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Witches, Warlock, and Ghost in the Mansion of Mrs. Winchester!
Some people call themselves witches, and believe that they are able to contact and utilize powers from the invisible realm. However, there are many questions about witchcraft. Is it merely a game some people play? Is it beneficial to humanity? Or is it evil and dangerous? Universities all over the World are offering courses in occultism, and teams of scientists are investigating reports of mysterious magical phenomena all over the globe. They are baffled by some of the amazing incidents they encounter, and admit that present scientific knowledge cannot account for them. The Word of God may not provide a specific explanation for every problem one may encounter as one studies Satan, Satanism, and witchcraft, but it sheds much light on these subjects and offers practical guidelines by which God’s children can avoid dangers inherent in occultism. An unexpected and amazing development of this enlightened age is the resurgence of interest in Satan and an increase in occultic activity. A few years ago, most people assumed that the devil was dead, in the same manner that some theologians recently have affirmed the death of God. It is now becoming increasingly apparent that these reports were premature. Satan is very much alive, and is actively involved in today’s World. Though many scientists and philosophers still scoff at the idea of a personal devil, highly educated people all over the World meet regularly to worships Satan. Some groups, having dedicated themselves to the service of the devil, have committed brutal sacrificial slayings, while others engage in vile acts of immorality. Witchcraft, seances, and fortunetelling, for many years limited to areas of ignorance and superstition, are now discussed in highly respected magazines. Newspapers carry horoscopes, and multitudes consult them seriously every day. Prominent people have received a great deal of publicity by reporting the reception of personal messages from the spirits of the dead. The late Bishop Pike, for example, published a widely-read book telling of seances in which he purportedly talked with his dead son who had committed suicide. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Others, claiming the ability to foretell the future, also have become the objects of widespread interest, and have name Jeane Dixon comes to mind. She reportedly communicated with Mrs. Winchester who wanted to continue the restoration of her mansion. Mrs. Dixon is considered a prophetess by many people, and top leaders in government industry consult her for information about the future. In Europe today, more people are making a livelihood through the practice of occultism than the total number engaged in the Christian ministry. Belief in the existence of an unseen spiritual realm to be entered at death, and which has an influence upon human life, has captivated the minds of multitudes. The millions involved with occultism are unaware of the real nature of these mysterious and dangerous areas of investigation, and refuse to turn to the one source of truth regarding the kingdom of darkness. The Bible, the holy Word of God, reveals the true nature of the supernatural. It teaches that two real spiritual Worlds exist, one good and the other evil. It tells us that God is a Spirit (John 4.24), and that a great number of angels called “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1.14) worship Him in Heaven and carry out His assignments upon Earth. The other invisible kingdom is evil, and is under the direction of Satan, who controls an organized host of wicked spirit beings. They are a formidable foe arrayed against God and His people, and the apostle Paul declared, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this World, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” reports Ephesians 6.12. All that can be known about the devil’s origin, fall, and present activity is to be found in the Bible. Although it does not specifically answer every question we may ask, it tells us the important facts about him and his kingdom. He was once a glorious, sinless creature, but he rebelled against God, was cast out of Heaven to Earth, and now leads his great army of spirit beings in a futile attempt to defeat God and destroy His people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
The devil was created an angelic being of great beauty and splendor and at one time had great favour with God. Ezekiel describes him in his sinless state as follows, “Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold; the workmanship of thy timbrels and of thy flutes was prepared in thee in the day thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have seen thee so; that wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee,” Ezekiel 28.12-15. Although the prophet was addressing these words primarily to an Earthly ruler, the king of Tyre, it is apparent that the full meaning of this prophecy is not exhausted by its reference to a flesh-and-blood monarch. The ultimate subject of Ezekiel’s words was Satan, the real instigator of the king’s pride and cruelty. Many Bible students reject this interpretation of Ezekiel’s dirge. They consider this viewpoint to be untenable and imaginative, and prefer to consider the prophet’s description to be a highly figurative portrayal of the king of Tyre. Some even say this lamentation incorporates a well-known Tyrian myth about a primeval being who lived in the “Garden of God” until he was expulsed for pride and rebellion. It is unlikely, however, that the inspired prophet would incorporate a myth into his message of judgment. Then, too, many prophetic pronouncements contained a double perspective. Isaiah, for example, after giving a stern warning of impending disaster, told Ahaz that the Lord would give a sign that the message he had spoken was true. “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken by both her kings,” reports Isaiah 7.14-16. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The fourteenth verse is a definite reference to Christ, the virgin-born Son of God, but verses fifteen and sixteen point to Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the infant son of Isaiah whose birth and early years are described in the following chapter. Before the lad was three years old, Pekah and Rezin, king of Israel and Syria, had been executed as the prophet had predicted. Since this type of double reference is common in the prophetic Scriptures, it should not be thought strange that Ezekiel, in pronouncing judgment upon the king of Tyre, should also be alluding to Satan, who motivated the Earthly monarch to his sinful pride and cruelty. The prophet declared that in his original state Satan was a creature of great wisdom and beauty. He portrays the devil as having been in Eden, the garden of God, and describes him as having been lavishly adorned with jewels at that time. The translation in our King James Version also speaks of the “timbrels” and “flutes” prepared by him on the day he was created, and some Bible students have inferred from this that he had great musical ability and was given charge of the Heavenly choirs which sang their praises to God. The Hebrew words, however, are difficult to translate, and most students are convinced that the words rendered “timbrels” and “flutes” more likely refer to the gold settings and engravings of his ornamental attire. “Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold; the workmanship of thy timbrels and of thy flutes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created,” reports Ezekiel 28.13. This exalted creature is also declared to be “the anointed cherub that covereth,” reports Ezekiel 28.14, which indicates that God appointed him to have a place of special prominence in connection with his throne. The remainder of the verse, “thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire,” indicates that before his sin, he was in the immediate presence of God’s glorious holiness. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
In fact, Satan may have been the most exalted of all the angels, and the memory of this former glory could have been the reason Michael did not dare “bring against him a railing accusation,” (Jude 9). Dr. Eric Sauer suggests the possibility that even before God created man, He committed to Lucifer a position of authority in relation to the Earth and its surrounding planets. For this reason, Satan is called the “god of this World” in the New Testament. In England and Scotland during the mediaeval and later periods of its existence, witchcraft was an offence against the laws of God and man; in Celtic Ireland dealing with the unseen were not regarded with such abhorrence, and indeed had the sanction of custom and antiquity. Consequently, when the Anglo-Normans came over, they found that the native Celts had no predisposition towards accepting the view of the witch as an emissary of Satan and an enemy of the Church, though they fully believed in supernatural influences of both good and evil, and credited their Bards and Druids with the possession of powers beyond the ordinary. The persecution of witches did not cease in the countries where that the growth and spread of witchcraft made headway—far from it; on the contrary it was kept up with unabated vigour. Infallibility was transferred from the Church to the Bible; the Roman Catholic persecuted the witch because Supreme Pontiffs had stigmatized her as a heretic and an associate of Satan, while the Protestant acted similarly because Holy Writ contained the grim command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The evil that was wrought by such amongst an unenlightened and superstitious people can be well imagined; unbelievers would be converted, while the credulous would be rendered more secure in their credulity. In the 16th century, during the rule of the Commonwealth Parliament thirty thousand witches were put to death in England. Even as late as 1690 torture was judicially applied to extract evidence, for in that year a Jacobite gentleman was questioned by the boots. However, Scotland, even at its worst, fades into insignificance before certain parts of the Continent, where torture was used to an extent and degree that can only be termed hellish; the appalling ingenuity displayed in the various methods of applying the “question extraordinary” seems the work of demons rather than of Christian, and makes one blush for humanity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Nonetheless, the punishment of death by fire for witchcraft or sorcery was not employed to any extend in Ireland. We have one undoubted instance, and a general hint of some others as a sequel to this. How the two witches were put to death in 1578 we are told, but probably it was by hanging. Subsequent to the passing of the Act of 1586, the method of execution would have been that for felony. On the Continent the stake was in continual request. In 1514, three hundred persons were burnt alive for this crime at Como. Between 1615 and 1635, more than six thousand sorcerers were burnt in the diocese of Strasburg, while, if we can credit the figures of Bartholomew de Spina, in Lombardy a thousand sorcerers a year were put to death for the space of twenty-five years. The total number of person executed in various ways for this crime has, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, been variously estimated at from one hundred thousand to several millions; if the latter figure be too high undoubtedly the former is too low. In the persecution of those who practised magical arts, no rank or class in society was spared; the noble equally with the peasant was liable to torture and death. This was especially true of the earlier stages of the movement when sorcery rather than witchcraft was the crime committed. For there is a general distinction between the two, though in many instances they are confounded. Sorcery was, so to speak, more of an aristocratic pursuit; the sorcerer was the master of the Devil (until his allotted time expired), and compelled him to do his bidding: the witch generally belonged to the lower classes, embodied in her art many practices which lay on the borderland between good and evil, and was rather the slave of Satan, who almost invariably proved to be a most faithless and unreliable employer. Anybody might become a victim of the witch epidemic; noblemen, scholars, monks, nuns, titled ladies, bishops, clergy—none were immune from accusation and condemnation. Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practised at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
According to alchemists, the souls of the dead can be pinned into homunculi. A homunculi is a very small human being or humanoid creature; a supposed microscopic but fully formed human being which a fetus was formerly believed to develop. Much that passed current in the west as White (id est permissible) Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful purposes. The pentagram is a symbol of faith, a symbol of the five elements Spirit, Air, Earth, Water, and Fire (one for each point), and the circle (the Universe) contains and connects them all. The Golden Ratio is the number 1.61803399, represented by the Greek letter Phi, and considered truly unique in its mathematical properties, prevalence throughout nature, and its ability to achieve a perfect aesthetic composition. It is integral to the pentagram. Shorter and longer sections of each line exist in golden ratio. If you look at God’s fingers and the general position of the bodies in Michelangelo’s fresco, you will see pentagrams. After Mrs. Winchesters mysterious disappearance in 1922, the mansion of emptied of her belongings. It took six trucks working around the clock for six weeks to move all of her furniture out. Many people say not only was it a lot of stuff, but the movers would get lost in the mansion. Nonetheless, some things were left behind. From time to time the mansion was rented out. A young couple Oliver Hall and Ethel Taylor rented the place, but the story of what happened is very fascinating. No one ever thought that Ethel Taylor would marry Oliver Hall; but he thought differently, and things which Oliver Hall intended had a queer way of coming to pass. He asked her to marry him before he went Yale. She laughed and refused him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
The Next time Oliver came home, he asked her again. However, she laughed, tosses her luscious blonde locks, and refused again. A third time he asked her; she said it was becoming a confirmed bad habit, and laughed at him more then ever. Oliver was not the only man who wanted to marry her, but his attempts were like an elephant, at whose clumsy feats were considerably amusing. Ethel was the belle of the Santa Clara Valley, and every one was in love with her more or less; it was a sort of fashion, like masher collars or Inverness capes. Therefore everyone was very annoyed as surprised when Oliver Hall walked into the Bank of Italy Building and invited everyone to his wedding. “Your wedding?” “You do not mean it?” “Who is the happy fair? When is it to be?” Oliver Hall filled his pipe and lighted it before he replied. Then he said—“I am sorry to deprive you fellow of your only joke—but Miss Taylor and I just let the Winchester mansion and are to married at the estate in April. “You do not mean it?” “He has got the mitten again, and its turned his head.” “No,” he said, rising “I see it is true. Lend me a pistol someone—or a first class fare to other end of Nowhere. Hall has bewitched the only pretty girl in our twenty-mile radius. Was it a mesmerism, or a love-potion, Oliver?” “Neither, sir, but a gift you will never have—perseverance—and the best luck a man ever had in this World. It is so glorious to know of a surety that now we can think, feel, speak, act—above all, love one another—haunted by no counteracting spell, responsible to no living creature for our life and our love.” There was something in his voice that silenced everyone, and all chaff of the other fellows failed to draw him further. The queer thing about it was that when we congratulated Miss Taylor, she blushed and smiled, and dimpled, for all the World as though she were in love with him, and had been in love with him all the time. They had been laughing very heartily, cherishing the mirth, as it were like those who caress a lovely bird that had been frightened out of its natural home and grown wild and rare in its visits, only tapping at the lattice for a minute, and then gone. Women are strange creatures. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
