledge of the people is that “Satan” is evil and not themselves, what can human beings do? Persist being evil, or resist the “devil,” and allow him to feel from them? Or is it they cling to evil because the darkness comes from their insidious mind and depleted soul? Note that it is useless to try to resist the devil unless you have first submitted yourself to God! Maybe YOU are the evil, not Satan. Sitting there, manufacturing all these evil days, so you can laugh at the pain and suffering you have inflicted on others to make yourself feel better. Is that of Satan, or is that YOUR nature on display. It is estimated that there are about 100 million adherents to spiritism in the World. The word “spiritism” comes from the Latin “spiritus,” spirit. The movement of spiritism represents the endeavour to communicate with the dead in the spirit World. Historically, spiritism can also be traced back over thousands of years. We have testimonies concerning it in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 28, and Deuteronomy 18. It is also evidenced in the history of the Christian Church. Spiritism seems to be strongly connected with religion and religions. In so-called Christian countries such a variety of spiritistic forms, and such a range of associated psychic troubles exist, that the need for clarification is a pressing issue. What God do you really worship for “Satan disguises himself as an angel of the light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness,” reports 2 Corinthians 11.14-15. In other words, many of you Christians who claim to serve “God” do evil things and then blame the devil when you are disguising yourselves as children of the light. And you do not repent because you do not fear punishment nor hell, so you must be children of your “devil” and not of God. We live in a World which has turned its back on God. The reason some people fear Jesus is because they feel unworthy, it is not because they are evil. This conviction of inner unworthiness is not to be confused with a feeling of fear. However, people who suffer from schizophrenia and like to go around lying, the psychiatrist will be interested in the question whether the practicing of spiritism was rather the effect than the cause of the ensuing mental and emotional disorders. #RandolphHarris 15 of 15
Winchester Mystery House
The front gardens of the Winchester Mystery House looked different in the 1970’s! The gardens were restored to what they are today about ten years later.
The sign reads: “The world’s oddest, mysterious, weirdest, and freakish dwelling. Planned and built by Sarah L. Winchester of Winchester Rifle Fame”
Have you ever listened to Alessandro Moreschi sing “Ave Maria,” at night in the Winchester Mystery House? Try it and let me know what you experience. I heard ghosts appear, people have cried and screamed, and some love it. I think I would probably run outside. He sounds like a ghost.
Come Explore the Victorian Gardens this weekend! Open all weekend until 4PM.
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
When Did the Vortex of Fear First Catch Hold of Mrs. Winchester?
Long before Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s arrival, there were rumors of occult activity on the California cost. One told of a cult near Santa Cruz. They supposedly sacrificed animals and drank their blood in beach-side barbecues, where ritual fire-dancing tuned the attendees into “slaves of Satan.” More elaborate variation suggested that the slaves of Satan performed human sacrifices on an ornate altar decorated with dragons. The bizarre ritual dagger used for these purposes had six blades like a Satanic Swiss army knife: most were used to puncture the stomach before the last skewered the heart, which the cultist then ate. The victim was then disposed of in a portable crematorium—an improbable device that was a Standard prop in Satanic ritual-slaying myths. Yet, even with things like this going on, Mrs. Winchester’s arrival to California was a sensational event. Our valley was thrilled by this dramatic entrance of a millionairess; by those freight cars sidetracked in Santa Clara, unloading rich imported furnishings; by building activities that mushroomed a farm house into an expansive mansion in the first six months. As the years passed and new towers, gables rose, gardens bloomed, and trees sprouted. The terraces were generally about twenty feet high. Town’s people would see fairies dancing on the grass every night by the light of the moon, and stealing away children. Many of the ones they took never came back. At night passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion. Diablo Mountain Range was full of dead, and after nightfall they would come from their graves and walk in a long line one after another to the old mansion in the valley where they would go in and stay until they bell in the belfry high in the gables tolled. Then bats, owls, and horses with wings would return to the top of the mountain range. #RandolphHarris 1 of 3
There was certainly an evil spirit that was always in mischief. Mrs. Winchester built a door-to-nowhere in her labyrinth, and with one step out that door, one would go down a thousand feet into the field. Sometimes Satan Himself would be there at the entertainment, coming and a monstrous dragon, with green scales and eyes like lightening in the Heavens, roaring his fiery mouth. It was a great thing, for they do say all the witches brough their reports with them to show him what they had done. Some would report how they stopped the weather in the spring, an inconvenienced the neighbors, more would show how they dried the cow’s milk, and made her kick the pail, and they laughed and split. Some had blighted the corn, more had brought rain on the harvest. Some witches told hoe their enchantments made the children fall ill, or how they stole the eggs, or spoiled the cream in the churn, or bewitch the butler. It was impossible to say exactly when the vortex of fear first caught hold of the Mrs Winchester. One night in the hellishly-hot hall of fires, a young man by the name of John Wise was a ranch hand for Mrs. Winchester. However, he had eyes for one of her servant Clara Haralson. She was socially higher than himself. Normally he would have had little success. But to arrive at his goal, summon the devil by reciting this very spell, “Come Thou Forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Winchester and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto Me! John then cut his finger and wrote a contract in his own blood on a piece of paper. In this way he tried to obtain the help of some love magic. #RandolphHarris 2 of 3
John fell asleep on the sofa in the hall of fire, to find a demon with long finger nails tapping on his head. “What do you want?” he beathed at the intruder. “I am the Devil and I have come to do the Devil’s work,” responded the demon, as he kissed him on the forehead, and vanished. After a while he became scared. Nevertheless, John proposed to Clara and they were married. She was a very pretty young woman. The mother began to suffer from a state of anxiety and she started seeing ghost at night and feeling an unseen power which seemed to try to strangle her. A black figure often appeared in her room. She had a feeling that it wanted to kill her. One night in particular the door to her chambers opened and the demon entered her room, her whole body shook and she was terribly frightened, without a greeting he demanded to know what was going. Clara had been praying for a healthy delivered. The demon struck her with evil gaze and departed. When she gave birth to twins, they were both horribly disfigured. Clara was so distressed that she cut her wrists and died. John continued to suffer as he had done so ever since his subscription to the devil. One night while he was putting the horses in the stables, witches tore him limb from limb, and the fiends drunk his blood in red-hot iron noggins with shrieks of laughter to smother his screams, and the horses jumped on his body and trampled it into the ground. A committee Mrs. Winchester assembled consisting of a professor, an engineer, and a philologist who was conversant with parapsychological phenomena, was delegated to examine the strange events in the haunted mansion. Their research disclosed that the eighteen-year-old boy was a strong spiritistic medium. Although occult literature is full of examples of table lifting, dark shadows, and demons appearing, these forms of spiritistic practice have found many critics and who do not take into account the reality of demon spirits. #RandolphHarris 3 of 3
Winchester Mystery House
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻What do you think motivated Sarah Winchester to keep building?
▪️ 24,000 square feet
▪️ 10,000 windows
▪️ 2,000 doors
▪️ 160 rooms
▪️ 52 skylights
▪️ 47 stairways and fireplaces
▪️ 17 chimneys
▪️ 13 bathrooms
▪️ 6 kitchens
Will we be seeing you on the estate this week?