In Santa Clara everyone who was anyone was asked to the wedding at Llanada Villa. Many people were truly more interested in the trousseau than the bride herself. The coming marriage was much canvasses at afternoon tea-tables, and at the Bank of Italy over the saddler’s, and the question was always asked: “Does she care for him?” The best man used to ask that question in the early days of their engagement, but after a certain evening in April, the pause between the acts, when the house was half-darkened, and the laughter died away made him never ask that question again. “How cold is it,” said John, the best man, shivering. Oliver shivered too; but not with cold, it was more like the involuntary sensation at which people say, “Someone is walking over my grave.” He said so, jestingly. “Hush, Oliver,” whispered John, and again the draught of cold air seemed to blow right between them. The next week, John was coming home from the Bank of Italy through the churchyard. Their church was on a thyme-grown hill, and the turf about it is so thick and soft that one’s footsteps are noiseless. He made no sound as he vaulted the low lichened wall, and threaded his way between the tombstones. It was at the same instant that he heard Oliver Hall’s voice, and saw his face. Ethel was siting on a low flat gravestone with the full splendour of the western sun upon her mignonne face. Its expression ended, at once and for ever, any question of her love of Oliver; it was transfigured to a beauty John should not have believed possible, even to that beautiful little face. Many people said she was like a reincarnation of Mrs. Winchester. Oliver lay at Ethel’s feet, and it was his voice that broke the stillness of the golden April evening. “This spring is cold for you, my love. I half wish we had taken courage, and sailed once more for Hispaniola. My dear, my dear, I believe I should come back from the if you wanted.” John coughed at once to indicate his presence, and passed on into the shadow fully enlightened. “Oh, no—oh, no! No mor of the sea. Llanada Villa is perfect for me,” she said, with another and stronger shoulder. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
“Ethel,” he said at last, rousing himself, with a half-smile, “I think I must have grown remarkably attractive. Look! half the glasses opposite are lifted to our box. It cannot be to gaze at me, you know. Do you remember telling me I was the ugliest fella you ever saw?” “Oh, Oliver!” Yet it was quite true—she had thought him so, in far back, strange, awful times, when she, a girl of sixteen, had her mind wholly filled with one idea!—one insane, exquisite dream; when she brought her innocent child’s garlands, and sat him down under one spreading magnificent tree, which trees of the Victorian garden at Llanada Villa, until she felt its dews dropping death upon her youth, and her whole soul withering under its venomous shade. “Oh, Oliver!” She cried once more, looking fondly on his beloved face, where no unearthly beauty dazzled, no unnatural calm repelled; where all was simple, noble, manly, true. “My dearly beloved, I thank Heaven for that dear ‘ugliness’ of yours. Above all, though blood runs strong, they say , I thank Heaven that I see you no likeness to—” Oliver knew what name she meant, though for a whole year past—since God’s mercy made it to them only a name—they had ceased to utter it, and let it die wholly out of the visible World. The wedding was to be early in April. Two days before, John had to run up town on business. The train was late, of course, for they were on the South-Eastern, and as he stood grumbling with his watch in his hand, who should he see but Oliver Hall and Ethel Taylor. They were walking up and down the unfrequent end of the platform, that he obtrusively passed the pair with his Gladstone, and took the corner in a first-class smoking-carriage. He did this with as good an air of not seeing them as he could assume. John prided himself on his discretion, but if Oliver were traveling alone he wanted his company. He had it. “Hullo, old man,” came his cheery voice as he swung his bad into John’s carriage; “here is luck; I was expecting a dull journey!” “Where are you off to?” John asked, discretion still bidding him turn his eyes away, though he saw, without looking, that hers were red-rimmed. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
“To old San Francisco,” he answered, shutting the door and leaning out for a last word with his sweetheart. He stood—clasping her hand secretly and hard; then he grew quitter; until, as the drop-scene fell, the same cold air swept past them. It was as if someone fresh from the sharp sea-wind had entered the box. “Oh, I wish you would not go, Oliver,” she was saying in a low, earnest voice. “I feel certain something will happen.” “Do you think I should let anything happen to keep me, and the day after tomorrow our wedding-day?” “Do not go,” she answered, with a pleading intensity which would have sent anyone’s Gladstone on to the platform and one after it. However, Oliver Hall was made differently; he rarely changed his opinion, never his resolutions. He only stroked the little ungloved hands that lay on the carriage door. “I must go, Ethel, The old boy’s have been awfully good to me, and now he is dying I must go and see him, but I shall come home in time for—” the rest of the parting was lost in a whisper and in the rattling lurch of the starting rain. “You are sure to come?” she spoke as the train moved. “Nothing shall keep me,” he answered; and they steamed out. After he had seen the last of the little figure on the platform he leaned back in his corner and kept his silence for a minute. When he spoke it was to explain to John that his godfather, whose heir he was, lay dying in Le Petit Trianon, some fifty miles away, and had sent for Oliver, and Oliver felt bound to go. “I shall be surely back tomorrow,” he said, “or, if not, the day after, in heaps of time. Thank Heaven, one has not to get up in the middle of the night to get married nowdays!” “And supposed Mr. Koshland dies?” “Alive or dead I mean to get married on Thursday!” Oliver answered, as he unfolded Oakland Tribune. At the Third and Townsend Depot they said their “goodbye,” and he got out and John saw him ride off; John went to Berkeley, where he stayed the night. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
When John got home the next afternoon, a very wet one, by the way, his sister greeted him with—“Where is Oliver Hall?” “Goodness knows,” he answered testily. Every man, since Cain, has resented that kind of question. “I thought you might have heard from him,” she went on, “as you are to give him away tomorrow.” “Is he not back,” I asked, for I had confidently expected to find him at Llanada Villa. “No, John,”—his sister Alexis always had a way of jumping to conclusions, expecially such conclusion as were least favourable to her fellow-creatures—“he has not returned, and, what is more, you may depend upon it he will not. You mark my words, there will be no wedding tomorrow.” His sister Alexis has the power of annoying him which no other human being possess. “You mark my words,” John retorted with asperity, “you had better give up making such a thundering idiot of yourself. There will be more wedding tomorrow than ever, you will take first part in.” A prophecy which, by the way, came true. However, though, John could snarl confidently to his sister, he did not feel so comfortable when, late that night, standing on the door step of the Winchester mansion, heard the Oliver had not returned home. Filled with German superstitions, the young man grew almost pale, but kept a courteous calmness. There was nothing too ghastly or terrible for his own imagination to conjure up. John went home gloomily through the rain. Next morning brought a brilliant blue sky, gold sun, and all such softness of air and beauty of cloud as to make up a perfect day. However, he woke with a vague feeling of having gone to bed anxious, and of being rather averse to facing that anxiety in the light of full wakefulness. However, with his shaving-water came a note from Oliver which relieved his mind and sent him to the Winchester mansion with a light heart. Ethel was in the garden. He saw her blue gown through the hollyhocks as the mansion’s gates swung behind him. So he did not go up to the mansion, but turned aside down the turfed path. “He has written to you too,” she said, without preliminary greeting, when John reached her side. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
“Yes, I am to meet him at the station at three, and come straight back to the mansion.” Her face looked pale, but there was brightness in her eyes, and a tender quiver about the mouth that spoke of renewed happiness. “Mrs. Koshland begged him so to stay another night that he had not the heart to refuse,” she went. “He is so kind, but I wish he had not stayed.” John was at the station at half-past two. He felt rather annoyed with Oliver. It seemed a sort of slight to the beautiful young lady who loved him, that he should come as it were out of breath, and with the dust of travel upon him to take her hand, which some of them would have given the best years of their lives to take. However, when the three o’clock train glided in, and glided out again having brought no passengers to their little station, John was more than annoyed. There was no other train for thirty-five minutes; he calculated that, with much hurry, he might just get back to the mansion in time for the ceremony; but, oh, what a fool to miss that first train! What other man could have done it? That thirty-five minutes seemed like a year, as he wandered round the station reading the advertisements and the time-tables, and the company’s bye-laws, and getting more and more angry with Oliver Hall. This confidence in his own power of getting everything he wanted the minute he wanted it was leading him too far. John hated waiting. After no sight of Oliver, he flung himself into the carriage that he had brough for him. “Drive to the mansion!” he said, as someone shut the door. “Mr. Hall has not come by this train.” Anxiety now replaced anger. What had become of the man? Could he have been suddenly taken will? John had never known Oliver to have an illness in his life. And even so, he might have telegraphed. Some awful accident must have happened. Maybe his corpse was picked up off a wreck, and committed to the deep—in the Gulf of Mexico. The thought that he had played her false never—no, not for a moment, entered John’s head. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Yes, something terrible had happened to Oliver, and on John lay the task of telling his bride. John almost wished the carriage would upset and break his head so that someone else might tell her, not Joh, who—but that is nothing to do with the story. It was five minutes to four as they drew up to the gate of the Winchester mansion. A double row of eager onlooker lined the path of the palm avenue. John sprang from the carriage and passed up between them. The estate’s gardener had a good front place near the door. He stopped. “Are they waiting still, Thomas?” he asked, simply to gain time, for of course he knew they were by the waiting crowd’s attentive attitude. “Waiting, sir? No, sir, why it must be over by now.” “Over! Then Mr. Hall has come?” ‘To the minute, sir; must have missed you somehow, and I say, sir,” lowering his voice, “I never see Mr. Oliver the bit so afore, but my opinion is he has been drinking pretty free. His clothes was all dusty and his face a sheet. I tell you I did not like the looks of him, with never a look or a word for none of us; him that was always such a gentleman!” I had never heard Thomas make so long a speech. The crowd in at mansion wee talking in whispers and getting ready rice and slippers to throw at the bride and bridegroom. The ringers were ready with their hands on the ropes to rung out the merry peal as the bride and bridegroom should come out. A murmur from the Winchester mansion announced them; out they came, Thomas was right. Oliver Hall did not look himself. There was dust on his coat, his hair was disarranged. He seemed to have been in some row, for there was a black mark above his eyebrow. He was deathly pale. However, his pallor was not greater than that of the bride, who might have been carved in ivory—dress, veil, orange blossoms and all. As they passed out the ringers stooped—there were six of them—and then, on the ears expecting the gay wedding peal, came the slow tolling of the Winchester Bell. A thrill of horror at so foolish a jest from the ringers passed through all the guests. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
However, the ringers themselves dropped the ropes and fled like rabbits down the belfry stairs. The bride shuddered, and grey shadows came about her mouth, but the bridegroom led her on down the path where the people stood with the handfuls of rice; but the handfuls were never thrown, and the wedding-bells never rang. In vain the ringers were urged to remedy their mistake: the protested with many whispered expletives that they would see themselves further first. In a hush like the hush in the chamber of death the bridal pair passed into their carriage and its door slammed behind them. Then the tongues were loosed. A babel of anger, wonder, conjecture from the guests and spectators. “If I had seen his condition, sir,” said old Seymour to me as we drove off, “I would have stretched him on the floor of the mansion, sir, by Heaven I would, before I would have let him marry my daughter!” Then he put his head out of the window. “Drive like fury,” he cried to the coachman; “do not spare the horses.” He was obeyed. They passed the bride’s carriage. John forbore to look at it, and old Seymour turned his head away and swore. They reached reception hall before it. They stood in the hall doorway, in the blazing afternoon sun, and in about half a minute, they heard the wheels crunching the gravel. When the carriage stopped in the front of the steps old Seymour and John ran down. “Great Heaven, the carriage is empty! And yet—” he had the door open in a minute, and this is what he saw—No sign of Oliver Hall; and of Ethel, his wife only a huddled heap of white satin lying half on the floor of the carriage and half on the seat. “I drove straight here, sir,” said the coachman, as the bride’s father lifted her out; “and I will swear no one got out of the carriage.” We drove back to the Winchester mansion, and carried her back into the house in her bridal dress, and drew back her veil. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
Her face. No one would ever forget. White, white and drawn with agony and horror, bearing such a look of terror as no one has never seen except in dreams. And her hair, her radiant blonde hair, it was white like snow. As John and her father stood, both half mad with horror and mystery of it, a body came up the avenue—a telegraph boy. They brought the orange envelop to John. He tore it open. “Mr. Hall was thrown from his horse on his way to the station at half-past one. Killed on the spot!” And he was married to Ethel Taylor in the Winchester Mansion at half-past three, in the presence of fifty guests. “I shall be married, dead or alive!” What had passed in that carriage on the drive to the reception hall? No one knows—no one will ever know. Oh, Ethel! Oh, my dear!” Before a week was over they laid her beside her husband in the Oak Hill Memorial Park on the northern most hill in the San Juan Bautista Hills of South San Jose. Thus was accomplished Oliver Hall’s wedding. Whether or not one believes in superstitions about spirits, it is hard to dismiss the unusual events that have taken place at this estate. Just like the original construction, restoration and maintenance work at Winchester Mystery House is never complete. The actual amount of materials requires is staggering. For example, it takes over 20,000 gallons of pain to cover the exterior—and by the time the workers have finished, they have to start all over again! Continuous work is being done on the massive structure, with carpenters, painters, and gardeners toiling away just like they did during Mrs. Winchester’s day. The sons, grandsons, and great grandson of Mrs. Winchester’s original employees have been some of these workmen! The restoration work is very demanding. Although you can still find spots where the cracked plaster has not been fixed after the 1906 Earthquake, almost everything will eventually be restored. This has been left like this on purpose, like a frozen moment in time, to show people how Mrs. Winchester lived there. An ongoing search continues for fine examples of the period furnishings, similar to what Mrs. Winchester herself would have used. Her original furnishings were auctioned off after her death and never have been recovered. The job of overseeing the restoration is a painstaking one. The historical accuracy of every project is researched and approved by the Restoration Board of Directors. Winchester Mystery House receives no funds from any government agency; the continuous restoration and maintenance programs are funded entirely from tour, café, and gift shop revenues. Since 1973, millions of dollars have been invested to ensure that this unique landmark will be preserved as the premier showcase of the Santa Clara Valley’s gracious past. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
The Witches Cap 🧙🏼♀️- named for it’s conical resemblance of a witches hat. Many famous mediums claim this room was “important” to Sarah Winchester, although we do not know what it was used for. How did you feel when you experienced the Witches Cap for the first time? winchestermysteryhouse.com
Is There Someone Who Teases You and Makes Fun of You?
Through the social compact we have given existence and life to the body politic. It is now a matter of giving it movement and will through legislation. For the primitive act whereby this body is formed and united still makes no determination regarding what it should do to preserve itself. Whatever is good and in conformity with order is such by the nature of things and independently of human conventions. All justice comes from God; He alone is its source. However, if we knew how to receive it from so exalted a source, we would have no need for government or laws. Undoubtedly there is a universal justice emanating from reason alone; but this justice, to be admitted among us, ought to be reciprocal. Considering things from a human standpoint, the lack of a natural sanction causes the laws of justice to be without teeth among humans. They do nothing but good to the wicked and evil to the just, when the latter observes them in one’s dealings with everyone while no one observes them in their dealings with one. There must therefore be conventions and laws to unite rights and duties and to refer justice back to its object. In the state of nature where everything is commonly held, I owe nothing to those to whom I have promised nothing. I recognize as belonging to someone else only what is not useful to me. It is not this way in the civil state where all rights are fixed by law. However, what then is a law? So long as we continue to be satisfied with attaching only metaphysical ideas to this word, we will continue to reason without coming to any understanding. And when they have declared what a law of nature is, they will not thereby have a better grasp of what a law of the state is. I have already stated that there is no general will concerning a particular object. In effect, this particular object is either within or outside of the state. If it is outside of the state, a will that is foreign to it is not general in relation to it. And if this object is within the state, that object is part of it; in that case, a relationship is formed between the whole and its parts which makes two separate beings, one of which is the part, and the other is the whole less that same part. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
However, the whole less a part is not the whole, and so long as this relationship obtains, there is no longer a whole, but rather two unequal parts. Whence it follows that the will of one is not more general in relation to the other. However, when the entire populace enacts a statute concerning the entire populace, it considers only itself, and if in that case a relationship is formed, it is between the entire object seen from one perspective and the entire object seen from another, without any division of the whole. Then the subject matter about which a statute is enacted is general like the will that enacts it. It is this act I call a law. When I say that the object of the laws is always general, I have in mind that the law considers subjects as a body and actions in the abstract, never a human as an individual or a particular action. Thus the law can perfectly well enact a statute to the effect that there be privileges, but it cannot bestow them by name on anyone. The law can create several classes of citizens, and even stipulate the qualification that determine membership in these classes, but it cannot name specific persons to be admitted to them. It can establish a royal government and a hereditary line of succession, but it cannot elect a king or name a royal family. In a word, any function that relates to an individual does not belong to the legislative power. One this view, it is immediately obvious that it is no longer necessary to ask who is to make the laws, since they are the acts of the general will; not whether the prince is above the laws, since one is a member of the state; nor whether the law can be unjust, since no one is unjust to oneself; not how one is both free and subject to the laws, since they are merely the record of our own wills. Moreover, it is apparent that since the law combines the universality of the will and that of the object, what a human, whoever one may be, decrees on one’s own authority is not a law. What even the sovereign decrees concerning a particular object is no closer to being a law; rather, it is a decree. Nor is it an act of sovereignty but of magistracy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
I therefore call every state ruled by laws a republic, regardless of the form its administration may take. For only then does the public interest govern, and only then is the “public thing” [in Latin: res publica] something real. Every legitimate government is republican. (By this word I do not have in mind merely an aristocracy or a democracy, but in general every government guided by the general will, which is to the law. To be legitimate, the government need not be made indistinguishable from the sovereign, but it must be its minister. Then the monarchy itself is a republic.) I will explain later on what government is. Strictly speaking, laws are merely the conditions of civil association. The populace that is subjected to the laws ought to be their author. The regulating of the conditions of society belongs to no one but those who are in association with one another. However, how will they regulate these conditions? Will it be by common accord, by a sudden inspiration? Does the body politic have an organ for making known its will? Who will give it necessary foresight to formulate acts and to promulgate them in advance, or how will it announce them in time of need? How will a blind multitude, which often does not know what it wants (since it rarely knows what is good for it), carry out on its own an enterprise as great and as difficult as a system of legislation? By itself the populace always wants the good, but by itself it does not always see it. Then general will is always right, but the judgment that guides it is not always enlightened. It must be made to see objects as they are, and sometimes as they ought to appear to it. The good path it seeks must be pointed out to it. It must be made safe from the seduction of private wills. It must be given a sense of time and place. It must weigh present, tangible advantages against the danger of distant, hidden evils. Private individuals see the good they reject. The public wills the good that it does not see. Everyone is equally in need of guides. The former must be obligated to conform their will to their reason; the latter must learn to know what it wants. Then public enlightenment results in the union of the understanding and the will in the social body; hence the full cooperation of the parts, and finally the greatest force of the whole. Whence there arises the necessity of having a legislator. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
Earlier we saw that when all the Second Wave principles were put to work in a single organization the result was a classical industrial bureaucracy: a giant, hierarchical, permanent, top-down, mechanistic organization, well designed for making repetitive products or repetitive decisions in a comparatively stable industrial environment. Now, however, as we shift to the new principles and begin to apply them together, we are necessarily led to wholly new kinds of organizations for the future. These Third Wave organizations have flatter hierarchies. They are less top-heavy. They consist of small components linked together in temporary configurations. Each of these components has its own relationships with the outside World, its own foreign policy, so to speak, which it maintains without having to go through the center. These organization operate more and more around the clock. However, they are different from bureaucracies in another fundamental respect. They are what might be called “dual” or “poly” organizations, capable of assuming two or more distinct structural shapes as conditions warrant—rather like some plastic of the future that will change shape when heat or cold is applied but spring back into a basic form when the temperature is in its normal range. One might imagine an army that is democratic and participatory in peace time but highly centralized and authoritarian during war, having been organized, in the first place, to be capable of both. We might use the analogy of a football team whose members are not merely capable of rearranging themselves in T formation and numerous other arrangements for different plays but who, at the sound of a whistle, are equally capable of reassembling themselves as a soccer, baseball, or basketball squad, depending upon the game being played. Such organizational players need to be trained for instant adaptation, and they must feel comfortable in a wider repertoire of available organizational structures and roles. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
We need managers who can operate as capably in an open-door, free-flow style as in a hierarchical mode, who can work in an organization structured like an Egyptian pyramid as well as in one that looks like a Calder mobile, with a few thin managerial strands holding a complex set of nearly autonomous modules that move in response to the gentlest breeze. We do not yet have a vocabulary for describing these organizations of the future. Terms like matrix or ad hoc are inadequate. Various theorists have suggested different words. Advertising man Lester Wunderman has said, “Ensemble groups, acting as intellectual commandos, will begin to replace the hierarchical structure.” Tony Judge, one of our most brilliant organization theorists, has written extensively about the “network” character of these emerging organizations of the future, pointing out, among other things, that “the network is not ‘coordinated’ by anybody; the participating bodies coordinate themselves so that one may speak of ‘autocoordination.’” Elsewhere he has described them in terms of Buckminster Fuller’s “tensegrity” principles. However, whatever terms we use, something revolutionary is happening. We are participating not merely in the birth of new organizational forms but in the birth of a new civilization. A new code book is taking form—a set of Third Wave principles, fresh ground-rules for social survival. It is hardly any wonder that parents—still mainly tied to the industrial-era code book—find themselves in conflict with children who, aware of the growing irrelevance of the old rules, are uncertain, if not blindly ignorant, of the new ones. They and we alike are caught between a dying Second Wave order and the Third Wave civilization of today. The principal interpersonal theories of depression emphasizes the role of interpersonal rejection in maintain the disorder. This interpersonal phenomenon is evidently not specific to depression, as people with social anxiety disorder are also likely to experience interpersonal rejection. Of course, it is possible that in at least some cases, the relationship between anxiety and rejection is secondary to the relationship between depression and rejection. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Notwithstanding this possibility, the anxiety-rejection relationship appears robust. Evidence for this rejection effect comes from a variety of populations and interpersonal contexts. For example, a group of socially anxious male high school student who interacted with female confederates received less desirable ratings as potential dates by those confederates. Friends and family members of socially anxious people view them as less likeable and more difficult to talk to, in comparison to their nonanxious peers. Socially anxious high school students in one study indicated that they received less support and less acceptance from their classmates. However, there was no relationship in this study between social anxiety and support from parents or teachers, indicating that this rejection effect is most evident from peers. Younger children with social anxiety also experience interpersonal rejection. For example, 7- to 14-year-olds were observed interacting with peers, and also observed was the quality (positive, negative, or neutral) of peer responses to interaction with the target child. Children with social anxiety disorder received fewer positive responses from their peers during the observed interaction than nonanxious children did. Another sample of children aged 6-11 with social anxiety disorder indicated that they did not feel socially accepted and that they had more negative interactions with peers (exempli gratia, being teased, made fun of, having enemies) than nonannxious controls did. Children with anxiety disorders tend to be disliked by their peers. In a study of over 1,000 children aged 6-11, students were classified as “cooperative,” “friendly-dominant,” “hostile-dominant,” or “submissive,” based on peer nominations. As might be expected, social anxiety was highest among the submissive group. When students were asked who they “liked most,” those in the submissive group (id est, socially anxious) ranked last out of the four, and were tied for first with the hostile-dominant group for peers’ rating of whom they “liked least.” Evidence from family studies, shows that even parents may act rejecting toward children with social phobia. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Children and adults with social anxiety disorder are typically non-threatening, and, if anything, more likely than nonanxious individuals to try to appease others. Why then should they be the recipients of the interpersonal rejection? It has been hypothesized that this effect is due to perceived dissimilarity. In this study, participants engaged in a conversation with a confederate, who, along with peers observed, rated the similarity of the target person to the confederate and indicated their acceptance or rejection of the target. The relationship between the target’s social anxiety and interpersonal rejection from others was mediated by perception of the target’s similarity. It was concluded that “we reject socially anxious individuals because we perceive them as different than ourselves and that we use how uncomnfortable they appear and any unwillingness on their part to reciprocate our confidence as information about exactly how different they are. Interpersonal rejection plays a crucial, and perhaps etiological, role in social anxiety disorder. Children with poor social skills are likely to experience interpersonal rejection. These rejection experiences lead to pessimistic expectations for social interactions, which in turn generate affective and psychological anxiety responses to social interactions. Anxious children are assumed to avoid such interactions because of these responses, and this avoidance reduces their opportunities for learning and enhancing social skills, thus returning them to the start of the cycle. If any stage of the model is present (id est, poor social skill, interpersonal rejection, negative expectations, anxiety reactions, avoidance), social phobia can develop. As such, one could characterize this as a cascade model: Once any stage in the cycle is initiated in force, subsequent stages are inevitable. Then apparent consequences of problematic social skills, expectations for negative social outcomes, and interpersonal rejection are a lack of close relationships and a turbulent interpersonal environment for the socially anxious person. This pattern begins very early in life. #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
Socially anxious children in primary school indicate that they have more negative interactions with peers (exempli gratia, “Is there someone who teases you and makes fun of you?”) than nonanxious children do. Similarly, adolescents who experience social anxiety report less frequent contact and intimacy with friends, compared to their less anxious peers. A sample of socially anxious high school students who were interviewed about their friendships indicated that they received less support from their classmates, that they had fewer friends, and that their friendships were less intimate than those of nonanxious classmates. The pattern of troubled personal relationships that begins in childhood continues into adulthood. Adolescents and young adults (aged 14-24 years) with social anxiety disorder exhibit impairment in social and leisure activities, in addition to problems with household and work relations. University students with social anxiety report fewer interactions with members of the opposite gender, and great dissatisfaction with their performance in those interactions, than their nonanxious counterparts do. When college students were asked to keep a diary of their social interactions, those who classified as high in social anxiety rated the quality of these interactions (exempli gratia, “difficult,” “guarded,” “many communication breakdowns,” “a great deal of misunderstanding”) more negatively than students who were low in social anxiety did. Another sample of college students with social anxiety indicated that they engaged in pleasures of the flesh less frequently than students low in anxiety, and that when they did they rated it as less enjoyable. Socially anxious college students evaluate themselves as generally nonassertive and socially avoidant. As they continue into early and middle adulthood, people with social phobia report a great deal of difficulty establishing and maintaining romantic relationship, and perhaps as a result less likely to marry than their nonanxious counterparts. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
Among those who do not marry, social dysfunction is particularly evident. An unfortunate reality of social anxiety and social phobia is a lack of satisfying interpersonal relationships and interactions. The relationships that are available are often judged, at least by the socially anxious person, to be of low quality and intimacy. Like problems with social skills, these relationship problems may maintain, if not worse, feelings of anxiety. At the same time, social anxiety itself (especially when it reaches the point of social phobia) undoubtedly had the potential to spoil opportunities for relationship development. “I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need,” reports Philippians 4.13. We draw to our lives that which we constantly think about. If we dwell on the negative, we will attract the negative people, experiences, and attitudes. If we dwell on our fears, we will draw in more fear. You set the direction of your life with your thoughts. “Seek, inquire for, and require the Lord while He may be found [claiming Him by necessity and by right]; call upon Him while He is near,” reports Isaiah 55.6. God’s grace is such a precious commodity. Therefore, do not allow it to be watered down or thinned out with extraneous things or terennal consolations. The choice is up to you. You do not have to entertain every thought that comes to mind. The first thing you need to do is ascertain where that thought is coming from. Is that thought from God, is it your own thought, or is it a destructive thought from the enemy? If a thought is negative, it is most likely from the enemy. If a thought is discouraging, or destructive, brings fear, worry, doubt, or unbelief; if the thought makes you feel weak, inadequate, or insecure, that thought is not from God. If you hope to keep receiving God’s grace on a regular basis, one of the things you have to do is ditch all impediment to grace. Look for a secret garden of your own. Spend some time there. Alone, preferably. Leave your friends at the path, leave your books at the gate, and God will be there waiting in this fine Chatsworthy place. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