He Opened the Book and a Demon Spoke to Him
All good religions need some kind of Apocalypse. Thelema—the new religion of Aleister Crowley—was no exception. The Great Beast fully expected his new holy age, the Aeon of Horus, to be ushered in with an orgy of violence and bloodshed. With the advent of the First World War, the prophecy seemed to have been satisfied. Over four long years, the optimism and complacency of nineteenth-century Europe drowned in the mud of the Western Front, along with hundreds of thousands of young soldiers. However, Crowley seemed curiously indifferent to the whole affair. With typical arrogance, when the British Government refused his offer to produce war propaganda, the Luciferian man of letters travelled to the US to write anti-British propaganda. If he could not find recognition on the side of the angels, the Great Beast was always ready to side with the opposition. However, Crowley later claimed he wrote deliberately absurd material to discredit the German cause. His article on the bombing of London by Zeppelin airships gives credence to this eccentric defense: “For some reason or other in their last Zeppelin raid on London the Germans appear to have decided to make the damage as widespread as possible, instead of concentrating it in one quarter. A great deal of damage was done at Croydon, especially at its suburb Addiscombe, where my aunt lives. Unfortunately her house was not hit. Count Zeppelin is respectfully requested to try again. The exact address is Eton Lodge, Outram Road.” If World War One had been too minor a cataclysm to introduce Crowley’s Age of Horus, 1939 heralded a new orgy of human suffering. The Beast always maintained that the first nation to adopt his Book of the Law as a state religion would dominate the World. During the 1930s, however, as the Third Reich came to power, his ambivalence towards Germany—the country where his magical doctrines were taken most seriously—is perhaps understandable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Some of his German followers saw in their new Fuhrer a political equivalent to their prophet, the Great Beast (perhaps even his “magical child”)—a new World order was to be created by the pure will-power of those extraordinary men. Some of his German followers saw in their new Fuhrer a political equivalent to their prophet, the Great Beast (perhaps even his “magical child”)—a New World Order was to be created by the pure will-power of these two extraordinary men. However, in 1935 the Nazis banned the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Order of the Silver Star, throwing numerous occultists (including Karl Germer, one of Crowley’s foremost disciples) into the concentration camps. There may have been similarities between Crowley’s Thelemic doctrines and emergent Nazi dogma (elitism, irrationalism, transcendence of morality), but the Great Beast could see on which side his future depended: Britain would “knock Hitler for six!” he announced. Whether or not the horrors of the Second World War signalled the advent of the Age of Horus, Adolf Hitler emerged from the blood and pain of that conflict as a secular Satan. Indeed, a minor literary industry has grown up around the idea of Hitler as a very literal Satanic figure suggests that the Fuhrer really did, in Dennis Wheatley’s words, “use dark forces.” The roots of this belief return us to the occult lodges of the late nineteenth century. In 1875, the writer and occultist Guido von List climbed a hill overlooking Vienna to conduct a strange ritual. Von List was dedicated to returning greater Germany to an older purer faith—the worship of Wotan, and the other pagan gods of the Teutonic race Upon the hill he commemorated the summer solstice by buying a number of empty wine bottles, carefully arranged into a sacred symbol: the swastika. In 1908 von List Founded the Armanen Initiates, the inner order of his modestly-titled Guido von List Society. His doctrines centered around ideas of racial purity—von List believed the German peoples, the Armenen, had originally been a race of supermen, but mongrelistation had weakened the race until bashful old Guido was its last pure-blood survivor. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
According to the race mystic, “The hydra-headed international Jewish conspiracy” was behind it all. To reverse matters, von List prescribed a study of ancient Teutonic religious runes and –more practically—laws to precent further racial interbreeding. His eventual gal was a racial state ruled by “a self-chosen Fuhrer to whom [Germany] willingly submits.” Alongside the swastika, the emblems of this new state would include the sig rune: the symbol later used to form the insignia of the SS. Guido von List was one of the leading Germanic mystics dedicated to “volkisch” occultism. “Volkisch” basically translates as “folkloric,” but this was also leavened with a hard-edged nationalism. Chief obsession among the volkisch orders were the sacred nature of race (or “blood”), an interest in the culture and beliefs of the Germanic peoples in the early Middle Ages, and a strong current of anti-Semitism. Among the most important of the volkisch occultists—some of whom fancied themselves the priests of a revived Norse religion—was Dr. Jorg Lanz von Libenfels. In many ways, a sorcerer in the classic mould, von Liebenfels adopted his aristocratic name to increase his mystique (his real name was Adolf Lanz), and began his career as a Catholic priest before being defrocked for “harbouring carnal and Worldly desires.” His response was to found an “order of New Templars”—quite what the original Templars had to do with racial purity is not clear, but it did not stop von Libenfels preaching a message of race war from his temple on the banks of the Danube. In 1909, a young Austrian named Adolf Hitler secured an audience with von Liebenfels to secure some back issues of Ostara, the journal of the New Templars. In 1932, von Liebenfels would write to a fellow occultist that “Hitler is one of our pupils…You will one day experience that he, and through him we, will one day be victorious, and develop a movement that will one day make the World tremble.” The most direct link between the occult underground and the Third Reich is the Thule Society. Thule, according to northern European myth, was a version of Atlantis, and island that sank beneath the sea. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Thule Society ideology decreed this legendary island to be the home of the German supermen, who they hoped to contact using magical techniques. In 1919, the Thule Society formed a tiny political group called the German Workers Party in Munich—the seed from which Hitler’s National Socialist Party grew. In the 1920s Germany of the Weimar Republic, volkisch occult groups sense that their time was coming. Losing the First World War left Germany politically chaotic, economically bankrupt and profoundly demoralized. Weimar Berlin earnt a reputation for decadence exceeding that of 1890s Paris—though there was a cynical desperation among the German hedonist that never surfaced amongst their French counterparts. For many ordinary citizens of “Greater Germany” (which included Austria), however, their feelings of disillusionment hardened into suspicions of betrayal. One such was the young war hero Hitler—who was convinced Germany’s forces were defeated by treachery at home, rendering the huge loss of life futile. Hitler, along with many others, was sure that the “November criminals” (government signatories of a peace treaty in November 1918) were responsible for the fatherland’s defeat and humiliation. And behind the November criminals were the treacherous Jewish people. In this environment, volkisch occultists found an eager audience for their fables of an ancient, noble Ayran race. They not only offered up a scapegoat for their defeat, but also created the mythology of a sacred Germanic blood heritage from which a humbled people could rebuild their pride. It is a long way from accepting that volkisch occultism helped create a spiritual environment friendly to Nazism to believing the Third Reich was a Satanic cult. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer was said to be symbolic of the rebirth of the Third Reich, maybe you can see the symbolism. This interesting thing is that Sarah Michelle Gellar, who played Buffy Summers is Jewish, but also reminiscent this Ayran super race.) #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
The relationship between Nazism and volkism is similar to that between the radical African-American political groups and Black Islamic leaders who proclaim that the Man (the White Man) to be the Devil. Political leaders, as soon as they achieve any real power, are usually quick to distance themselves from such emotive spiritual propaganda. However, it is interesting how light and dark are used in Christian terms not to reflect colour, but the nature of one’s spirit. And when you see these people with soft features, pale skin, and these colourful eyes, it is hard to believe they do dark things, but when one sees someone with darker skin, people almost always consider them guilty. It is as if religious light has also been used to frame people based on skin colour, but when it comes down to it, people are capable of things that are bad no matter what colour their skin is, and as one grows up, once can see that skin colour matters very little in guilt or innocence. Nonetheless, total revolution also demanded a spiritual revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had a similarly religious aspect. Communists were determined to uproot the Christian Church and replace it with religious loyalty to the State, and its socialist principles, which is why so many religious symbols in America are now banded on public builds, and next to be banned with be the America flag. Many people may thing that journalist Tomi Lahren of FOX News is a racist, but one should actually listen to what she is saying, and be objective about it. America is actually becoming a communist nation where the people have no power, laws are just recommendations, and the U.S. Constitution is being removed and stored in someone’s basement, much the Confederate Statues, and flags. Next, slavery will just be a conspiracy theory—it will be considered a myth. It is just like music, most real artists listen to all genera of music, but they have a typical style they love, and many scholars read all kinds of material so they can have a comprehensive view of what is going on in the World, instead of just be told only what the masses want them to know, but people love to label, which is why they are stuck in ignorance. #RandolpHarris 5 of 21
Bolsheviks held wild revels, called “African nights,” where Christian festivals were parodied in atheistic rites such as “Red Prayers,” and “Red Mass.” Obscene hymns were sung, and children were encouraged to spit upon and destroy puppets representing God, and other holy figures, in powerful echoes of the Black Mass medieval peasants. Hitler’s doctrines were no less revolutionary. Nazism was designed to revolutionize every aspect of life—even the way people thought—and the old ways were denounced as “Jewish,” “liberal.” Hitler despised “intellectuals,” advocating intuition, or even irrationalism, over logic and rational thoughts. In many ways the Nazis turned back the clock two hundred years, to when science and sorcery were still reluctant bedfellows. In the field of military technological innovation and instinct were promoted at the expense of methodology, liberating German scientist to creates some of the most efficient weapons of war the World had seen. Alfred Rosenberg, an intimate of Hitler and high-ranking Nazi official drew up plans for a National Reich Church, which was not going to destroy Christianity but “supercede” it, and called his new faith “positive Christianity.” He concluded: “On the day of its foundation, the Christian cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals, and chapels and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol, the Swastika.” However, what did the Swastika symbolize? Rosenberg wrote: “Today a new faith awakens: the myth of the blood, the faith that by defending the blood were defend also the divine nature of man. The faith, embodies in scientific clarity, that the Nordic blood represents the mystery which has replaced and conquered the ancient sacraments.” The historian Konrad Heiden beings his book on Der Fuhrer: Hitler’s Rise to Power with a curious story concerning Rosenberg: “One day in the summer of 1917 a student was reading in his room in Moscow. A stranger entered, laid a book on the table, and silently vanished. The cover of the book bore in Russian the words from the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew: “He is near, he is hard by the door.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