We can pray to God, and He will give us a few snippets on how to keep one’s spirit penitential and one’s conscious pure. The Bible says, “We should cast down every wrong imagination and take into captivity every wrong thought,” reports Corinthians 10.5. That simply means: Do not dwell on it. Get rid of it immediately. Reject it, and choose to think on something optimistic. If you make the mistake of dwelling on the enemy’s lies, you allow the negative seed to take root. And the more you think about it, the more it is going to grow, creating an enemy stronghold in your mind from which attacks can be launched. Night and day, the enemy will pummel your mind with notions such as: You are never going to be successful. Nobody in your county has ever amounted to much. You are not smart enough. Your parents do not trust you with their money. Your mayor was always depressed and evil. Your governor could not keep a job. Even your local news reporters are always having a mental health crisis and are pathological liars! You were just born in the wrong city and state. Therefore, you must realize that God is in control and He is the only source of authority that matters. God is not limited by geographical location, time, or space. He is not limited by your education, your social standing, your economic standing, your income source, nor your race. The only thing that limits God is your lack of faith. There is no such thing as the wrong side of the pond with God. If you will put your trust in Him, God will make your life significant. God longs to make something great out of your life. He will take a nobody and shape that person into an extraordinarily successful individual. However, you must cooperate with God’s plan; you must start thinking of yourself as the champion God made you to be. The enemy attacks your mind saying that you do not have what it takes; God says you do have what it takes to be successful. Whom are you going to believe? #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
The enemy attacks your mind saying that you do not have what it takes; God say you have what it takes to be whatever you want in life. The enemy says you are not able to become extraordinarily successful; God declares you can do all things through Christ. The enemy says you will never get out of debt; God has proclaimed that you will have abundance and financial success, you will lend and not borrow. The enemy says you are never going to get well; God says He will restore your health. The enemy says you will never amount to anything; God says He will make you a great success and your life will be significant. The enemy says your problems are too big, there is no hope; God says He will solve those problems. Not only that, but God will turn those problems into blessing. Therefore, develop a habit of believing what God says about you; start agreeing with Godly thoughts. God’s thoughts will build you up and encourage you. They will give you the strength you need to persevere. God’s thoughts will give you a spirit of success. How can you discover God’s thoughts? Easy, just start reding and meditating on His Word, allowing its truths to become the operating system for your life. Father, I choose to think in patterns that will be pleasing to You. Please help me, I pray, to recognize those areas where the enemy is trying to make inroads into my mind. Please help me to cast down every evil thought and imagination, and to replace those negative ideas with input from Your Word. As for the rest of the World, do not give it a thought. Do God first; do all the rest later, if there is any time left over. That is to say, you will not be able to wait on God and at the same time tickle your own Tranitories. As for your friends and acquaintances, tell them you are going on holiday. However, if you are going on holiday with God, then leave behind all your usual baggage. So prayed Blessed Apostle Peter in his First Letter, that those faithful to Christ should describe themselves as “strangers and wayfarers” (2.11). When you are about to die, will you have enough faith in your wallet to let go of those final affections of the World? #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Will your sallow and indeed shallow flesh ever let your soul escape to the Freedom Beyond? Sentiments similar to those in First Corinthians (2.14). If you truly wish to be spiritual, you have to renounce everything near and far and take care of no one more than yourself. If you have perfectly conquered yourself, then you will be able to subjugate the rest of the World more easily. The perfect victory? To triumph over oneself. If you yourself in check—that is to say, if your sensuality obeys your reason, and your reason obeys God in all things—then you can truly claim victory over yourself and have yourself proclaimed lord of the World. If you are determined to scale this crest, then you should follow the advice of John the Baptist, as it is recorded in Matthew (3.10); that is to say, you have to begin by picking up the ax and putting it swiftly, virilely, to the roots, uprooting and destroying all the wildly successful plants that are destroying you. Self-love is the radical vice, the root that needs to be eradicated at all costs. Evil once conquered and captured must be led in triumph through the streets! After that, there will be a period of peace and tranquillity. Only a few take seriously this business of dying to self, and even they have had only partial success. Some, caught up in the wonderfulness of themselves, remain entangled in their own desires and cannot rise above themselves in spirit. Others, on the other hand, who freely desire to walk with Me in the Garden have to leave all their clingings—that is to say, their diddly depravities and fickle affections, their creature comforts and private stashes—at the gate. Sometimes we pray for things we do not need and are not good for us. I heard of a man in World War II who prayed for God to move him from one concentration camp to another. It was just a few miles away and he prayed and God answered his prayer. He was very happy but it was short lived. In a few weeks the Allied forces came into the camp he left and liberated all the prisoners. He stayed two more years in the other camp. He used his faith and his prayer was answered, but it prolonged the problem. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
First of all, you need to determine what is the will of God. When you know God’s will, you know that God is going to hear you. The Word says if God hears you, you will get what you ask. First John 5.14-15 is simply saying that if you get an audience with your Father, you will get your prayer answered. When I was growing up, I knew if I could get to my dad, I could get him to drop me off at school is his brand-new Maserati Ghibli. However, sometimes my mother would say, “No, do not bother him now. He is asleep.” So I could not get an audience with him. I knew if I could get an audience with him, I would get what I wanted. The Word tells us how to get an audience with our Heavenly Father. Sometimes we think the Lord must have heard us because we have goose bumps running up and down our back. That has nothing to do with it. You may get some feeling (and that is all right), but do not base your faith on feelings. What if you do not get any feeling at all? That is right, too. That does not change the Word of God. “Let one ask in faith, nothing wavering. For one that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that human think that one shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded human is unstable in all one’s ways,” reports James 1.6-8. You receive because you believe God and act on His Word. Goose bumps will never produce an answer to prayer—faith will! The actualizing person is relatively free to experience and express personal fears. Such a person is able to live from within along the polar axes of one’s being. Few people remain in the actualizing process all the time. More common is the tendency to be actualizing part of the time and manipulative part of the time. However, if the person remains unaware of manipulative tendences, they may grow like weeds and eventually overtake the garden of the personality. Unfortunately, most people learn to relate at the manipulative level. This comes about when experiences that bring pain and fear result in a tendency to live a more controlled and calculating way. #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Since the open and direct experience of feelings makes one vulnerable in bearing one’s heart to others, the manipulative person closes up and becomes less straightforward in order to avoid any possibility of being hurt or frightened again. One relates to others primarily in mechanical and unfeeling ways, thus becoming less authentic, less spontaneous, and less creative than the actualizing person. Manipulative behaviour is stereotypic and compulsive, lacking novelty and choice. That is why it becomes a boring and tedious way to live and often leads to depression. Manipulation is a way of using others to get what you consciously or unconsciously want from one. However, the person who exploits people as though they were things loses the capacity to enjoy intimacy and love in relationships. In contrast to the actualizing person, the manipulator invests more energy in fortifying the ego boundary and less in living rhythmically and responsively. Even the body becomes tighter and less sensitive. It is as though in pursuit of security, the manipulative person retreats into a walled city and tries to hide there. Next some the character level, in which the person literally becomes a “character”—that is, someone who reacts in the same narrow, limited way to almost any input from outside. This level of functioning is even more emotionally constricting. The fear is greater than that of the manipulator, and the person is more thoroughly stuck in rigid behaviour patterns. There is a real inability to learn from new situations or from life. Rather, the person reacts in the same stiff, repetitious way day after day, year after year. This is the level of most neurotic behaviour. The games the manipulative pattern now reflect a rather grim, frozen stance against a hostile and threatening World. The walls of the self become still more thick and rigid. This level could be described as further withdrawal into a central fortress within the city walks. Finally comes the psychotic level, the desperate “Custer’s last stand” against a World that is experienced as overwhelming. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Everything is subordinated to the task of psychological survival in the “Custer’s last stand” crisis mode of existence. Fear has completely filled the center of the personality. There is no room for love, hope, joy, wisdom, or peace. The muscles remain chronically tensed or flaccid, depending upon the specific form the psychosis takes. The behaviour of the psychotic is bizarre and extreme. The person may hallucinate, repeat certain phrases incessantly, or sit in one position for days on end. Meaning and emotional connectedness to others have almost completely disappeared, so the psychotic must construct an entirely new reality based on fantasies or unconscious drives. At the chronic psychotic level, life is restricted to the tiny dungeon deep in the recesses of the walled city. During the acute stage, or “psychotic break” with reality, the individual can no longer sustain the heavy investment of energy required to keep defenses going. Therefore, the walls begin to collapse and the self is lost in chaos, apathy, terror, or rage. Much human suffering makes sense when viewed as distorted attempts to survive in a World that has been painful, frightening, and poisonous to the individual. Fear, the central mechanism that sustains the defensive stance, occupies the center of the personality. In the deterioration process, the person makes the terrible journey downward from fulfillment to fragmentation, from purpose to chaos, from humanness to robot-likeness—from the image of God to the pale of nothingness. Manipulative behaviour, character disorders, and psychoses represent progressively more involved systems whereby one tries desperately to win in a World that is perceived as a fearful battleground rather than a place for love and intimacy. This is when a person begins to suffer the misery of “shut-upness.” Thus in shutting oneself off from the unfolding adventure of a God-directed Universe, one begins gradually to lose touch with the deepest meaning of one’s life. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
For anyone caught up in the downward spiral of deterioration, the biblical principle “love casts out fear” is like a lighthouse in a stormy cove. It means that we are no longer lost. Life can get pretty tough, but we can find our way home. The monstrous cruelty and baleful influences which have shown their detestable faces in World history from time to time, are reminders of how far humans have yet to go in fulfilment of the World-Idea. In large regions of the Earth it seems as though moral darkness has enveloped humankind. Although a fair appraisal requires us to examine how far this swing of the pendulum against established religion represents rebellion against its superstition and imposture and how far it represents a real loss of conscience and deterioration of character, there is still enough residue of evil to instigate apprehension as to the future course and results of this situation. Anyone who has travelled this wide Earth knows that there are greedy humans who are like ferocious tigers, and smooth-tongued women who are as dangerous as devouring serpents. The evil of such people lies not so much in the character which they reveal as in the character which they hide. It is the suave dissembler who reproduces the word of goodness without its heart and who cynically divorces creed from conduct that we must fear, rather than the human who has “scoundrel” stamped all over one’s face and actions. We are not apt to be on our guard against a silky voice, saintly manner, and smiling lips, but when these things hide a devil’s heart of dark intentions, we are in peril of being undone. It is true that the respectable often hides the rotten. Whether they call it evil and sin with the Christians, or ignorance and immaturity with the Hindus, or insufficiency of the good with the Platonic thinker, or weakness and failure, or the blindness of materialism, the presence of deplorable or horrible or criminal tendences need not be denied. They are in the World, but then, other better nobler and purer tendencies are also there. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The manifest relation really existing in God is really the same as His essence and only differs in its mode of intelligibility; as in relation is meant that regard to its opposite which is not expressed in the name of essence. Thus it is clear that in God relation and essence do not differ from each other, but are one and the same. If we can gain the power to enter the Presence, it will work silently upon the reform and reshaping of our character. Every such entry will carry the work forward, or consolidate what has already been done. One begins to look on the World afresh, as if for the first time. However, it is the beauties, the harmonies, the inner meanings, and the higher purposes that one now sees. One becomes more attentive to the attractiveness of Nature, observes her colourings and forms with new delight. If the glimpse ends, its memory does not and will always be preserved. Those who forget have only let changes in character or circumstance push it down out of sight for a period. For a time thrill of having had the glimpse inspires one. However, it soon fades and then one becomes dependent upon one’s simple memory of it. Even after one sinks back to one’s former state, the mystic who has had a flash, a glimpse, a revelation, or a vision of something beyond it can never be exactly the same as one was before. The light cannot fall upon one without leaving some little effect behind at the least, or some tremendous change at the most. One of the purposes of the glimpse is to make the human aspire that one shall be made worthy of its coming again. In the first contribution of memory is an unconscious one, intuitively reminding humans of what one really is but seems to have lost, the second is a conscious one. it is to keep up one’s interest in the establishment of the higher awareness and to stop one from forgetting the pursuit of this goal. That is, it is to keep one on the Quest. These experiences if taken aright will lead one not to spiritual pride but to spiritual humbleness. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Because one has been once illumined, the darkness can never again be total darkness. One will know that the possibility of light flashing across it always exists. No one can know in advance how long it will stay with one. It is here out of nowhere and nowhen, and then gone away the next hour. The visitation may or may not be repeated but because it is nothing that one has achieved, the repetition is outside one’s reach to control. Thus begins a lifelong haunting by what becomes one’s dearest wish—to repeat, and especially to continue in, this magical transformation. We must keep a proper proportion in our minds between these different branches of self-preparation and purification. A human whose spine is straight but whose conduct is crooked is doing worse than a human whose conduct is straight but whose spine is crooked. May the wind blow sweetness, the rivers flow sweetness, the herbs grow sweetness, for the People of Truth! Sweet be the night, sweet the dawn, sweet be the Earth’s fragrance, sweet be our Heaven! May the tree afford us sweetness, the sun shine sweetness, our cows yield sweetness—milk in plenty! We beseech Thee, O Lord, save us. We beseech Thee, O Lord, do Thou cause us to prosper. O Lord, answer us in the day that we call. God of all souls save us. Thou who searchest hearts, do Thou cause us to prosper. O Lord, answer us in the day that we call. God of all souls save us. Thou who searchest hearts, do Thou cause us to prosper. Thou mighty Redeemer, answer us in the day that we call. Thou who utter righteousness, save us. Thou who art clad in glory, do Thou cause us to prosper. Everlasting and gracious God, answer us in the day that we call. Thou who art pure and upright, save us. Thou who pitiest the needy, do Thou cause us to prosper. O good and bountiful Lord, answer us in the day that we call. Thou who knowest our thoughts, save us. Mighty and resplendent God, do Thou cause us to prosper. Thou who are clothed in righteousness, answer us in the day that we call. King of the Universe, save us. Source of light and majesty, do Thou cause us to prosper. Thou who supportest the falling, answer us in the day that we call. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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A Person Who Jumps Out a Window to Escape Fire is Guilty of Committing Suicide?
Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. If the state or the city is merely a moral person whose life consists in the union of its members, and if the most important of its concerns is that of its own conservation, it ought to have a universal compulsory force to move and arrange each part in the manner best suited to the whole. Just as nature gives each human an absolute power over all one’s members, the social compact gives the body politic an absolute power over all its members, and it is the same power which is directed by the general will and bears the name sovereignty. However, over and above the public person, we need to consider the private persons who make it up and whose life and liberty are naturally independent of it. It is, therefore, a question of making a rigorous distinction between the respective rights of the citizens and the sovereign (Attentive readers, please do not rush to accuse me of contradiction here. I have been unable to avoid it in my choice of words, given the poverty of the language. But wait.), and between the duties the former have to fulfill as subjects and the natural right they should enjoy as humans. We grant that each person alienates, by the social compact, only that portion of one’s power, one’s goods, and liberty whose use is of consequence to the community; but we must also grant that only the sovereign is the judge of what is of consequence. A citizen should render to the state all the services one can as soon as the sovereign demands them. However, for its part, the sovereign cannot impose on the subjects any fetters that are of no use to the community. It cannot even will to do so, for under the law of reason nothing takes place without a cause, any more than under the law of nature. The commitments that bind us to the body politic are obligatory only because they are mutual, and their nature is such that in fulfilling them one cannot work for someone else without working for oneself. Why is the general will always right, and why do all constantly want the happiness of each of them, if not because everyone applies the word each to oneself and thinks of oneself as one votes for all? #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
This proves that the quality of right and the notion of justice it produces are derived from the preference each person gives oneself, and thus from the nature of humans; that the general will, to be really such, must be general in its object as well as in its essence; that it must derive from all in order to be applied to all; and that it loses its natural rectitude when it tends toward any individual, determinate object. For then, judging what is foreign to us, we have no true principle of equity to guide us. In effect, once it is a question of a state of affairs or a particular right concerning a point that has not been regulated by a prior, general convention, the issue becomes contentious. It is a suit in which the interested private individuals are one of the parties and the public the other, but in which I fail to see either what law should be followed or what judge should render the decision. In these circumstances it would be ridiculous to want to defer to an express decision of the general will, which can only be the conclusion reached by one of its parts, and which, for other party, therefore, is merely an alien, particular will, inclined on this occasion to injustice and subject to error. Thus, just as a private will cannot represent the general will, for its part, alters its nature when it has a particular object; and as general, it is unable to render a decision on either a human or a state of affairs. When, for example, the populace of Athens appointed or dismissed its leaders, decreed that honours be bestowed on one inflicted penalties on another, and by a multitude of particular decrees, indiscriminately exercised all the acts of government, the people in this case no longer had a general will in the strict sense. It no longer functioned as sovereign but as magistrate. This will appear contrary to commonly held opinions, but I must be given time to present my own. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
It should be seen from this that what makes the will general is not so much the number of votes as the common interest that unites them, for in this institution each person necessarily submits oneself to the conditions one imposes on others, an admirable accord between interest and justice which bestows on common deliberations a quality of equity that disappears when any particular matter is discussed, for lack of a common interest uniting an identifying the role of the judge with that of the party. From whatever viewpoint one approaches this principle, one always arrives at the same conclusion, namely that the social compact establishes among the citizens an equality of such a kind that they all commit themselves under the same conditions and should all enjoy the same rights. Thus by the very nature of the compact, every act of sovereignty (that is, every authentic act of the general will) obligates or favours all citizens equally, so that the sovereign knows only the nation as a body and does not draw distinctions between any of those members that make it up. Strictly speaking, then, what is an act of sovereignty? It is not a convention between a superior and an inferior, but a convention of the body with each of its members. This convention is legitimate because it has the social contract as a basis; equitable, because it is common to all; useful, because it can have only the general good for its object; and solid, because it has the public force and the supreme power as a guarantee. So long as the subjects are subordinated only to such convention, they obey no one but their own will alone. And asking how far the respective rights of the sovereign and the citizens extend is asking how far the latter can commit themselves to one another, each to all and all to each. We can see from this that the sovereign power, absolute, wholly sacred and inviolable as it is, does not and cannot exceed the limits of general conventions, and that every human can completely dispose of such goods and freedom as has been left to one by these conventions. This results in the fact that the sovereign never has the right to lay more charges on one subject than on another, because in that case the matter becomes particular, no longer within the range of the sovereign’s competence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Once these distinctions are granted, it is so false that there is, in the social contract, any genuine renunciation on the part of private individuals that their situation, as a result of this contract, is really preferable to what it was beforehand; and, instead of an alienation, they have merely made an advantageous exchange of an uncertain and precarious mode of existence for another that is better and surer. Natural independence is exchanged for liberty; the power to harm others is exchanged for their own security; and their force, which others could overcome, for a right which the social union renders invincible. Their life itself, which they have devoted to the state, is continually protected by it; and when they risk their lives for its defense, what are they then doing but returning to the state what they have received from it? What are they doing, that they did not do more frequently and with greater danger in the state of nature, when they would inevitably have to fight battles, defending at the peril of their lives the means of their preservation? If necessary, for the homeland; but it also is the case that no one has to fight on one’s own behalf. Do we not still gain by running, for something that brings about our security, a portion of the risks we would have to run for ourselves once our security is taken away? The question arises how private individuals who have no right to dispose of their own lives can transfer to the sovereign this very same right which they do not have. This question seems difficult to resolve only because it is poorly stated. Every human has the right to risk one’s own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a person who jumps out a window to escape a fire is guilty of committing suicide? Has the crime ever been imputed to someone who perishes in a storm, unaware of its danger when one embarked? #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
The social treaty has as its purpose the conservation of the contracting parties. Whoever wills the end also wills the means, and these means are inseparable from some risk, even from sone losses. Whoever wishes to preserve one’s life at the expense of others should also give it up for them when necessary. For the citizen is no longer judge of the peril to which the law wishes one be exposed, and when the prince has said to one, “it is expedient for the state that you should die,” one should die. Because it is under this condition alone that one has lived in security up to then, and because of one’s life is not only a kindness of nature, but a conditional gift of the state. The death penalty inflicted on criminals can be viewed from more or less the same point of view. It is in order to avoid being the victim of an assassin that a person consents to die, were one to become one. According to this treaty, far from disposing of one’s own life, one thinks only of guaranteeing it. And it cannot be presumed that any of the contracting parties is then planning to get oneself hanged. Moreover, every malefactor who attacks the social right becomes through one’s transgressions a rebel and a traitor to the homeland; in violating its laws, one ceases to be a member, and one even wages war with it. In the case the preservation of the state is incompatible with one’s own. Thus one of the two must perish; and when the guilty party is put to death, it is less as a citizen than as an enemy. The legal proceeding and the judgment are the proofs and the declaration that one has broken the social treaty, and consequently that one is no longer a member of the state. For since one has acknowledged oneself to be such, at least by one’s living there, one ought to be removed from it by exile as a violator of the compact, or by death as a public enemy. For such an enemy is not a moral person, but a human, and in this situation the right of war is to kill the vanquished. However, it will be said that the condemnation of a criminal is a particular act. Fine. So this condemnation is not a function of the sovereign. It is a right the sovereign can confer without itself being able to exercise it. All of my opinions are consistent, but I cannot present them all at once. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
In addition, frequency of physical punishment is always a sign of weakness or of torpor in the government. There is no wicked human who could not be made good for something. One has the right to put to death, even as an example, only someone who cannot be preserved without danger. With regard to the right of pardon, or of exempting a guilty part from the penalty decreed by the law and pronounced by the judge, this belongs only to one who is above the judge and the law, that is, to the sovereign. Still its right in this regard is not clearly defined, and the cases in which it is used are quite rare. In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because many pardons are granted, but because there are few criminals. When a state is in decline, the sheer number of crimes insures impunity. Under the Roman Republic, neither the senate nor the consuls ever tried to grant pardons. The people itself did not do so, even though it sometimes revoked its own judgment. Frequent pardons indicate that transgressions will eventually have no need of them, and everyone sees where that leads. However, I feel that my heart murmurs and holds back my pen. Let us leave these questions to be discussed by a just human who has not done wrong and who oneself never needed pardon. Many other sections of the Second Wave social code are also being drastically rewritten as the Third Wave arrives. Thus Second Wave civilization’s obsessive emphasis on maximization is also under sharp attack. Never before have advocates of Bigger Is Better been so assailed by advocates of Small Is Beautiful. It was only in the 1970’s that a book with that title could have become an influential, Worldwide best seller. Everywhere we are seeing a dawning recognition that there are limits to the much-vaunted economies of scale and that many organizations have exceeded those limits. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Corporations are now actively searching for ways to reduce the size of their work units. New technologies and the shift to services both sharply reduced the scale of operation. The traditional Second Wave factory or office, with thousands of people under a single roof, will be a rarity in the high-technology nations. In Australia, when I asked the president of an auto company to described the auto plant of the future, he spoke with utter conviction, saying, “I would never, ever again build a plant like this one with seven thousand workers under the same roof. I would break it into small unit—three hundred of four hundred in each. The new technologies now make this possible.” I have since heard similar sentiments from the presidents or chairmen of companies producing food and many other products. Today, we are beginning to realize that neither big nor small is beautiful, but that appropriate scale, and the intelligent meshing of both big and small, is most beautiful of all. (This was something that E.F. Schumacher, author of Small Is Beautiful, knew better than some of his more avid followers. He once told friends that, had he lived in a World of small organizations, he would have written a book called Big Is Beautiful.) We are also beginning to experiment with new forms of organization that combine the advantages of both. For example, the rapid spread of franchising in the United States of America, Britain, Holland, and other countries is often a response to capital shortage or tax quirks and can be criticized on various grounds. However, it represents a method for rapidly creating small units and linking them together in larger systems, with varying degrees of centralization or decentralization. It is an attempt to mesh large- and small-scale organizations. Second Wave maximization is on its way out. Appropriate scale is in. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
Society is also taking a hard look at Second Wave specialization and professionalism. The Second Wave code book put experts on a towering pedestal. One of its basic rules was “Specialize to succeed.” Today, in every field, including politics, we see a basic change in attitude toward the expert. Once regarded as the trustworthy source of neutral intelligence, specialists have been dethroned from public approval. They are increasingly criticized for pursuing their own self-interest and for being incapable of anything but tunnel vision. We see more and more efforts to restrain the power of the expert by adding laymen to decision-making bodies—in hospitals, for example, and many other institutions. Parents demand the right to influence school decisions, no longer content to leave them to professional educators. After studying citizen political participation a few years ago, a task force in the state of Washington concluded, in a statement that summed up the new attitude, “You do not have to be an expert to know what you want!” Second Wave civilization encouraged yet another principle: concentration. It is concentrated money, energy, resources, and people. It poured vast populations into urban concentrations. Today this process, too, has begun to turn around. We see increasing geographical dispersal instead. At the level of energy, we are moving from a reliance on concentrated deposits of fossil fuels to a variety of more widely dispersed forms of energy and we are seeing numerous experiments aimed at “de-concentrating” the populations of schools, hospitals, and lunatic asylums. In short, one could move systematically through the entire code book of Second Wave civilization—from standardization to synchronization right on down to centralization, maximization, specialization, and concentration—and show, item by item, how the old ground rules that governed our daily lives and our social decision-making are in the process of being revolutionized as Third Wave civilization sweeps in. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Although behaviour inhibition in social settings may be the hallmark of social anxiety, social perception skills also appear to be negatively associated with social anxiety. This less visible aspect of social skill involves the ability to accurately detect and identify emotional states in other people, the impact one is having on others during conversations, and other people’s interest in continued interaction. If we look at what has happened in the World in the past hundred years, and what is still happening today, the exhibition of the negatives in human character is discouraging: so many weaknesses and cruelties, animalities and jealous, pettinesses and stupidities. Terrestrial humans have been violently on the rampage in our times, robbing, hating, attacking, destroying, and killing Spiritual humans have remained weakly in the background. Reasoning humans have oscillated between the two poles, sometimes sensitive to higher ideals in the guidance of one’s thinking, more often selfishly blind to any other welfare than one’s own. All sincere well-wishes of humanity are today distressed in heart and doubt-ridden in mind. Baffled and bewildered, they stand before the complex spectable of this disordered age. Doubt is a figure always pictured by the ancient World with a bandage across her eyes. This is the exact condition of our age. Whoever looks around at the World of the past three quarters of a century, at this negativity, its folly and insanity, its horrors, may say that it is a wicked World, that humans are incorrigibly evil. It would be fairer to introduce a note of balance and refer to the existence of Yin and Yang in life, in the Universe, and consequently in human character. It is the work of evolution in out time to bring to the surface of thought and action the most ferocious instincts and darkest bestiality which many humans still hide beneath their civilized exterior. However, such an outbreak of evil is destined eventually to modify evil itself, to tame those instincts and subside the bestiality. The night is darkest just before dawn. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The evil things we have seen and still see all around us in contemporary humanity have come to the surface only to be carried off again. The decadence of human society and the degeneration of the human race which shadow contemporary history, are signs of the scum arising out of the human subconscious. However, they arise only to be cleared away. Out of this clearance there will later come an awakening to the Good, an appreciation of the True. In this sense their darkness is an inverted precursor of the light, the worse which makes a way for the better. It is a token that the cycle of materialism will eventually turn on itself and yield to a cycle of spirituality. If the World’s present state is so ugly and menacing, we ought not to blame it as a failure on the part of God but rather on the part of humans. When asked to identify interpersonal information from audio-video presentations of dyadic interaction, socially anxious individuals decode more properly than nonanxious controls. Socially anxious people perform no better than a chance, and considerably worse than control subjects, when asked to detect deceptive communications in videotaped presentations. Evidence is also accumulating to indicate that social anxiety influences the interpretation of emotional facial expressions in other people. Socially anxious persons show a negative response bias when judging facial expressions. Thus they more readily identify negative facial expressions, but are less accurate in identifying neutral facial expressions, with a tendency to characterize them incorrectly as negative. The heightened social vigilance of socially anxious people may make them more accurate at identifying facial expressions of emotion, provided that the situation is nonstressful. However, when they are stressed, their accuracy in identifying facial expressions decreases noticeably. Evidence from the domains of nonverbal social behaviours, verbal behaviours, and social perception skills indicates that social skills deficits are evident among people with social anxiety. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
The evidence is sufficiently pervasive that social skills deficits are not regarded as a potential theoretical explanation for social anxiety. However, this theorizing, and its associated evidence, have yet to determine the precise causal ordering of these two variables. One plausible account of the relationship between social skills deficits and social anxiety holds that social anxiety may be the result of poor social skills. Accordingly, people with poor social skills are expected to experience negative interpersonal outcomes, and to fail to achieve many beneficial outcomes. Such people may consequently come to fear and avoid interpersonal encounters as a result of such a learning history. Two rare longitudinal studies in this literature provide at least some support for this conceptualization. In one of these studies, university students were followed over a period of 4 months; in the other, high school students were followed over a 6 month period as they made the transition to college life. In each case, social skills at one time one were predictive of residual changes in social anxiety (id est, time 2 social anxiety with time 1 social anxiety partialed out), such that those with poor social skills at time 1 evidenced increases in social anxiety over the course of the study. These findings demonstrate that poor social skills can in fact lead to a worsening of social anxiety. The self-presentational model of social anxiety provides an explanation for why poor social skills may lead to social anxiety. People who are aware of their less than adequate social skills may reasonably expect that they will not be able to leave a desired impression on others. This expectation may then create a sense of anxiety in social situations. Unfortunately, the social anxiety that results from this negative expectation is likely to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. An alternative explanation of the relationship between social skills deficits and social anxiety suggests that social skills deficits may be pursuant to symptoms of social anxiety. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