The sent sensed the masterful irony of higher powers in this strange happening. They had sent him a silent message. He opened the book, and the voice of the demon spoke to him. It was a message concerning the antichrist, who would come at the end of days. The Antichrist is no mythical being, no monkish medieval fantasy. It is the portrait of a type of man who comes to the fore when an epoch is dying. The Antichrist was supposedly Hitler. The Nazi began suppressing occultists and secret societies in 1934, in a purge that reached its peak in 1937. Thousands of astrologers and mystic disappeared into the concentration camps, never to appear again, which also proves Whoppie Goldberg’s states, “The Holocaust was about race.” Anyone who was deemed a threat to national security was sent to concertation camps, but in the same sense, the holocaust was about race, it was about preserving the Ayran race. Just anyone who was not Aryan could be a target, as it was more about preservation of their bloodline. Volkisch occultists were not spared. Even the Thule Society—the magi at the nativity of Nazim—was devoured by its ravenous offspring. The Nazi State would not tolerate anything outside its control, or that it had not created itself. Its tenant of faith was the destiny of the Aryan race, as expressed by its prophet Hitler. If this policy of spiritual and intellectual monopoly sounds familiar, it is because it resembles the doctrines of one of the institutions of the Nazis sought to replace: the Church. The Nazi party created its own priesthood—the Black Oder, better known as the Schutzstaffel, or SS. The SS began as Hitler’s bodyguards, but under Heinrich Himmler, manoeuvered and massacred their way to become the most powerful organization in the Nazi establishment. Like “house of God” of the medieval Inquisition, the SS policed the souls of those under their ever-expanding jurisdiction. The faithful were monitored, the suspect—even the volkish occultist who shared the Nazi vision of race—purged, the unholy exterminated. Himmler became the second most powerful man in the Third Reich. Any occultist who wished to survive in Nazi Germany was well-advised to find a place under Himmler’s wing. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Several men did—most significantly Karl Weisthor. Weisthor was born Karl Maria Wiligut in Vienna, 1866, to a family with a long military tradition, and was decorated for his service during the First World War. Following the war he became involved in volkisch occultism, adopting doctrines which were extreme even by volkisch standards. With the modesty characteristic of his ilk, Weisthor claimed to be descended from Ayran gods, the last living representative of the Irminist Church. The Irminists—who worshipped the true Christ, an Aryan called Krist—had been opposed throughout history by the false religion of the Catholic Church, their racial enemies the Jewish people, and Aryan heretics who worshipped the pagan god Wotan. Weisthor knew all of this because he possessed clairvoyance that allowed him to recall the heroic lives of his ancestors, thousands of years ago. Not everyone was impressed by the evidence, however, an in 1924 he was committed to a lunatic asylum. Undeterred, when he was released, he changed his name and headed to Munich. In 1933 he attracted the attention of Himmler, who installed the cranky medium in the Ahnenerbe department of the SS. Under Weisthor’s advice, a castle at Wewlsburg in north-west Germany was chosen as the spiritual headquarters of the Black Order. It became the Nazi equivalent of the Vatican, with great echoing chambers dedicated to the heroes of the Aryan race, and a central hall where Himmler and his twelve closet disciples would meet. Weisthor designed the SS “Totenkpfring” –a scared ring decorated with skulls and runes, personally bestowed upon SS members by Himmler and retuned to Wewelsburg upon their deaths. He also conceived and presided over neo-pagan solstice ceremonies, and the Weddings of SS officers to good Aryan girls. The Black Order was not just a military organization but a sect, a fraternity of warrior priests. Though it never claimed the heritage of the Knights Templar, the parallels between these two orders are striking. Both snowballed into vast international forces. Both maintained independent economic systems that allowed them to accumulate vast wealth. Both were composed of highly-disciplined warriors, fanatically dedicated to their creeds. Both were exempt from the laws that governed their contemporaries, answerable only to the head of their orders (Himmler of the Grand Master) and the representative of the sacred creed on Earth (Hitler or the Pope). Both planned to establish their own independent states. And both were, at least ostensibly Christian. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Weisthor’s faith may have incorporated much bizarre German paganism, but at the core he believed he was preaching Christianity. One of the oaths taken by SS candidates before the full initiation ran, “We believe in God, we believe in Germany which He created in His World and in the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, whom he has sent us.” One of the titles Himmler had bestowed on him by is peers was “the Black Jesuit,” as he based the structure of the SS upon the fanatically-secretive Catholic Society of Jesuits. Himmler, brought up in a devoutly-Catholic Bavarian household, never lost his belief in the importance of ritual symbolism. When he used the term “Satanic,” or evoked the Devil, it was applied to the enemies of the Aryan race—never in connection with his own faither. Persecution of Jewish people was often inspired by accusation that they poisoned wells and drank the blood of children, or, more traditionally, that they had killed Jesus. They were commonly believed to be part of an international conspiracy—sometimes decreed to be Satanic—against all Christian values. The Catholic Church, concerned that the Third Reich was stealing souls that were rightfully theirs, had certainly preached against this new paganism. Nazis believed that they were breeding babies for God, or “for race and nation.” Occultic suggestions that the Third Reich was, as one author puts it, a “demonocracy” with the Fuhrer himself as a black magician, a “psychic vampire,” demonically possessed, even as the Antichrist himself—are based on Hitler’s skill at taking political military gambles (precognition), his inner voiced and violent rages (possession), and the way simultaneously drew upon and released great emotion with his speeches (physic vampirism). Some still say that there is no evidence for one to consider the Third Reich as a manifestation of supernatural evil. Yet people believed because Hitler consulted an astrologer that Hitler was evil; Satan is Evil personified, therefore Hitler is Satan. Even level-headed historians have described Hitler as possessing almost supernatural powers—whereas the terms “mesmeric” or “hypnotic” best described the psychological effect this frantic, grim little man has on the vast audience at Nazi rallies. Political figures such as John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King also based their careers on charismatic oratory, and few would suggest either man was possessed by demons. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
However, it is worth confessing that the Third Reich is of legitimate interest to occultists. Something about Hitler’s meteoric rise—from penniless tramp to omnipotent dictator—and Germany’s similarly rapid rise—from near-collapse to near-World domination—confounds rational explanation. Still, the philosophy of Hitler, and the psychological symbolism employed by the Nazis, are no more inherently Satanic than that of the Catholic Church. However, there were eyewitness accounts of wartime sorcery in England: Witches cast spells to stop Hitler landing after France fell. They met, raised the great cone of power and directed the thought at Hitler’s brain: “You cannot cross the sea. You cannot cross the sea. Not able to come. Not able to come.” We are not saying they stopped Hitler. All we say is that we saw a very interesting ceremony performed with the intention of putting a certain idea into his mind and this was repeated several times afterwards; and though all the invasion barges were ready, the fac that Hitler never even tried to come. The witches told us that their great-grandfathers had tried to project the same idea into Boney’s [Napoleon’s] mind. Exploration of the Great Beast’s (Aleister Crowley) darker doctrines—of a World divided into masters and slaves, with good and evil sacrificed on the bloody alter of a new morality—would be the province of a far less gaudy crew than the hippies. Marianne Faithfull—a former child of the upper-middle classes—was a long-time consort of English rock band the Rolling Stones, and an icon of “swinging London.” In her autobiography, written much later, she displays little doubt as to the source of the era’s dynamism. Speaking of her most famous lover, Mick Jagger, she says: “Her harnessed all of the negative forces into entities. Out of these destructive impulses, he created all the incredible personate of the late sixties: the Midnight Rambler, Lucifer, Jumpin’ Jack Flash. They are all manifestations of malignant and chaotic forces, the ungovernable mob. The dark, violent, group mind of the crowd—chaos, Pan. That frenzied power caused many of the causalities of the sixties.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
Foremost among the musicians who pioneered the first colourful wave of psychedelia were the Beatles. Their high-profile transformation from chirpy, mop-headed scousers to long haired peaceniks reflected the cultural tide of their generation. However, in the United States of America, the FBI compiled a two-inch thick file on Lennon upon which FBI director J. Edgar Hoover scrawled, “All extremists should be considered dangerous.” Fundamentalist Christians—with their endearing disrespect for facts or common sense—discovered the occultic secrets behind the Beatles’ success. They maintained that the Lennon-McCartney sound was a magical beat stolen from the ancient Druids. According to them, in ancient times these pagan priests would beat out the demonic rhythm on drums made of human skin to summon evil spirits. In the hands of the Beatles, this Druid beat could be used to send the young people of American insane—or even worse, pinko. There were Christian protests of the Beatles, where the Ku Klux Klan burnt their records and Lennon was held up as a Satanists or something. The next years, Christian suspicions of the Beatles were confirmed by detailed perusal of the cover of their catchy, innovative Sgt. Pepper album. The cover design is a collage of people admired by the Beatles, all standing being the band: among them, in the top row, can be seen Aleister Crowley. In 1994, a prominent Vatican official, Father Corrado Balduci, would reinforce the Christian view that the Beatles were “the Devil’s musicians.” Sadly, in 1980, Lennon was shot dead outside his New York apartment by a dazed-looking young man named Mark Chapman. Chapman had become a big Beatles fan, but had become increasingly convinced that Lennon was evil. An interview with Chapman by a psychiatrist, published in Rolling Stone magazine, reported that the holy assassin could feel the presence of Satan’s demons around him. “I can feel their thoughts. I can hear their thoughts. I can hear them talking, but not from the outside, from the inside.” The unfortunate Chapman had become a “born-again” Christian, learning about the evils of Beatles music from his new faith. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Next to the affable efficiency of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones were a maelstrom of creative chaos. Black Magicians thought that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were acting as unknow agents of Lucifer and others thought hey were Lucifer. One of the “Black Magicians” Richards referred to was Kenneth Anger. Anger stood at the crossroads where many of the Satanic elements of the 1960s met. Anger happily announced Crowley’s dictum that the Key of joy is disobedience, and declared that not only was the Aeon of Horus upon, but the Aeon of Lucifer. Shortly before he became involved with the Rolling Stones, Anger helped found the Church of Satan. His blend of Crowleyism and Satanism entranced the band, though—in a familiar pattern—Anger was often keen to dissociate from Satanism, referring to his personal Prince of Darkness by the less inflammatory title of Lucifer. He later confessed, however, that his Lucifer had always been the “cosmic villain,” the Miltonic Satan. Whatever effect Anger had on the band’s professional lives, he touched them personally to varying degrees. Keith and his lover Anita later got into this black magic stuff. Mick Jagger dabbled in it. However, every one was just a little afraid of Kenneth Anger. Inexplicable things involving him would happen. Stores about the magus’ association with the band include Anger seeming to appears and disappear in various places. He offered to perform a pagan ritual wedding for Keith and Anita that involved a golden door. When they awoke the next day, a heavy oaken door had been painted gold, with the paint already dry. The house was heavily secured, and nobody could explain this occultic interior decoration. Faithfull talked about falling off a mountain during the making of Anger’s second version of Lucifer Rising, sustaining only a mild concussion. Anita Pallenberg was so spooked by all of this that she slept in a protective circle of candles with a string of garlic around her neck. Anger’s next overtly magical project Lucifer Rising was his first religious film, a weird, mesmeric narrative combined with a real magical ritual, it also embodied his love/hate relationship with the 1960s counter culture—both in the film itself, and the events surrounding its strange history. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