According to such a hypothesis, some people may become socially anxious, perhaps due to a traumatic event, and consequently avoid social encounters in an effort to cope with and manage their anxiety. As a result, their social skills are assumed to atrophy from disuse. Although this hypothesis has considerable face validity, it has yet to be extensively investigated and is a prime candidate for immediate research attention. It should go without saying that is may not be appropriate to pit these two hypothesized casual paths against each other. In all likelihood, there are multiple avenues to both poor social skills and social anxiety. For some poor social skills may be a cause of social anxiety, while for others they may be a consequence. It is also important to note that the relationship between the “skilled” use of communication behaviours and social anxiety is neither perfect nor straightforward. A number of studies have found no differences between socially anxious and nonanxious subjects in various communication behaviours such as eye contact, use of questions and assertions, or performance on a simulated job interview. Some socially anxious people may do a good job of masking their anxiety, and may develop and exhibit adequate social skills. Similarly, some people with poor social skills may be so socially anxious people may have social skills that are quite functional from their own point of view. Socially anxious people appear to be very “skilled” at avoiding intense involvement in conversation, listening to others, being socially facilitative, and being attentive. When your thoughts have been running in a certain patterns for a long period of time, it is as though they have been eroding a deep riverbed, and the water can flow in only one direction. Imagine a person who habitually leans toward negative thinking day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. With every negative thought, one digs that riverbed so deep it feels like one is in Hell. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
That individual has programmed one’s mind into a negative thinking pattern. One of the most robust patterns of social cognition associated with social anxiety is the expectation that social encounters will go badly and that others will respond negatively. Even children with anxiety disorder expect negative outcomes to result from interaction with other children. The particularly harsh self-evaluations of social skills and expectations of rejection from others are consistent with the self-presentational model of social anxiety, particularly the doubt that one will be able to achieve a desired impression. The imagined and expected negative social responses from others that are characteristically of socially anxious individuals appear to be fairly automatic, robust, and not easily challenged. For example, a group of socially anxious female college students who told stories about themselves to partners felt more strongly that their partners perceived them as dishonest, and insincere than nonanxious controls felt about their partners. When patients with social phobia were asked to interpret ambiguous social events (exempli gratia, “You are in class and are asked to read a passage out loud. When you finish, you see that two people are staring at you”), they tended to choose negative interpretations, such as “They think you messed up the passage.” However, persons with social phobia did not exhibit this negative interpretation bias for nonsocial scenarios. When presented with objectively negative social scenarios, such as “You have been talking with someone for a while and it becomes clear that they are not interested in what you are saying,” people with social anxiety disorders interpreted these with catastrophizations—that is, interpretations such as “I was stupid, boring, incompetent,” and “I will lose all my friends, be rejected, lose my job.” Fortunately, we can cause a new river to flow, one going in an optimistic direction as we dwell on God’s Word and start seeing the best in the situation, little by little. With effort, one thought at a time, one will redirect that rushing river in the right direction. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
Nonetheless, even in a study where social interactions had objectively beneficial outcomes, people with social anxiety disorder overestimated the visibility of their anxiety and underestimated the interest they conveyed to their partner and their overall likability. However, the socially anxious subjects in this study exhibited a positive evaluation bias for their conversational partners, indicating that such negative evaluations and expectations may be specific to the self. It was discovered that socially anxious people doubt the authenticity of positive feedback from others. When socially anxious individuals experience objectively positive social outcomes such as enthusiastic and friendly responses from a partner, their expectations for future interactions became even more pessimistic. This is because they feel that their partners will raise their standards and expect even more in the future interactions—an expectation that socially anxious persons “know” they will be unable to meet. Keep in mind, at first only a little of optimistic thinking will trickle into the river of negative thoughts, so it will take time for the mucky water to become diluted and pushed out so the clean water can replace it. You have to wash your mind of all that pain and trauma by constantly reading the Word of God and thanking God for the blessings in your life and this can take years, even decades because we are constantly taking in abuse, but the journey is worth it, instead of becoming bitter, evil, angry, and hateful. “Many waters cannot quench love, nor can floods drown it,” reports Solomon 8.7. Social anxiety may be associated with expectations for failure, in part, because of heightened self-focused attention. In interpersonal contexts, socially anxious persons will pay less attention to the environment and more attention to themselves and their performance. Although findings are mixed as to whether this self-focused attention impairs actual performance, it is likely to taint cognitions. #RanolphHarris 14 of 21
Self-focused attention implies that socially anxious people focus on the somatic and affective anxiety reactions that they experience in social situations, as opposed to focusing on the task at hand, the environment, and the partner. For example, when preparing to give a speech or public presentation, a person with social anxiety may notice such sensations and feelings as rapid heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and rising terror. Socially anxious people use perceptions of their bodily sensation to make more global inferences about their appearance. This tendency to make negative inferences from signs of automatic arousal is known as anxiety sensitivity, and is a risk factor for developing anxiety. So the conclusion of the hypothetical public speaker with self-focused attention would be “I must look terrible to them.” It then becomes a “logical” conclusion that “I will do badly.” Occasionally, one may be tempted to mull over discouraging thoughts. However, one must rise and “Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow,” reports Isaiah 1.18. Social anxiety is associated with the tendency to expect social failure and negative reactions from other people. For socially anxious individuals, neutral social stimuli are interpreted negatively; negative social outcomes result in catastrophization; and, most interestingly, positive social outcomes prompt even more pessimistic appraisals for future success. Social success appears to have little positive impact on socially anxious persons’ self-efficacy expectations. Their negative expectations for social interaction may be fed in part by heightened self-focused attention in social context. It is certainly possible that the negative expectations for interpersonal interactions that are characteristic of socially anxious individuals serve also to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Findings on interpersonal rejection show that, unfortunately, these negative expectations are not baseless. “For by your words you will be justified and acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned and sentenced,” reports Matthew 12.37. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Do not be passive, sitting back and allowing negative, critical, pessimistic thoughts to influence your life. The Bible tells us that we need to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds,” reports Romans 12.1-2. If you will transform your thinking, God will transform your life. God will help you, but you are going to have to make quality decisions every day, choosing the good, rejecting the bad. Determine to keep your mind set on the good things of God. Right now you can say: Father, I am excited about today. This is a day You have made; I am going to rejoice and be glad in it. God, I know You reward those who seek You, so I thank You in advance for Your blessings, favour, and success in my life today. I am going to change the flow of my thoughts. For now on, I will choose to align my thinking with Your Word. When I tend to be negative, please show me the error of my way, so I can redirect the flow in the proper direction. O, Lord, I am not worthy of Your consolation, nor of any spiritual visitation from You. Please just treat me justly when You leave me empty and desolate. At this point in my life, even if I could weep tears like the waves of the sea, I still would not be worthy of You consolation. Whence, I am worthy of nothing more than flagellation and incarceration. That is because I have sinned mortally and frequently and been derelict in all sorts of responsibilities. Therefore, as True Reason has parceled it out, I am not worthy enough even of the least of Your consolations. However, You, O Clement and Merciful God, You do not want Your good work to die the death, do You? You would pour the riches of Your Goodness into amphorae of mercies, then deign to console Your servant, who have got only a few merits in one’s haven, beyond one’s capacity to count; that is You Paul to the Romans again (9.23). All of which is another way of saying, human stories often rely on a causality that produces a happy ending; spiritual stories, on the other hand, have a causality all of their own; that is to say, they produce only the most extravagantly happy endings. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
What have I done, O Lord, that You would confer Celestial Consolation on me? Not a great deal, sad to say. I have always been prone to vices, and supine to doing anything about them. It is true. I would like to deny it, but I cannot. If I were to say otherwise, You would stand against me, and no one would rise to defend me. What have I have I earned for all my sins but Hell and Eternal Fire? In all truth I confess that I deserve only contempt; that is to say, to be made a laughingstock in a World that shuns public laughter. Nor is it decent of me to want to be remembered as one of Your Devouts. Although it will bruise my ears, nevertheless I am going to say it. Just to se the record straight. Yes, Sin and I have been keeping company. The only reason I make a public statement of it now is to make it somewhat easier for me when I try to gain an easier, better access to Your mercy. What can I say, I am a terrestrial being who does not know all the Divine knowledge. I do not need a mouthpiece—I can say this word myself. Peccavi. I have sinned, O Lord, over and over again. Have mercy on me. Please forgive me. Please let me follow poor job’s path “a little while that I might lick my wounds, before I have to make my way to that tenebrous land where the willows weep and are covered with the darkness of death” (10.20-22). Why do You require so much of me? I am only a terrestrial being, and a wretched sinner at that. Beat me, batter me, humble me for my derelictions. Hope of Forgiveness in conjunction with True Contrition and Humiliation of Heart produces two things. One’s conscience, having been driven mad, is finally reconciled. Ans one’s welfare is protected from future wrath. These done, who will run to meet each other with a holy embrace, but both God and the Penitent Soul. Humble Contrition for Sins—does this smell like an acceptable, old-fashioned sacrifice to You, O Lord? Does not the sickening, sweet stench arising from the temple sacrifice do more for Your hairy nostrils than a good censing from a smoking thurible? #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Again, Humble Contrition for Sins—does not this seem like an agreeable unguent? The Psalmist seemed to think so (51.17). The kind of slow-flowing, cool-feeling nard that Magdalene poured over Your feet? Luke made such a tender scene that of in his Gospel (7.46). Why do I think that? Because, if I may site the Psalmist again, again in the same place, You have never looked down Your nose at a contrite and humbled heart. Heaven is the place of refuge from the Enemy’s wrathful face. Heaven is also the place where the cracked crockery’s repaired and the soiled linen washed and bleached. Jesus Christ said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what God wills? NO! Ask what ye will, and it shall be do9ne unto you,” reports John 15.7. It does not say a thing about God’s will. Ask what you will. However, if the Word of God abides in you, then you are going to frame your prayer accurately according to the Word of God and you are not going to pray for things that you know are not the will of God. If you had a financial need to pray that someone would lose their billfold so you could find it and get their money, it would be foolish. That would be evil. The Bible says in James 4:2-3, “Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.” Here James is not talking about asking for something that just was not God’s will. He goes further and deeper than that. The word amiss means evil. Ask evil. If you read on, you will find out what the problem was. He says to them, “ye adulterers and adulteresses.” They were probably praying for someone else’s wife, and that was evil! If you pray for things you know are evil, your heart will condemn you and your faith will not work. If Jesus had said, “If ye abide in me, ask what ye will and it shall be done,” would not it have been wonderful. Oh, praise God, that would have been great! #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Everyone who is born again could just ask what they want, and there it would be. However, it does not work that way. Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what ye will, and it shall be done. Sometimes people pray, “Dear Lord, I cast this care on You and I believe You to take this care and I praise You, Father, that the need is met.” However, before they get out of the church, they say, “You know I am so worried. I just do not know what I am going to do.” The Word did not abide in them. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. Someone says, “Oh, if I ask what I will, that would be selfish.” Read the next verse: Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit. Do you believe that it is God’s will for the Father to be glorified? Every time you get your prayer answered, it glorifies the Father. Now do you see how you can build wrong thinking by using one verse of scripture alone? People that think wrong believe wrong; when they believe wrong, they act wrong. That is one of the main problems in the church World today. Many people believe wrong because they think wrong. They are right in their hearts but wrong in their heads. Ken, a thirty-year-old-businessman, began to become aware of a lifelong pattern of fearing intimacy in relationships. His first marriage had failed because of his avoiding being close to his wife. However, just as disturbing were his many relationships with others that he characterized as being polite but rather boring and meaningless. As a child and teenager, no one would take him seriously. He often longed for someone to talk to him about something of importance. However, his family and friends would only tease him or ignore him. This served to increase his basic anxiety. He said: “If only someone had talked to me, I could have gained some self-respect and even learned how to talk back. However, they did not. I became real self-conscious, and I still do not know how to respond to people do I avoid them.” #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Ken’s body reflects his difficulty with relationships. It is tense and drawn. Poor posture and lack of bodily animation revel the isolation and fear he experiences in life. Even his monotone voice declares the agony of years of feeling, frightened, alone, and left out. The way Ken learned to handle people was to keep his distance, withhold his feelings, blame others when things did not go well, and withdraw into grim silence when he felt angry with anyone. However, with the awareness of his fears of intimacy, Ken made real progress with his group of friends. He became increasingly able to feel emotionally close to others. He took more of an active part in building relationships. He even surprised himself by being genuinely tender and even charming as he became moved by some of the difficulties that other people faced. Ken is like many Christians who spend their lives going to church, but who do not learn how to relate to people in a direct and caring way. However, with awareness, courage, and practice, ken has begun the challenge of opening himself up to new and exciting friendships. His group provided him with an atmosphere of caring that gave him the support to make the journey through his fears. We could say that Ken’s lifestyle was rigid enough to be called a character disorder, yet not severe enough to be psychosis. If the early development of a withdrawn approach to life had run its full course, it could have resulted in complete emotional isolation from others. This would be clinically diagnosed as schizophrenia, the ultimate inversion on the polarity of weakness. So the anti-growth forces that interrupt human growth can range in intensity all the way from mild to severe. It is like that for all of us, for we are somewhere along the continuum from full aliveness and effectiveness in living, to emotional deadness and incapacity to cope with life. The important thing is that we learn to be sensitive to our own growth as well as to the psychological and spiritual well-being of those around us. This means taking responsibility to make sure we are following the best path for a vital and meaningful life. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
My brother the star, my mother the Earth, my father the sun, my sister the moon, to my life give beauty, to my body give strength, to my work give goodness, to my house give peace, to my spirit give truth, to my elders give wisdom. We must pray for strength. We must pray to come together, pray to the weeping Earth, pray to the trembling waters and to the wandering rain. We must pray to the whispering moon, pray to the tip-toeing stars and to the hollering sun. Now whatever has an accidental existence in creatures, when considered as transferred to God, has a substantial existence; for there is no accident in God; since all in Him is His essence. May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us forsake us. Save us, O God of our salvation, gather us, and deliver us from among the nations that we may give thanks unto Thy holy name, and find honour in praising Thee. The Lord is King, the Lord was King, the Lord shall be King for ever and ever. May the Lord give strength unto His people. May the Lord bless His people with peace. We pray that our words may find favour before the Lord of all humankind. When the Ark moved forward, Moses said: Rise up, O Lord, let Thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee. Arise, O Lord, unto Thy sanctuary, Thou, and the Ark of Thy strength. Let Thy priests be clothed with salvation; let Thy faithful ones exult. For the sake of David, Thy servant, reject not Thine anointed. And on that day it shall be said: This is our God; we placed our hope in Him that He might save us; this is the Lord in whom we put or trust; we shall be glad and rejoice in His salvation. Thy kingdom is a kingdom for all ages, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. You were designed to shine and to illuminate what is good. You are the light of the World, America, so do not add to the evil; turn your love on. It works best in evil places. For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from America. In Thee alone do we put our trust, O King, high and exalted God, Lord of the Universe. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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When are You Going to Face the Real World?
The good and the bad are all part of the World-picture, although their proportions vary as the time-wheel turns around. It is the function of such opposing forces, environments, or persons to compel one to negotiate them properly, or suffer the consequences. Often what manages to get the public eye ends up with little or no spiritual profit. However, just as often what the public eye fails to notice is of the greatest possible spiritual importance. It would be a totally unobservant or totally theoretic person who denied the presence of evil, but it would be an ill-informed one who did not perceive that its life and power are circumscribed. I hope I shall not be misunderstood for saying that I saw clearly how the physical expression of evil is a necessary prerequisite to the spiritual redemption from evil. For what the sinner does is after all only an outcome of what one thinks. If the doing of wrong actions will, by the higher law of recompense, bring one ultimately the physical punitive consequences of those actions, they will also bring one—and again ultimately—the thought that the two are inseparably connected together. This is a step—admittedly only a first step—toward that repentance and that purification which make redemption possible. The notion that the God-Power is engaged in a desperate struggle with an evil power, that God calls on humans to give His help and that the outcome of this warfare depends to any extent on such help—this notion is a ridiculous one. My experience of life and observation of others have taught me that there is no situation in which you will find good alone present without some concomitant evil. To look for undiluted good is utopian, unrealistic, and self-deceptive. #RandolphHarris 1 of 22
The procession of love in God ought not to be called generation. In evidence whereof we must consider that the intellect and the will differ in this respect, that the intellect is made actual by the object understood residing according to its own likeness in the intellect; whereas the will is made actual, not by any similitude of the object willed within it, but by its having a certain inclination to the thing willed. Thus the procession of the intellect is by way of similitude, and is called generation, because every generator begets its own like; whereas the procession of the will is not by way of similitude of the object willed within it, but by its having a certain inclination to the thing willed. Thus the procession of the intellect is by way of similitude, and is called generation, because every generator begets its own like; whereas the procession of the will is not by way of similitude, but rather by way of impulse and movement towards an object. So what proceeds in God by way of love, does not proceed as begotten, or as son, but proceeds rather as spirit; which name expresses a certain vital movement and impulse, accordingly as anyone is described as moved or impelled by love to perform an action. All that exists in God is one with the divine nature. Hence the proper notion of this or that procession, by which one procession is distinguished from another, cannot be on the part of this unity: but the proper notion of this or that procession must be taken from the order of one procession in God takes its name from the proper notion of will and intellect; the name being imposed to signify what its nature really is; and so it is that the Person proceeding as love receives the divine nature, but is not said to be born. #RandolphHarris 2 of 22
Likeness belongs in a different way to the word and to love. It belongs to the word as being the likeness of the object understood, as the thing generated is the likeness of the generator; but it belongs to love, not as though love itself were a likeness, but because likeness is the principle of love. Thus it does not follow that love is begotten, but that the one begotten is the principle of love. We can name God only from creatures. As creatures generation is the only principle of communication of nature, procession in God has no proper or special name, expect that of generation. Hence the procession which is not generation has remained without a special name; but it can be called spiration, as it is the procession of the Spirit. The awful fact of innate evil, the hideous mystery of innate sin, must be recognized and faced. We cannot make bad humans into good humans; but Nature, Life, with millions of years at her disposal, can. Evil arises where the good is still undeveloped from its latency, but sometimes it is the distortion of the good. We will understand this problem better when we understand that the presence of good and evil in the Universe does not signify a division of power but a division of thought. Thought is the cause; thought is the cure. Satan can pretend to be an Angel of Light. There are adepts in evil who hide their real aim behind an outward show of altruistic purpose. These secret purposes disguise themselves in a convenient form, and if no other is convenient they will even use some open purpose which stands in total opposition to them. They emerge in the most unlikely and unlooked-for places. The evil in human relations springs from the ignorance in human beings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 22
As each one brings the principle of truth into one’s own consciousness, one brings it into one’s relations with others as a result. The love which accompanies it denies birth to cruelty, anger, and lust or dissolves any which already exist. Although it is perfectly true that divine goodness is at the heart of things, it is no less true that demonic evil is on the surface of things. The followers of simple cults which stubbornly try to see only the goodness and not the evil, which deny things as they are and indulged wishful thinking, have themselves and their leaders to blame when disaster awakens them to the errors in the map they are following. They would do better to arouse themselves, while there is yet time, to keep a soundly balanced attitude, neither falling over to one side or the other overmuch, yet always remembering that superphysical experience between the incarnations is disproportionately good and free from evil, by contrast with physical plane experience. Let us not insult human reason by denying human evil. In any universal arrangement or personal situation, there is either gross disorder, with its consequent turmoil trouble and suffering, or there is real order, with its harmonious co-operation with the divine will working outward from the divine center—be it humans’ heart or the sun’s rays. The great ills (miscalled evils) of bodily life, such as disease and poverty, are often forced upon one by an implacable fate. However, it would be a delusion to class them always with the great evils of mental life, such as hate and cruelty. For their control is frequently beyond one’s power, and their course may have to be endured, whereas sinful thoughts and their resultant deeds are not independent of one’s control and may be avoided. #RandolphHarris 4 of 22
Why is it that people are dazzled with this-Worldly thingamajigs? Well, unless they come to their right minds soon, they will amuse themselves to death. When right principles, theories, or concepts are taken up by the wrong persons, they become wrong themselves—because misused, falsified, prevented. Suffering is not always an evil. It is often educative. All evil is then seen to spring from separativeness, which is a stage inevitable to all creatures as they follow the line of unfoldment. Evil therefore is the adverse element in Nature. Humans can conquer it in one’s mind by conquering separativeness and realizing the All as oneself. At the same time one discovers that the whole creation is really a mental one, hence like but not the same as a dream; and if one keeps awake to the Static Reality whilst in the midst of the Earthly dream, the whole World becomes merely a school for educating consciousness. The suffering, evil, and the like are transient aspects leaving permanent results. The wedding of Heaven and Earth can never be brought about, since the Perfect and the Imperfect are incompatibles. However, they can be brought into some sort of equilibrium, into better balance, so that life in the World would not be as bad as it is. Those who ignorantly believe that God needs their help to ensure His triumph over evil in the World, have yet to learn that this triumph has been eternally accomplished already. The human being who can affect this situation either by helping or hindering does not exist. It is a disturbing concept which holds that man’s goodness seldom becomes actualized without the presence of, and struggle against man’s evil. If men engaged themselves more in asking not “What is good and what is evil?” but rather “What is the Highest Good?” the first question would get itself answered automatically and peace would then follow anyway. #RandolphHarris 5 of 22
When the evil in humans is washed out, one will find in all its goodness the original stuff of which one is made—beneficent to all, a joy to oneself. However, because we affirm that the powers of evil will destroy themselves in the end, this must not be mistaken to mean that we may all sit down in smug complacency. We ought not to make this an excuse for inaction. On the contrary, it should inspire us to stronger efforts to preserve the noblest things in life from their attack. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good humans do nothing. The night’s darkness shelters the evil forces, the sun’s brightness tells us where the divine ones are centralized. “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4.19. As God’s children, we are able to live an abundant life. That is acceptable. In fact, we should even expect to be blessed. Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one. If you come from a poor environment, or do not have a lot of material possession, that is fine. God has many blessings in store for you. However, all the good things in life are not material. Yet it is nice to also have material comforts. Therefore, do not allow the image of lack and limitation become the motion picture you constantly play in your head. It is good to be humble, but seeing yourself prospering is also healthy. One should seek to rise to new levels of success. Start looking through the eyes of faith and keep that image of happiness and success in your heart and mind. You may not be as affluent as you like, at the moment, but with hard work, dedication, education, and payer, anything is possible. #RandolphHarris 6 of 22
God has called for human help, and no one is coming. We are his last resort! How often on Earth has God put His trust in a human being, even in a Devout, and yet been disappointed! However, then again how often has God found a helping hand where He had no reason to expect one? The conclusion? Vain is the hope for consistency in human behaviour. However, God is always consistent; if the Psalmist has it right (37.39), then the Just are always saved. Only God can find the good in everything that happens to us. Left to ourselves, we are infirm and unstable, falliable and fallable. The Christ Holy Bible and Book of Mormon clearly shows that God takes pleasure in prospering His children. As His children prosper spiritually, physically, and materially, their increase brings God a sense of satisfaction that we can only imagine. If I introduced Leo and Annie to you, and they went to school with no shoes on, had holds in their clothes, and dirt under their fingernails, you would probably say, “That man is not a god father. He does not take good care of his children.” Indeed, my children’s poverty would be a direct reflection on me as their day. Just like a governor who brags about having the 5th largest economy in the World and over a twenty-five-billion-dollar surplus, but has the highest homeless population in the developed World. Perhaps, taxes are so high people cannot afford to live? Perhaps the people need a rebate of some of their money? Perhaps there should be a record number of affordable housing units going up on undeveloped land? Perhaps taxpayer funded sports arenas could be converted into affordable lofts? #RandolphHarris 7 of 22
Nonetheless, when we go through life with a poverty mentality, it is not glorifying to God. It does not honour His great name. No, God is honoured and pleased when we develop a prosperous mindset. God wants to supply every need you have, and He will! With that being said, do not expect much from your politicians. Do not turn to the news for answers. Pick up the Bible, go to church and pray to God for all that you seek. God, I thank You that You have better things in store for me than I would even choose for myself, that Your dream for me is even grander than my dream for myself, and Your resources are inexhaustible! Devouts like me keep a good monastic muzzle on ourselves in everything we say or do. However, will that caution and circumspection really prevent us from being axed and battleaxed? All I know, O Lord, is that whoever confides in You and “speaks from a simple heart”—a characteristic much favoured in the Wisdom of Solomon (1.1)—does not fall so easily. Oh, he will slip—he is bound to—but God will come to his rescue or, at the very least, God will offer one some help. That is because God does not desert whoever has put one’s hope in Him for the Long Haul. A rare find is the faithful friend who preserves through all the ups and downs of friendship. God is the most faithful of friends, O Lord, and without You there is no such thing as Friendships. “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the World that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, not be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life,” reports John 3.16. The spiritual event, the mystical experience, is there but its presentation to the conscious mind—manipulated by one’s personal tendencies to an extent which exaggerates their importance—creates a mixed result. #RandolphHarris 8 of 22
However, the glow of this transcendence lingers in the heart for long after its actual manifestation. It suffuses one with unearthly happiness and fills one with solemn reverence. When this mood is fully upon one, one may find it hard to talk to anyone for some time afterward. One emerges from the experience feeling surrounded by peace and protected by supernormal powers. The glimpse vanishes, slowly with a few, quickly with most, leaving its effects in one’s recognition of greater possibilities in life and grander ones in oneself. One comes back from the glimpse not only renewed in grace but purged in character, not only less egoistic but more detached, hence calmer. It is only a mood, of course, and may vanish in a few minutes, hours, or days. However, whereas most other moods pass from memory and are unrecallable, this kind is unforgettable. This wonderful and memorable experience, call it Void or call it God, will for some time afterwards become a kind of background to the events of one’s life and to one, oneself. Illumination arising from suffering seems to last longer than that arising from happiness because the latter is easier to lose. One is likely to become careless with that which comes from happiness. Whatever the height reached, the glory felt during the glimpse, one still lives on as a human being after it has passed. Thoughts reappear, ordinary emotions are felt again. The uplifted consciousness falls back, the rapturous moments pass away. One must then revert to the ordinary animal-intellectual life of everyday, to all the human implications of one’s existence. Why try, vainly, to deny them? #RandolphHarris 9 of 22