As Anger once observed, “Making movies is casting spells.” A screen director and editor, the theory ran that the magus could fully control both the characters to screen and the entities they invoked. Lucifer Rising depicted the downfall of the oppressive Aeon of Osiris (or Christian era), and the movement into the Aeon of Horus (or Lucifer). “My reason for filming has nothing to do with “cinema” at all, explained Anger. “It’s transparent excuse for capturing people…I consider myself working Evil on an evil medium.” On 21 September 1967, Anger organized a celebratory event titled the Equinox of the Gods at the Straight Theatre in Haight-Ashbury, the epicenter of hippie culture in San Francisco. However, Beausoleil proved a more capricious Lucifer than Anger anticipated—according to Anger, the pretty hippie he called “Cupid” ripped off 1600 feet of footage from Lucifer Rising and some camera equipment before the performance. Anger was livid, smashing a rare magical cane that once belonged to Crowley. He then pronounced a cruse upon Beausoleil, sealing it with an amulet he put around his neck. On one side was a picture of his erstwhile protégé, on the other a toad with the inscription “Bobby Beausoleil—who was turned into a toad by Kenneth Anger.” Cupid never turned into a toad, but a could of uncommonly dark fortune did follow him as he headed south for Los Angeles. In 1970 Anger remade his masterpiece, Lucifer rising—though even then he still tinkered with elements of the film to produce dozens of subtly different versions. Once again, Anger himself plays the Magus, invoking a new aeon through the door opened by the occult events of the 1960s: A film about the love generation—the birthday part of the Aquarian Age. Showing actual ceremonies to make Lucifer rise. Lucifer is the Light God, not the Devil—the Rebel Angel behind what is happening in the World today. His message is that they key of joy is disobedience. Isis (Nature) wakes. Osiris (Death) answers. Lilith (Destroyer) climbs to the place of Sacrifice. The Magus activates the circle and Lucifer—Bringer of Light—breaks through.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Bad luck had begun calling upon the Rolling Stone, in the shape of a series of tragedies. The first was the death of the band’s guitarist, Brian Jones. It was Jones who, in 1962, formed the band named it after a Muddy Waters song. On 2 July, in classical rock ‘n’ roll styles, he drowned in his swimming pool on a cocktail of vodka and pills. Two days after Jones’ death, the Stones turned their free concert in London’s Hyde Park into a memorial for their ex-guitarist. Jagger read a poem by Shelley, then tried to release hundreds of white butterflies from boxes by the stage. They have been in the boxes too long and most of the delicate creatures were dead. The summer Woodstock free festival, in New York State, represented for many the hazy apex of the Love Generation. At the suggestion of scheduled support band the Grateful Dead, the Stones hired the Hell’s Angels as security for their Altamont gig. The Angels were very affordable, but their brand of frightening freedom still had a devilish chic in the naïve 1960s. The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club was formed after the Second World War, by bike-loving ex-servicemen who found civilian life too bland to bear. The Hell’s Angels moniker was taken from a notorious American Air Force squadron, but the Satanic implications of the name became increasingly appropriate. The Angeles were hellraisers, prototypes for the whole biker culture—particularly the outlaws, or “1%ers” (the “one percent of motorcyclists’ labelled as ‘hoodlums and troublemakers” by the American Motorcycle Association in 1967). Many 1%er gangs emulated the Angels’ Satanic-sound title, adopting infernal names like the Straight Satans, Satan’s Slavers and the Pagans. Some took their title at face value. One member of the powerful Canadian gang Satan’s Angels said in a 1970s interview, “There are definite spirits and we identify with that particular one that has been called Satan. It’s an upsidedown World. Our virtues are other’s vices. You could say we were Satanists.” Hell’s Angels, and other outlaw gangs, are symbols of the more destructive, volatile aspects of the Satanic canon. Their readiness to fight, their revelling in intimidation and fear, their rapacious passion for pleasures of the flesh in all their basest forms, all these characteristics made them into icons of willful alienation and violent self-indulgence. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
When Jagger finally came onstage at Altamont on 6 December 1969, things were beginning to get ugly. Marty Balin of support act Jefferson Airplane had been in in the face with a pool cue by a Hell’s Angel. He tried to intervene when he saw the Angels beat up an African America kid in front of him. Paul Kantner, band founder, began to shout at the Angels until his microphone was snatched from him in the brawl that immersed the from of the stage. Jagger took the stage clad in his psychedelic sorcerer’s robes. Dancing under the red lights, surrounded by the dark wall of threatening, black-clad Angels, the vocalist could have been Anger’s Lucifer served by a surly army of warlike demons. Two songs into the set, things just kept getting uglier. Naked hippies cast themselves at the stage as offerings for their rock gods, and the Angels cast them back into the audience after beating them bloody. The third song began, “Sympathy for the Devil,” and all Hell broke loose. In the audience, an African American youth named Meredith Hunter pulled a gun. According to some he was aiming it at Jagger, other claimed he was defending himself against the Angels. Whichever is true, it was scant moments before a pack of black-leather Angels fell upon him and, in a flurry of kicks and knife blows, Hunter was killed. The Stones could see that the Angels were brutalizing the audience rather than controlling them—but Jagger was out of his depth, bleating weakly for everybody to “cool it.” As the killing of Meredith Hunter played itself out to the strains of “Sympathy for the Devil,” the song had to be stopped briefly as Jagger quipped, with unintended understatement, that “something very funny always happens when we start that number.” As the tide of panic and fury rose, the death count escalated to three with 100 injured. Following Altamont, the shaken Stones turned their back on the whole Satanic scene. Jagger wore a large wooden crucifix for some time after. The revolutionary stance and allusions to street violence were quietly dropped in favour of the stately image of rock ‘n’ roll aristocrats. The Rolling Stones abandoned any pretension to occultic chic or streetwise cool, letting themselves into the World of polite high society through the back door. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
It is always just a few days before the Winter Solstice when the forces of darkness are at their most powerful. Because the immense size of the Winchester Mansion, Mrs. Winchester included forty-seven fireplaces in her mansion, and seventeen chimneys. One rambling section in particular, the Hall of Fires, was designed to produce as much heat as possible—perhaps to ease Mrs. Winchester’s extreme arthritis. In addition to many windows that let the sunlight stream through, the three adjoining rooms have four fireplaces and three hot air registers from the coal furnace in the basement. Mrs. Winchester is very significant, not only for a vast estate, but one of many reasons was because she was known to have encounters with the supernatural. While I was at Mrs. Winchester’s mansion, I was asked to meet with a group of high school students who had gotten into spiritualism just for kicks. We had a meeting that night and I listened as the young people told me their experiences. At a part a friend had fascinated them with stories of trances and séances. He told them how to use a Ouija board and how to enter a state of trance. They were seeking spirit manifestations. When they began to get reactions, they became frightened. The spirit had guided them back in time. A boy appeared and stated to tell a story, he said: “When I was about ten years old, I came to visit my aunt Sarah. I met a girl who lived on the estate Ethel—aged eight. I never had the courage to speak to her. My aunt Sarah asked me to stay three months, and I did.” The statement was so quietly serious, so destitute of any suspicion of humor, that the audience looked on with great apprehension. “I had to work hard in those days. I saw Ethel, later that evening, asleep in one of the carriages, and that was the last time I saw her. I ended stay with my aunt for three years. There was a glimmer of a summer gown under the trees; a figure passed from the shadow to sunshine, and again into the cool dusk of a leafy lane. While I was walking in the garden, I found her seated in the shade of a pine. She looked up serenely, as though she had expected me, and we faced each other. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
“When I stroke to speak, my voice had an unknow tone to me. Her upturned face was my only answers. The breeze in the pine-tops, which had been stirring monotonously, ceased. Her delicate face was like a blossom lifted in the still air; her upward glance chained me to silence. The first breeze broke the spell; I spoke a word, then speech died on my lips; I stood twisting my shooting-cap, confused, not daring to continue. The girl leaned back, supporting her weight on one arm, fingers almost buried in the deep green moss. ‘It has been three years today,’ I said, in a dull voice of one who dreams—’three years today. May I not speak?’ In her lowered head and ears I repeated acquiescence; in her silence, consent. ‘Three years ago, today,’ I repeated; ‘the anniversary has given men courage to speak to you. Surely you will not take offense—we have travelled so far together!’ –from the end of the World to the end of it, and back again, here—to this place of all places in the World! And now to find you here on this day of all days—here within a step of our first meeting-place—three years ago today! And all the World we have travelled over since, never speaking, yet ever passing on paths parallel—paths which for thousands of miles ran almost within arm’s distance—’ She raised her head slowly, looking out from the shadows of the pines into her sunshine. Her dreamy eyes rested on acres of gold-rod and green grass in the December coolness. ‘Will you speak to me?’ I asked. ‘I have never even heard the sound of your voice.’ She turned and look at me, touching with idle finger the soft hair curling on her temples. Then she bent her head once more, the faintest shadow of a smile in her eyes. ‘Because,’ I said, humbly, ‘these long years of silent recognition count for something! And then the strangeness of it!—the fate of it,–the quiet destiny that ruled over our lives,–that rules them now—now as I am speaking, weighting every second with its tiny burden of fate.’ She replied, ‘I have never forgotten you—never!’ She looked into my eyes. ‘Dear, do you not understand? Have you forgotten? I died three years ago today.’ The unearthly sweetness of her white face started me. A terrible light broke in on me; my heart stood still.’ #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
“And that very day, I died of a broken heart. Legend has it that I came to visit my aunt Sarah to pick up a check and no one ever saw me after that day, but truth is I never left. When God takes the mind and leaves the body alive there grows in it, sometime, a beauty almost supernatural. ‘Be with me when the new moon comes,’ she whispered. ‘It will be so sweet. I will teach you how divine is death, if you come.’” About 4 o’ clock in the morning, one of the students started to levitate, and he saw all kinds of beautiful sights. I asked him if he were concerned whether or not this was from God. He said it must be because it was in the spiritual realm. The one of the other students went into a demonic tantrum. I asked God to rebuke the demons and set her free. The demons said, “We are going, but we will come back.” And come back they did, with reinforcements. I worked with this young woman for several months, but because she was unwilling to give up this traffic with spirits she was later placed in a mental institution. I am convinced that she could be perfectly healed of this oppression and indwelling by demons if only she would consent. Sometimes lewd demons trick well-meaning people into following their sensual behavior. Not all spirits are evil. However, it is a serious matter to become involved with spiritualism in any form, but also the atoning blood of Christ always gives us His purity and power. All who desire protection from Satan and His demons will receive it. In the case of levitations, apports, and telekinesis, God allows the physical and natural laws of the Universe to be superseded temporarily and in a restricted sense by higher laws of the spirit World. The Winchester mansion is known for having spiritual events take place, even today. These phenomena are diabolic miracles. In distinction to divine miracles, diabolical miracles are supernatural acts that imitate the power and benevolence of divine miracles. It is as if God said to the powers of darkness what he said to the sea in the day of creation: “Hitherto shalt thou come but no father, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,” reports Jon 38.11. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
The demonic powers are allowed only a very small intrusion into the orderly realm of nature, and the miracles they produce are characterized by a rigid sameness. Everywhere in the domain of occultism there are reminders of God’s absolute sovereignty. He is in majestic control. Demonic power makes such a poor show by its severe restrictions and drab sameness, that it actually advertises the glory of God for those who can see evil supernaturalism in the proper focus of divine revelation. Levitations (from the Latin verb levito, “to raise or lift”) are objects or people that are raised up and appear floating in their air. Such phenomena are frequently reported in occult literature and experienced in haunted houses, where strongly psychic people have lived and died or where spiritistic séances have been heled. Objects on occasion sail through the air as if thrown by an invisible hand, or spooks (ghost) appear hovering in space. Furniture is lifted, often when a strong medium is present. Human, either in a conscious or unconscious state, are included in the phenomena of levitation. We would oppose the belief that a word has any power of its own, and that the charmer is only the representative of this power. Words are only neutral instruments. They can be used for either good or evil. It depends on the inspiration behind the words. A Christian employs the Word on God’s authority. The magician and charmer employs his words and phrases as demonized instruments of magic. One of Mrs. Winchester’s servants had died. The man in question had the reputation of being a magician—it makes sense that a house built by spirits would have some magical employees. Two weeks before his death, as he lay in bed seriously ill, he began to groan, “Take the charm away from me, take the charm away from me.” The relatives had gone to the minister for advice, but he had warned them against doing as the man requested. The magician finally died in terrible agony. The minister told Mrs. Winchester that the man looked black as coal when he had seen him in the coffin. Many magicians only find rest when someone takes the spell of charm away from them, together with the responsibility of carrying on the occult practice. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
A description of magic ritual can be found in various books on magic. These books have the same significance to the magicians as the Christian Bible has for the Christian. There is a great amount of literature on the subject of magic, the most widely distributed book on the spiritual subject being the 6th and 7th Book of Moses. Unhappily a publisher in Braunschweig has published new editions of this book. The use of the name Moses is only a camouflage. Magicians look on the miracle connected with the staff of Moses as a piece of magic. In this way they try to elevate Moses to the position of their patron saint. The first part of the book reveals how a human may enter into a relationship with the devil. The latter part gives instructions as to how a person can achieve dominion over all the forces of nature as well as the powers of Heaven and Hell through the use of magic. The book has already caused untold harm in the World and people who read it invariably suffer in the process. A house in which the book is kept is also a place where misfortunes often occur. There are many examples which illustrate this fate and we will deal with this problem soon in greater detail. In or about the 27 of December of 1899, a girl about eighteen years of age, Miss Mary Dunbar, was hired as a maid by Mrs. Winchester. Mrs. Winchester described her as “having an open and innocent countenance, and being a very intelligent young person.” She and her aunt, Mrs. Haltridge, were staying at Winchester mansion. A rumor was afloat that the latter had been bewitched into her grave, and this could not fail to have its effect on Miss Dunbar. Accordingly, on the night of her arrival, her troubles began. When she retired to her bedroom, accompanied by another girl, they were surprised to find that a new mantle and some other wearing apparel had been taken out of a trunk and scattered through the house. Going to look for the missing articles, they found laying on the parlour floor an apron which two days before had been locked up in another apartment. This apron, when they found it, was rolled up tight, and tied fast with string of its own material, which had upon it five strange knots. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
These she proceeded to unloose, and having done so, she found a flannel cap, which had belonged to old Mrs. Haltridge, wrapped up in the middle of the apron. When she saw this she was frightened, and threw both cap and arpon to young Mrs. Haltridge, who was also alarmed, thinking that the mysterious knots were boded evil to some inmate of the mansion. That evening Miss Dunbar was seized with the most violent fit, and, recovering, cried out that a knife was run through her thigh, and that she was most grievously afflicted by three women, who she described particularly, but did not then give any account of their names. About midnight she was seized with a second fit; when she saw in her vision seven or eight women who conversed together, and in their conversation called each other by their names. When she came out of her fit she gave their names as Janet Liston, Elizabeth Cellor, Kate M’Calmont, Janet Carson, Janet Mean, Latimer, and one who they termed Mrs. Ann. She gave so minute a description of them. Mrs. Dunbar said there was something in her stomach which she would be glad to get rid of. She fell into such violent fits of pains that three men were scarce able to hold her, and cried out, “For Christ sake take the Devil out of the room.” In her fits she often had her tongue thrust into her windpipe in such a manner that she was like to choak, and the root seemed pulled up into her mouth. Upon her recovery she complained extremely of the one Mean, who has twisted her tongue and spoke of someone who had tore her throat, and tortured her violently by reason of her crooked fingers and swelled knuckles. Her joints where all distorted and the tendons shriveled up, as she had described. However, through 38 years of residence, Mrs. Winchester’s employees remained fiercely and faithfully loyal, defending every eccentricity. Although usual things did occur in her home, they said she was very strong minded and firm, but always fair and kind. Laziness, theft, gossip or revealed confidences met with instant dismissal. Mrs. Winchester, they claimed, was deeply concerned with the welfare of their families. They were well paid and often additionally rewarded with gifts, even homes or real estate, and left lifetime pensions. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House on a rainy day is a sight to see 😍 Come see for yourself this weekend!
🎟 link in bio. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
A Devil Who Has Unity Will be a God
Behind the accepted history of our civilization—of great leaders and mass movements, of politics and progress—there is an alternative history, a shadow tradition. It is an oft-neglected World full of villains and vice, scoundrels and sorcerers, with an impact upon our culture out of proportion with the numbers of people involved. Almost everything about magic, including the forms it takes and the customs associated with it, gives one the impression that it is a religion of the devil. It everywhere seeks to mimic the World of faith as we find it revealed in the Christian Bible. There is a dark side of Western culture: the Satanic tradition. Even the serpent in the Garden of Eden—who tempts Adam and Eve to “Original Sin”—does not become a manifestation of evil (“that Ancient Serpent,” as Satan is sometimes know) until later. This change occurs with the advent of Christianity, which promotes Satan from a mischievous servant of God to His implacable opponent. The Roman Empire had thrived by absorbing, rather than destroying, the cultures they conquered, welcoming foreign gods into their temples as part of policy of conquest by integration. The Christians could not stomach this. Their God was supreme, and all other deities—initially regarded as hollow superstitions—began to be portrayed by their theologians as actively evil, demonic. This doctrine, demonization, defined the totalitarian nature of the Christian creed. These demons required a leader, and so Satan was reborn not just as an adversary, but as the Adversary. Myths began to grow up around this new Prince of Darkness, cribbed from fanciful reinterpretations of existing doctrine and the ravings of Christian hermits driven half-mad by isolation in the desert. Satan’s power is first suggested in the New Testament, when He tempts Jesus Christ with mastery of the kingdoms of the World—implying He has them all in His possession. The Old and New Testaments claim that the Devil was once the leader of the Watcher angels. These angels were commanded by God to watch over humankind, but they pitied moral men and lusted after mortal women. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
For teaching forbidden knowledge and copulating with their charges (in theological terms, the equivalent of a shepherd disgracing himself with his flock) these disobedient angels were cast from Heaven to become the denizens of Hell, whilst their children became demons and monsters. Satan—or Semjaza, as He is known here—is the leader of these disobedient angels. Another more widely-accepted version of the same story has Satan trying to claim God’s throne before loyal angels cast Him and his co-conspirators into darkness. Traditionally, the question of whether one personally regards Satan’s act as one of treachery or bravery is the definition of an individual’s loyalties in the war between darkness and light. Significantly, however, many traditions state that, before His fall from grace, Satan was known as Lucifer: derived from the Latin “Light bringer.” As an act of worship is composed of certain elements, so too is an act of magic. There are basically four constituents that are necessary. Invoking, charming, a symbolic action, and the use of a fetish. One may invoke either Satan or even the Trinity, and it is this that decides whether the magic is to be black or white. Such invoking is a counterpart to our addressing of God in prayer, as for example, when we say “Our Father.” The charm or spell that then follows brings the force of magic into play. This imitates our use of the Scriptures and our reference to the promises of the Christian Bible. The symbolic action underlies and supports the charm and mimics such scriptural actions as, for instance, the laying on of hands or kneeling in prayer. The use of a fetish, that is a magically charged object, corresponds perhaps to the use of water in baptism or bread and spirits in the case of the Lord’s supper. Though Christians never got their Apocalypse, they did win their spiritual war when, in the fourth century, an embattled Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the state religion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
The short-term benefits were obvious: Christianity appealed to the oppressed, promising them great reward in the afterlife; it also appealed to the oppressor, demanding the downtrodden obeyed their obeyed their superiors if they wished to enjoy rewards. The glories of a classical World built on pagan pragmatism were eroded, then destroyed, by Christian intolerance. As the Roman Empire fell in one of history’s many dark ironies the Catholic Church set itself up in its place. Imperial purple was the uniform of colour for the Church leaders’ new robes, Latin their sacred tongue, Rome their headquarters. However, while this new Roman Catholic Church could steal the superficial glories of the empire they had destroyed, they could begin to emulate the culture, comfort or security that Imperial Rome had provided to its citizens. The end of the World had failed to arrive on schedule, but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—War, Death, Famine and Plagued—still characterized the medieval era, when the Christian creed held Europe in its thrall. The Middle Ages had arrived, and with them an era of cultural depression, a millennium of darkness, squalor and misery. The Gnostics believed that there were two equally-powerful gods—one “good,” the other “evil.” Some though the evil God was the one described in the Old Testament, the creator of this World, while the benevolent God described in the New Testament was His foe. In Gnostic doctrine, only pure spirit was “good.” All matter, including the human body, was “evil,” and humankind was made up of spirits trapped in prions of flesh. Widely suppressed with increasing severity, Gnosticism began to take on a variety of increasingly dark and erotic forms. Some Gnostics believed that, as all flesh was evil, it did not matter what use it was put to—in this sense, carnal excess could even be seen as redemptive, as with cults like the third-century Carpocratians, who indulged in ritualized pleasures of the flesh. Widely suppressed with increasing severity, Gnosticism began to take on a variety of increasingly dark and exotic forms. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
Others, like the Cainite sect of the fourth century, reasoned that if the Old Testament God was evil, then His opponents must be good—therefore revering Old Testament villains like Cain, who proved his virtue in combat by murdering his brother, Abel. It is tempting to regard these early movements as the first Satanic sects, but the attitude of most Gnostics—that the flesh was inherently evil—was just as pathological as that of their pleasure-hating Catholic oppressors. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the Cathar sects. The first of these, the Bogomils, was formed in the Balkans during the tenth century. The Bogomils believed that Man was created when Satan vomited into an empty human vessel—a vivid illustration of their unhealthy attitude to their own bodies. Some have suggested Gnostic roots for the mysterious Luciferian cult that appears to have thrived secretly in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Germany thought Lucifer was a curious, cadaverous figure whose body glowed during their subterranean rites—has been unjustly cast from Heaven by a treacherous God, and honoured Him in orgiastic ceremonies that also featured cats as objects of worship. One other medieval cult has generated more fanciful theories than the Cathars and Luciferians combined. The Order of the Knights Templar was founded in 1118 to protect Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem, combining the military skills of a trained warrior with the pious dedication of a monk. Feared by their heathen foe and revered by their Christian brethren, the Templars rose from poverty-stricken obscurity to become one of the wealthiest, most powerful institutions in Europe. Their fall from grace was just as dramatic when, in 1314, King Philip of France smashed the Order with a campaign of mass arrests. King Philip claimed that, beneath their pious exteriors, these warrior monks were in fact an international Devil-worshipping cult and many of their number, including their Grand Master Jacques de Molay, were burnt alive for their alleged crimes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The blood lust of the medieval Church was far from sated by the persecution of such heretics. In the 1480s, with full papal backing, two monks named Jakob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer issued a practical witch-hunting manual entitled Malleus Maleficarum (“The Hammer of the Witches’), describing how to identify witches and force confessions from them under torture before consigning them to the flames. Previously, witchcraft was officially regarded as a delusion, but Malleus Maleficarum helped trigger an international campaign of witch-hunts that lasted over two centuries and claimed upwards of 250,000 lives in the most brutal circumstances. The history of witchcraft is swathed in controversy. Did the witch-cult truly exist? And, if it did, did it consist of isolated, eccentric old women, or was it a coherent international movement? Some modern theorists maintain that the witch-cult was a benevolent religion that worshipped ancient nature gods, ancestor of the modern Wiccans. However, several more substantial historical accounts refer to Satan as “the God od the Serfs”: the Middle Ages were desperate times for the peasantry, and, if the Christian clergy supported the nobility, where else could the desperate and downtrodden turn but to the Devil? The witch-cult, therefore, many have been a creed of social rebellion based upon orgiastic revels, drug abuse and the deliberate adoption of heretical symbols. Certainly, the medieval peasantry regarded the Devil in a very different way to the medieval Church. The grinning gargoyles that leered from church roofs, the slapstick demons that peopled the “mystery” plays put on by rural villagers, and the Devil who appears in the folk tales of the day—all suggest a view of Satan among ordinary working folk that was sympathetic to Christianity’s supposedly terrifying, hateful anti-hero. It was not only the peasantry who made resort to the demonic in times of need. In 1440 the French Baron Gilles de Rais, once one of the most wealthy and powerful men in Europe, was executed for conjuring devils. There were also other charges laid against this licentious warlord. In fact, de Rais was a medieval serial killer, and was also a fervent Christian. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
However, Gilles de Rais was certainly involved in black magic, but this was largely separate from his recreational crimes. On the one occasion he made use of the remains of a victim in a magical rite, the Baron was seized by remorse and, uniquely for him, gave the corpse a Christian burial. Like all good Christians, Gilles de Rais was more concerned with his own immortal soul than the actual physical suffering of those around him. De Rais employed sorcerers as part of his staff when his extravagant lifestyle threatened to bankrupt him. Sorcery and science were, as that time, close bedfellows. In fact, as recently as the eighteenth century, such black arts as alchemy, necromancy and astrology were regarded by many intellectuals as valid areas of scientific study. Then, just as now, many involved in pioneering research were motivated by avarice, with fast-buck schemes a favourite occupation among the scholars and sorcerers of the Middle Ages and Reminiscence. Gilles de Rais employed a number of such characters to discover the alchemical secret of creating gold from base metal. It was generally believed that the darker the magic, the higher the risk—and the higher the risk, the higher the potential reward. The most Satanic sciences was therefore the invocation of devils, the most dangerous and rewarding of all the dark arts. Medieval serial killer Gilles De Rais have a castle in Machecoul, France. Sorcerers employed by Gilles de Rais were part of a loose underground of travelling scholars who piled their wares secretly across medieval and Renaissance Europe. Operating outside the authority of the Church-controlled universities, these maverick academics were equally at home translating Greek, brewing strange medicines or confounding their clients with conjuring tricks. As far as the Church was concerned these men had made pacts with Satan, and, in many cases, they were right. Christian authorities forbade research into the mysteries of the Universe as blasphemy. Anybody whose greed or curiosity led them to ignore these warnings had knowingly or not, throw in their lot with the dark forces. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Of all the rituals of black magic none are as notorious as the Black Mass. At its most basic level, the Black Mass is a mockery of the orthodox Catholic Mass that substitutes the erotic and profane for its sacred elements. Black Mass priest, the French cleric Father Guiborg, who stood trial in 1678 alongside a notorious sorceress named Catherine Monvoisin, accused of the attempted murder of Louis XIV by magic. The case was a scandal of epic proportions, involving allegations of illicit abortions, child sacrifice and poisoning, all implicating people within Louis’ court. When it became clear that the King’s beautiful mistress, the Marquise de Montespan, was so heavily involved (perhaps even serving as the naked altar in once ceremony), Louis decided to draw a veil over events and proceedings were halted. Nevertheless, the macabre episode is dramatic evidence not only that the Black Mass was more than a myth, but that it was employed secretly at the highest levels of European society. Other groups existed at this time whose parodies of holy rites were if no less heartfelt, were more satirical. An informational network of Hellfire Club thrived in Britain during the eighteenth century, dedicated to debauchery and blasphemy. With members drawn from the cream of the political, artistic and literary establishments, they became sufficiently scandalous to inspire a number of Acts of Parliament aimed at their suppression. Historians have been inclined to dismiss the Hellfire Clubs as nothing more than riotous drinking societies, but the significance of many of the nation’s most powerful and brilliant men dedicating themselves to Satan is difficult to ignore. That they did so with laughter on their lips, and a drink in their hand does not dimmish the gestures so much as place them more firmly in the Satanic tradition. The inspiration for the Hellfire Clubs did not come exclusively from sorcerous sources, but also drew heavily from profane literature—such as Gargantua, an unusual work combining folklore, satire, coarse humour and light-hearted philosophy, written in the sixteenth century by a renegade monk named Francois Rabelais. Like any monastic abbey it is a place of seclusion, but in other respects it is an “anti-abbey,” dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh. Only the brightest, most beautiful and best are permitted within its walks, and its motto is “Fait Ce Que Vouldras” (“Do What You Will”). #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
One of the last and best known of the Hellfire Clubs was founded in emulation of the Abbey of Thelema, taking on its distinctive motto. The club was known as the order of Saint Francis, with headquarters in Medmenham Abbey near London and on its founder Sir Francis Dashwood’s estate in Buckinghamshire. The Order finally collapsed in the 1760s due to internal conflicts between members over the pressing political issues of the day, the demand for increasing independence by Britain’s American colonies. It is a measure of the club’s distinguished membership, however, that it contained prominent politicians from both sides of the debate. Sir (Saint) Francis was a close personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, the leading spokesman for the colonists in London, and one of the most important figures in founding the independent United States of America. Franklin was a frequent guest at Dashwood’s home, and it is tempting to image the fate of the American colonies—destined to become the World’s most powerful nation—being discussed at a smoky Hellfire Club meeting over fine spirits and harlots. (This may explain why the American Constitution, partially written by Franklin, made such a revolutionary separation between Church and State.) Anton LaVey, the twenty-first century’s foremost Satanist, claimed in typically bombastic fashion: “If people knew the role the Hell Fire Club played in Benjamin Franklin’s structuring of America, it could suggest changes like: One Nation Under Satan, or United Satanic America.” Many historically famous people were true Poets and of the Devil’s party without knowing it. For instance, this applies to William Blake and John Milton, as well as others. It also seems strange that the author (William Blake) of “Jerusalem,” still one of the most popular hymns sung in English churches, should belong to the Satanic tradition. But belong he does. Blake is often regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement. Today the term conjures images of willowy fops pressing flowers in flowing, loose-sleeved shirts, but in reality these young men were wild-eye radicals whose antics led a more restrained poet of the day to label them “the Satanic School.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
Pleasures of the flesh and barbiturates and poetry were the fuel that inspired the fashionable rebel of the early nineteenth century. “I feel confident that I should have been a rebel Angel had the opportunity been mine, opined the poet, John Keats. Percy Bysshe Shelley, in many ways the most thoughtful of the romantics, was expelled from Oxford University in 1811 for his anti-Christian beliefs. He also had a strong demonic vein running through much of his own works. While the Romantics flirted with Satan, by the end of the nineteenth century a literary movement appeared that absolutely adored Him. The Decadents were poets, painters and authors who championed extremes of sensation over common sense or convention, their quest taking them to the brothels, opium dens and morgues of the World’s most fashionable and exotic cities. Inevitably, Satanism is a prominent them in the work of these artists. Most notorious among them is the foppish Isidore Ducasses, better know under his pennanme of the Comte de Lautreamont. De Lutreamont was absorbed by strongly Satanic idea about religion and human existence, potently expressed in his masterpiece, the bizarre 1868 epic The Songs of Maldoror, which combines nauseating horror and delirious absurdity in a surreal story of a war with God. The most significant figure of the nineteenth century maintained a burgeoning interest in the occult that also centered on Paris, capital city of decadence. The most significant figure of nineteenth-century sorcery was Eliphas Levin, whose shadow still falls across the history of the occult. In 1856, he published his magnum opus Dogme et ritual de la haute magie, (translated as Transcendental Magic), quickly building a reputation as Europe’s foremost authority on the magical arts. While outwardly a devoted Christian, a more careful reading of Levi’s works implies he thought Christianity was all well and good for the masses, but that more enlightened souls were entitled to probe deeper. There is a definite ambivalence about Levi’s relationship with Satan—sometimes he roundly denounced the Prince of Darkness, at others he suggests that Satan is potentially a useful or even beneficial force. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Another important anti-Christian figure of the late nineteenth century was the American writer Samuel L. Clemens, better known by his penname of Mark Twain. Many would be surprised to find Twain—author of the wholesome, much-loved Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn—credited as a Satanic thinker, but his own sentiments bear it out. As Twain once wrote in an essay, “I have always felt friendly towards Satan. Of course that is ancestral; it must be in the blood.” As his life progressed, Twain became increasingly bitter towards Christianity and its brutal, unenlightened God. Mark Twain also a chapter called 2006 A.D., which he feared if it was published at the time, he would be burnt alive for writing it. His final thoughts were issued in 1995, entitled The Bible According to Mark Twain. It appeared at the end of a century when American had come to dominate the World. It would be nice to believe, however fanciful the idea, that America’s best-loved writer was somehow hovering around taking notice, as the World entered a new Satanic era. To mark this new era, a couple global events happened back-to-back. On 25 August 2001, after filming Queen of the Damned and release a hugely successful self-titled Album, one of the most beautiful pop stars, Aaliyah Haughton was killed in a plane crash. Then there was an attack on the nation on 11 September 2001, when the Twin Towers were destroyed, as well as other American sites and over 3,500 people were killed. Since then, the Satanic spirit has been in a persistent state of conflict with the Universe—it constantly seeks knowledge and experience, in order to imprint itself upon its surroundings. It is the same spiritual rough edges that Eastern mystics wish to file off, in order to reach “enlightenment.” As many can see with Church doctrines being destroyed, God being removed from the government and buildings, national monuments being snatched down and relocated to someone’s basement, and some people no longer seeing themselves as men or women, loss of law and order, God’s vision Earth is being taken over by Satanic Libertinism, as people are indoctrinated by the media to “Live out Loud,” and “discover the true self,” as the TV new media sees it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
America is becoming a nightmarish laboratory for spiritual experimentation and mind-control games. A Devil who has unity will be a God. Sunday newspapers will always find it easier to print headlines of child murder than discuss masturbation. If you recall Dennis Wheatley’s stories of Satanic cultus and suburban Devil-worshippers—in satisfying the appetite, he helped create the popular image of Satanism. Wheatly dabbled with magic and was terribly dangerous, he lost touch with his friends after he slipped up in a ceremony and failed to master a demon, who has caused all his teeth to fall out. Wheatley prefaced his Satanic thrillers with dire warnings on the Devil and all His works—just thinking too long on Satan was dangerous enough, let alone his engaging in a Black Mass. Many people believed that Wheatly’s stories were more than just fiction, that the Satanic forces described in his novels were a real threat to the civilized World. It has been hinted at in popular culture, but is also believed that the Germans did use black magic during World War Two. Some truly believed that the power lurking behinds it eyes was literally Satanic. Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, was also known to be under attack by demonic forces, which is why many believe she built her beautiful, but bizarre mansion in San Jose, California with hidden rooms, secret passageways, and trap doors. The house was furnished with the finest materials and was a showcase of Victorian elegance and taste. However, prior to moving to San Jose, William Wirt Winchester and Sarah Winchester gave birth to a daughter named Anne. While enjoying Christian fellowship in their home in New Haven, they were disturbed when they prayed by the screaming of their newborn daughter. This happened consistently for two weeks. Mr. and Mrs. Winchester assured the prayer group that their child was all right, but they were as concerned as their guest were. One of the members in the prayer group started to think about the situation in connection with demons. However, he kept telling himself that surely such a small child could not be an object of demonic spirits. Nevertheless, they decided to experiment. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
During the usual time, of fellowship after service, the group leaders asked that everyone pray. They knew that the baby, who was busying sleeping, would have a hard time hearing the prayer. To their amazement, at the very first words of Mr. Merrill’s prayer, the baby began to scream and cry frantically for her mother, Mrs. Winchester. Mr. Merrill was convinced then that this was some kind of demon demonstration. To make sure, they did the same thing the next night, and again the child screamed hysterically. He decided the Holy Spirit was speaking to him to do something. He could not stand to see the child so tormented. So Mr. Merrill audibly cried to God to rebuke the demon powers and give the child complete deliverance with the Holy Spirit and angelic protection. Instantly she stopped sobbing and seemed quite normal. Mr. Winchester and Mr. Merrill spent much time in prayer that night. After another week, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester told Mr. Merrill that their child appeared completely delivered from the demonic assaults. However, less than a month later in July 1866, Annie Pardee Winchester died, ironically the same year the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was established. In March of 1881, William Winchester also died. It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. However, if you have $20,000,000 and all the time in the World to help you cope, can you imagine what you would do? Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her child and husband left a beautiful, mysterious, and impressive architectural reflection of her psyche. The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun that Won the West.” 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 the Winchester rifles. Supposedly the untimely deaths of her daughter and husbands were caused by these spirits, and it was implied that Mrs. Winchester might the next victim. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
However, the medium also claimed that there was an alternative. Mrs. Winchester was instructed to move west and appease these spirits by building a great house for 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 a more practical 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 New Haven, Connecticut to visit a niece who lived in Menlo Park, California. While there she discovered the perfect spot for her new home in the Satan Clara Valley. In 1884, she purchased an estate just three miles west of San Jose. Soon after the construction started, the architects discovered that the site was characteristic of an Irish ruin. Standing on a slight elevation, in the midst of a flat country, the castle lifted its turreted walls as proudly as when its ramparts were fringed with banners and glittered helmets and shields. In olden times it was a citadel of the town, and although it was fortified by a strong wall, protecting it alike from predatory assault and organized attack, it was clear that by treachery, surprise, or regular and long-continued siege that the castle had been taken. The central portion was a large square structure, this central fort was connected by double walls, the remains of which covered passages, with smaller fortresses, little castles built into the wall surrounding the citadel; and over these connecting walls, over the little castles, and over the piles of loose stones where once the strong outer walls had stood, the ivy grew in luxuriant profusion, throwing its dark green curtain on the unsightly masses, rounding the sharp edge of the masonry, hiding the rough corners as through ashamed of their roughness, and climbing the battlements of the central castle to spread nature’s mantle of charity over the remains of barbarous age, and forever conceal from human view the stony reminders of battle and blood. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
The success of the ivy was not complete. Here and there the corner of the battlement stood out in sharp relief, as though it had pushed back the struggling plant, and, by main force, had risen above the leaves, while on one side a round tower lifted itself as if to show that a stone tower could stand for six hundred years without permitting itself to become ivy-grown; that there could be individuality in towers as among humans. The great arched gateway too was not entirely subjugated, though the climbing tendrils and velvet leaves dressed the pillars and encroached on the arch. The keystone bore a rudely carved, crowned heard, and ivy vines, coming up underneath the arch, to take the old king by surprise, climbed the bearded chin, crossed the lips, and were playing before the nose as if to give it a sportive tweak, while the stern brow frowned in anger at the plant’s presumption. However, only a few surly crags of the citadel refused to go gracefully into the retirement furnished by the ivy, and the loving plant softened every outline, filled up ever crevice, bridged the gaps in the walls, toned down the rudeness of projecting stones, and did everything that an ivy-plant could do to make the rugged old castle as presentable as were the high round mounds without the city, cast up by the besiegers when the enemy last encamped against it. The old castle had fallen on evil days—and over the next thirty-eight years Mrs. Winchester produced the sprawling complex we know today as the Winchester Mystery House. One day while on the estate, the sun had barely cleared away the thick, heavy mist, which was still slowly rising here and there, and the birds were majestically in search of their breakfast. While the famers were out tilling the fields, a long, lanky figure was draw to its full height, the white eyeballs and jagged teeth had a red glow about them, and he waved his hand triumphantly in the direction of the vanishing cloud of birds. Then there came a loud gun shot, then next thing anyone say was the quivering body of this of a man on the ground, and wild eyes staring open in the agony of death. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
The farmers ran over and glanced at the body of this man. They figured they better hide him in the long grass and come back after dinner to bury him. After dinner, they walked slowly at first, gradually increasing their pace as they became more distant from the mansion, and they never spoke a word. Then suddenly the, as they drew closer, the man clutched one of the farmer’s arms. It he pleading for help, so they hit him with a shovel and began to dig its grave. For more than an hour they worked desperately with the chopper and hunting-knife, being greatly assisted in their task by a rift in the ground where the soil had been softened by water running from the creek, and they stood up with sweat pouring from their faces, and stamped down the Earth to cover all traces of the man. They had filled the grave with some large stones that were lying about (remnants of some ancient temple, long ago deserted and forgotten), thus feeling secure that it could not easily be disturbed by animals. From the night on, a wolf would come howling around their cottages on the estate, which would make their blood run cold. They swore they were being haunted by the spirit of that man they murdered and that he some how much have entered this animal’s body, bent on obtaining vengeance. One of the farmers grew ill, he was thin, very pale, and haunted by a ghastly expression. He was a married man who had carried on an adulterous relationship with one of the maids the took care of Mrs. Winchester’s house. The maid was reputed to indulge in black magic. They day of the murder, the man had tried to end his illicit affair. He told the woman that he wanted to break off his relationship with her. She was very upset and threatened him, saying that if he did then his wife and children would suffer in the process. The man however, was determined to break it off and stuck to his decision. Later that day is when they suspected one of their fellow famers was a demon and shot and buried him. Two days later, the adulterous farmer’s son became ill. They rushed him to the hospital and he died there. The doctors were unable to diagnose the disease. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
Later still, the adulterous famer’s wife and daughter fell ill. The man was by now quite frightened and remembered the threats of the woman with whom he had had the affair. He went to her and begged her not to use black magic against his family. She softened and said that she would stop. Thereupon his wife and daughter recovered quickly, but he died. During Aleister Crowley’s visit to the Winchester Mansion, He spoke to a farmer about his saw being stolen. Crowley, as you may know was a black magician, and called “the Great Beast 666,” after the devilish monster of the Book of Revelations. The farmer paid Crowley a considerable amount of money, and in returned he promised his immediate help, stating that the thief would die. The farmer and Crowley walked around the grounds of the mansion, and within three hours of his interview with Crowley, the thief had a fatal heart attack. At the Winchester mansion, Crowley claimed that black magic was very literally invoked against him. In 1898 Crowley was initiated into the Golden Dawn by its founder, the influential occultist S.L. MacGregor Mathers while at the Winchester mansion. Mathers was one of the “the Masters.” They were believed t be benevolent supermen, or demigods, who has spokes women on Earth. Mather become the “Supreme Magus,” and all members of the Golden Dawn signed an oath of obedience to him. It was unclear if Mrs. Winchester was part of the Golden Dawn, but some of these sorcerous rituals which were supposedly aimed toward gaining power and enlightenment, supposedly took place in her home. After a few séances at the Winchester mansion, Crowley fell out him Mathers. He alleged that Mather summoned a middle-aged vampiress Called “Mrs. M,” who confronted Crowley while they were at Mrs. Winchester’s mansion, where the vampiress transformed into a beautiful young woman. She subjected him to a near-fatal seduction. According to Crowley’s account, he repelled her with his mystic forces, whereupon: “She writhed back from me, and again approached me even more beautiful than she had been before. She was battling for her life now, and no longer for the blood of her victim. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
“The odour of man seemed to fill her whole subtle form with feline agility. One step nearer and then she sprang at me with an obscene word sought to press her scarlet lips to mine. As she did so I caught and held her at arm’s length and then smote the sorceress with her own current of evil. A bluish-green light seemed to play round the head of the vampire, and then the flaxen hair turned the colour of muddy snow, and the fair skin wrinkled, and her eyes dulled and became pewter dappled with the dregs of blood. The girl of twenty had gone; before me stook a hag of 60. With dribbling curses, she hobbled from the room.” If spiritism pertained only to pagan religions and had never affected the people in so-called Christian lands, then a careful study of its practices and phenomena might not be imperative. Interest in the occult is reaching alarming proportions and even some professing Christians are being duped into complicity with spiritistic traffic. This was true of the late Bishop James A. Pike. Worldwide spiritism is conservatively estimated to have at least seventy million adherents. Kurt E. Koch, a German evangelist and student of the occult for thirty years, enumerates sixteen different varieties of spiritistic practices. If spiritism is to be accurately evaluated and its somber relation to human experience comprehended, all of these must be carefully understood. Spiritistic phenomena may be conveniently divided into the following categories: physical phenomena (levitations, apports, and telekinesis); psychic phenomena (spiritistic visions, automatic writing, speaking in a trance, materialization, table lifting, tumbler moving, excursions of the psyche); metaphysical phenomena (apparitions, ghost); magic phenomena (magic persecution, magic defense); cultic phenomena (spiritistic cults, spiritism among Christians.) There are very scarce published accounts of Daisy, Mrs. Winchester’s niece, being haunted while staying at the Winchester mansion. However, she was reportedly strangely molested by spirits and witches; also the aforesaid Winchester Mystery House is still being haunted by spirits. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
While staying in Mrs. Winchester’s house, Daisy also suffered great annoyance every night from some invisible object, which threw stones and turf at her bed, the force of the blow often causing the curtains to open, and even drawing them from one end of the bed to the other. About the same time, also, the pillows were taken from under her head, and the clothes pulled off; and though a strict search was made, nothing could be discovered. Continuing to be annoyed in this way she removed to another room, being afraid to remain any long. Then about the 11th of December 1898, she was sitting in the twilight at the kitchen fire, a little body came in and sat down beside her. He appeared to be about eleven or twelve years old, with short black hair, having an old black bonnet on his head, a half-worn blanket about him trailing on the floor, and a torn vest under it, and kept his face covered with the blanket held before it. Daisy asked him several questions: Where he came from? Where he was going? Was he cold or hungry? and so on; but instead of answering her he got up and danced very nimbly rough the kitchen, and then ran out of the house and disappeared in the cow-shed. The servants ran after him, but he was nowhere to be seen; when they returned to the house, however, there he was beside them. They tried to catch him, but every time they attempted it, he ran off and could not be found. At lest one of the servants, seeing the master’s dog Zip coming in, cried out that her master was retuning home, and that she would soon catch the troublesome creature, upon which he immediately vanished, nor were they troubled by him again till February 1899. On the 11th of that month, which happened to be a Saturday, Mrs. Winchester was reading Dr. Wedderburn’s Sermons on the Covenant, when, laying the book aside for a little while, nobody being in the room all the time, it was suddenly taken away. She looked for it everywhere, but could not find it. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
On the following day the apparition already referred to came to the house, and breaking a pane of glass in one of the windows, thrust in his hand with the missing volume in it. He began to talk with one of the servants, Angus Spear, and told her that the kitchen, and that her mistress would never get it again. The girl asked him if he could read it, to which he replied that he could, adding that the Devil had taught him. Upon hearing this extraordinary confession she exclaimed, “The Lord bless me from thee! Thou hast got ill lear (learning).” He told her she might bless herself as often as she liked, but tht it could not save her; whereupon he produced a sword, and threatened to kill everybody in the mansion. This frightened her so much that she ran into the parlour and fastened the door, but the apparition laughed at her, and declared that he could come in by the smallest hole in the house like a cat or mouse, as the Devil could make him anything he pleased. He then took up a large stone, and hurled it through the parlour window, which, upon trial, could not be put out at the same place. A little after the servant and child looked out, and saw the apparition catching the turkey-cock, which he threw over his shoulder, holding him by the tail; and the bird making a great sputter with his feet, the stolen book was spurred out of the loop in the blanket where the boy had put it. He then leaped over a wall with the turkey-cock on his back. Presently the girl saw him endeavouring to draw his sword to kill the bird, but it escaped. Missing the book out of his blanket he ran nimbly up and down in search of it, and then with a club came and broke the glass of the parlour window. The girl again peeped out through the kitchen window, and saw him digging with his sword. She summoned up courage to ask him what he was doing, and he answered, “Making a grave for a corpse which will come out of this house very soon.” He refused, however, to say who it would be, but having delivered himself of this enlivening piece of information, flew over the hedge as if he had been a bird. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
For a day or two following nothing happened, but on the morning of the 15th the close where mysteriously taken off Daisy’s bed, and laid in a bundle behind it. Being put back by some of the servants they were gain removed, and this time folded up and placed under a large table which happened to be in the room. Again they were laid in order on the bed, and again they were taken off, and this third time made up in the shape of a corpse, or something that very closely resembled it. When this strange news spread through the neighbourhood many persons came to the house, and, after a thorough investigation lest there might be a trick in the matter, where obligated to acknowledge that there was something invisible at work. Reverend N. P. Wallgren and Reverend Osborn of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church of San Jose stayed the whole of that day and the following night with that distressed family, spending much time in prayer. At night Daisy went to bd as usual in the haunted room, but got very little rest, and at about twelve o’ clock she cried out suddenly as if in great pain. Upon Mr. Sinclair asking her what was the matter, she said she felt a knife had been struck into her back. Next morning she quitted the haunted room and went to another; but the violent pain never left her back, on the 22nd of February, she almost died. During her illness the clothes were frequently taken off the bed which she occupied, and made up like a corpse, and even when a table and chairs were laid upon them to keep them on, they were mysteriously removed without any noise, and made up as before; but this never happened when anyone was in the room. The evening before she almost died, they were taken off as usual; but this time, instead of being made up in the customary way, they were folded with great care, and laid in a chest upstairs, where they were only found after a great deal of searching. At it height the Winchester Mansion encompassed 761 acres, was 9 stories high, approximately 125,000 square feet, and possessed as many as 500 to 600 rooms. Because so many changes were made, the mansion now stands 4 stories over 4 acres, is about 25,000 square feet, and has an impressive 160 remain. It is still a beautiful, rambling mansion and sure is worth a visit. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
Winchester Mystery House
Watch your step in Sarah’s Séance Room! There are three exits in this room and only one entrance 😳 Those exits include the main door, a secret passageway leading into an unfinished closet, and this door that opens to an 8-foot drop into a kitchen sink below. https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
🎟 link in bio. A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Randolph Harris II International 