One has seen some truth and may want to share it. However, in what manner can one communicate that which is not intellectually measurable? If the glimpse does not last, is a human discovers, or rather comes back to find, that one still is human, one should be pleased that it came at all. It is not easy and it may need a long period of practice and remembrance, but something of this afterglow may be kept and retained even amid the turmoil of the World’s work. In those glorious enchanted moments which immediately succeed the glimpse, almost anything seems possible. The glimpse comes to be treasured in memory as something very precious and quite unique, most intimate and not freely talked about with others. Slowly and dimply one will become aware of one’s surroundings and one’s body. Little by little one will struggle back to them as if from some far planet. The recovery of consciousness will be only intermittent at first, only in brief snatches achieved with difficulty. However, later it will be heled and kept for longer periods until it remains altogether. The afterglow of this experience may be a sensation of its curative power, leaving nerves and heart healed of their troubled negative conditions, or of it purifying power, leaving the mind freed of its undesired and undesirable thoughts. The glimpse leaves an afterglow of truth, a reassurance of support. One’s heart will be warmed and one’s will moved as a consequence of this experience. The test will come when one has to descend from the mountain-peck of mediation into the valleys of prosaic everyday living. Can one adjust the greatness one has seen and felt to this smaller narrower World or will one lose it therein? #RandolphHarris 10 of 22
The closer one comes to the Overself the more reticent one becomes about it. Even though the glimpse is so impressive, the subsequent activities of the day put it out of one’s mind until one is able to relax, perhaps at bedtime. When the spark of inspiration fades out, new ideas often go with it, of if they come, the power to utilize them escapes one. If the glimpse slips away from the greater calm, where does it go? Into the ever-active outward-turned thinking movement. From this inner World of Essence we descend to the outer World of Experience. “For every wrongdoer hates (loathes, detests) the Light, and will not come out into the Light, but shrinks from it, least one’s work (one’s deeds, one’s activities, one’s conduct) be exposed and reproved. However, one who practices truth [who does what is right] comes out into the Light; so that ones works may be plainly shown to be what they are—wrought with God [divinely prompted, sone with God’s help, in dependence upon Him],” reports John 3.20-21. Once there was a holy soul, St. Agatha, a wealthy girl who had vowed her virginity to Christ in the third century. As the official record of her martyrdom showed, she was brutally tortured and died in prison, but not before dropping this pearl of spiritual wisdom: “My mind is grounded and founded in Christ.” If only that were your sentiment also, then your every fear would not sting so, nor every unkind word stab. While the missionaries were on their trip westward, Joseph and his friends were busy in New York doing the Lord’s work. Parley Pratt’s nineteen-year-old brother, Orson, was much interested in Christ’s work in the latter day and went to Joseph requesting that he seek the Lord to know what his work would be. Joseph prayed earnestly in behalf of this young man. #RandolphHarris 11 of 22
By revelation given in November, Jesus Christ said: “My son Orson, hearken and hear and behold what I, the Lord God, shall say unto you. Blessed are you because you have believed, and more blessed are you because you are called of me to preach my gospel; to lift up your voice as with the sound of a trump, both long and loud, and cry repentance unto a crooked and perverse generation; preparing the way of the Lord for His second coming. The time is soon at hand, that I shall come in a cloud with power and great glory, and it shall be a great day at the time of my coming. Therefore prophesy and it shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost; and if you are faithful, behold, I am with you until I come.” In December Sidney Rigdon and his friend, Edward Partridge, traveled from Kirtland to New York to visit Joseph Smith and to learn more about the church. Joseph prayed to know in what manner they might serve. After much prayer, the Son of God said: “Listen to the voice of the Lord your God…I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified for the sins of the World. Behold, verily, verily I say unto my servant Sidney, I have looked upon thee and thy works. I have heard thy prayers and prepared thee for a great work. I have heard thy prayers and prepared thee for a greater work. Thou art blessed, for thou shalt do great things. And it shall come to pass, that there shall be a great work in the land…and I will show miracles, signs and wonders, unto all those who believe on my name. And whoso shall ask it in my name, in faith, they shall cast our devils; they shall heal the sick; they shall cause the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk. #RandolphHarris 12 of 22
“And the time speedily cometh that great things are to be shown forth unto the children of humans; but without faith shall not anything be shown. I haven sent forth the fullness of my gospel by the hand of my servant Joseph. Wherefore watch over one that one’s faith fail not, and it shall be given by the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, that knoweth all things; and a commandment I give unto thee, that thou shalt write for him. And the Scriptures shall be given even as they are in mine own bosom, to the salvation of mine own elect; for they will hear my voice, and shall see me. Lift up your hearts and be glad; your redemption draweth nigh. Fear not, little flock, the kingdom is yours until I come.” At about the same time this revelation came for Sidney Rigdon, a revelation was received directed to Edward Partridge, in which the Christ said: “I say unto you, my servant Edward, that you are blessed, and your sins are forgiven you, and you are called to preach my gospel. You shall receive my Spirit, the Holy Ghost, even the Comforter, which shall teach you he peaceable things of the kingdom. And you shall declare it with a loud voice, saying, Hosanna, blessed be the name of the most high God.” In a revelation given to Joseph in June, 1830 (Doctrine and Covenants 22), the Lord had explained that Moses had been told that men would one day take away many of the words which Moses and others had written, but that God would raise up another man who would give the words back to the people. By this God meant that parts of the Bible which Moses and others had written would be left out of the Scriptures or be lost, and another man would be inspired by God’s Spirit to know what had been omitted or lost and put them back in the Bible. This man was to be Joseph Smith, Jr., and Sidney Rigdon was to help him. #RandolphHarris 13 of 22
Sidney Rigdon was a student of the of the Bible, having spent years in its study. He had an unusual understanding of the Scriptures and at one time had resigned as minister because the church of which he was pastor did not teach according to the Bible. Truly the Lord had prepared him for a greater work. As Joseph and Sidney Rigdon worked together, God inspired them by his Holy Spirit that they might understand the things they read in the Bible. When two or more Scripture passages conflicted, God helped them to know what was right. The prophecy of Enoch is one book which is mentioned in the Bible but which had been omitted, apparently having been lost. Enoch was the righteous human who built the perfect city of Zion which was taken to Heaven. Enoch lived many hundreds of years before Jesus’ time. God made it known to Joseph Smith by his Holy Spirit what the prophecy of Enoch contained, and as God inspired his mind, he wrote about it. Joseph Learned that Enoch built the city of Zion where all were of one heart and mind and lived in righteousness. Enoch had been shown a vision in which he saw everything that was to happen to the World in the future. He saw Noah who built an ark to save the few righteous people from the flood which destroyed the wicked ones. He saw the coming of Jesus, the Son of God, who was born in a manger, and who came to show people the right way to live. He saw this Son of God crucified on a cross, and a great storm. He saw him raised from the dead and ascend into Heaven. In his visions Enoch saw the time when Jesus’ gospel would again return to the Earth. He saw the righteous gathered from all over the Earth to place called Zion, and to this place Enoch saw the Son of God come to live for a thousand year. The Lord has shown Enoch all things, even to the end of the World. Enoch saw the righteous people receive great joy, and the wicked ones fear God’s judgment against them. #RandolphHarris 14 of 22
God directed Joseph to put this lost book—the prophecy of Enoch—into the Holy Scriptures so it might be of help to those who study it to understand about God and his purpose. If they understood, they might become better people than they could otherwise be. This prophecy has also been included in the Doctrine and Covenants as Section 36. Joseph and Sidney Rigdon were working hard on the Inspired Version of the Scriptures when they received instructions by revelation in which the Lord said: “Behold, I say unto you, that it is not expedient in me that ye should translate any more until ye shall go to the Ohio. Ans again a commandment I give unto the church, that it is expedient in me that they should assemble together at the Ohio, against the time that my servant Oliver Cowdery shall return unto them. So Joseph and Sidney Rigdon laid aside their work on the Inspired Version of the Scriptures to preach and strengthen the church, and to prepare for an assembly of the Saints at Kirtland. The wonder of the human soul which, even surrounded by the depravity and folly of today, can still aspire nobly and think loftily, would be quite puzzling did we not know the dual nature of the human entity and the divine nature of the laws which govern it. So long as separate egos exist—separate from the cosmic ego in their own view, that is—so long will their ignorance produce what we call evil. The ego, let loose upon the World, uninstructed and unbridled, cannot in the final reckoning benefit the World. To talk of service, without wisdom or character, may squander its goodwill in egoistic mire. Note too that the resources of commerce and industry, far from making the tax more endurable through an abundance of money, only make it more burdensome. #RandolphHarris 15 of 22
I will not dwell upon a very obvious point, namely that, although a greater or lesser quantity of money in a state can give it more or less credit outside the state, it in no way alters the real fortune of the citizens and does not make them any more or less comfortable. However, I must make two important remarks. First, unless the state has extra commodities and the abundance of money comes from export trade, only the commercial towns are aware of this abundance, and the peasant only become relatively poorer. Second, since the price of everything increases with the increase in money, taxes must be increased proportionately, so that the famer finds oneself under a great burden without having greater resources. It should be noted that the tax on lands is actually a tax on its product. While everyone agrees that nothing is so dangerous as a tax on grain paid by the buyer, how is it we do not see that it is a hundred times worse if this tax is paid by the farmer oneself. Is it not the most direct method possible of depopulating the homeland, and thus in the long run of ruining it? For there is no worse scarcity for a nation than that of humans. Only the true statesman can rise one’s sights above the financial objectives of imposing greater taxes. Only one can transform onerous burdens into useful regulations of public administration. Only one can make the people wonder whether such establishments have for their purpose the good of the nation rather than the production of taxes. Duties on the importation of foreign merchandise which the local people are eager to have but which the homeland does not need; on the exportation of domestically produced merchandise of which the homeland has none to spare and which foreigners cannot do without; on the product of useless and excessively lucrative arts; on the entry into towns of pure luxuries, and in general on all luxury items will all achieve this twofold purpose. #RandolphHarris 16 of 22
It is by means of such taxes, which ease the burden of poverty and place the onus on wealth, that one must prevent the continual increase in the inequality of fortunes, the subjection of a multitude of workers and useless servants to the rich, the multiplication of idle people in the cities, and the desertion of rural areas. It is important to place a proportion between the price of thing and the duties imposed on them such that the greediness of private individuals is not too strongly tempted by the size of the profits to commit fraud. Moreover, smuggling must be made difficult by singling out merchandise that is more difficult to conceal. Finally, it is appropriate for the tax to be paid by the one who uses the thing taxed rather than the one who sells it, to whom the quantity of the duties with which one is charged would provide greater temptations and means of committing fraud. This is the usual practice in countries where the taxes are the heaviest and the best paid in the World. The merchant pays nothing. Only the buyer pays the duty, without any murmuring or sedition resulting, for since the provisions necessary for life, such as rice and grain, are completely exempt, the people are not oppressed and the tax falls only on the wealth. Moreover, all these precautions ought to be dictated not so much by the fear of smuggling as by the attention the government ought to pay to protecting private individuals from the seduction of illegitimate profits, which, after having turned them into bad citizens, would waste no time turning them into dishonest people. Let heavy taxes be levied on livery servants, carriages, mirrors, chandeliers and furnishings, on fabric and gilding, on the courtyards and the gardens of law makers, on public entertainment of all kinds, and on the idle processions, such as those of buffoons. #RandolphHarris 17 of 22
In sort, on that group of objects of luxury, amusement and idleness that catch everyone’s eye and that can scarcely be hidden, since their whole purpose is to be on display, and they would be useless if they should fail to be seen. There is no cause for fear that the proceeds of such taxes would be arbitrary, since they are imposed only on things that are not absolutely necessary. It shows a poor knowledge of humans to believe that human who have once been seduced by luxury can ever renounce it. They would a hundred times rather renounce necessities, preferring to die of hunger than of shame. The increase in their expense is only a new reason for sustaining it, when the vanity of displaying oneself as wealthy will reap its reward from the price of the things as well as the expanse of the tax. As long as there are rich people, and the state cannot contrive a revenue less onerous and more secure than one based on this distinction. Would you rather have the state getting revenue only by taxing them life out of its citizens, or allow them to compete on a limited basis with private industry, which may result in them becoming more economical? For some reason, industry would have nothing to suffer from an economic order that enriched the public finances, revitalized agriculture by relieving the farmer, and imperceptibly brought all fortunes close to that intermediate level of wealth which constitutes the true force of a state. I confess it could happen that these taxes might contribute to making some fashions come and go more quickly; but it would never happen without substituting others on which the worker would earn a profit without the public treasury taking a loss. In short, suppose the spirit of the government was constantly to levy all taxes on the superfluities of the rich, one of two things might happen. #RandolphHarris 18 of 22
Either the rich would remove their superfluities to turn them into something useful, which would redound to the profit of the state, in which case, the imposition of taxes would have produced the effect of the best sumptuary laws. The expenses of the state will of necessity have diminished with those of private individuals; and the public treasury in this way would not receive less than it would thereby gain for having to pay out less. Or, if the rich do not cut back on any of their extravagances, the public treasury would have, in tax proceeds on these extravagances, the resources it was seeking in order to provide for the real needs of the state. In the first case, the public treasury is enriched by reducing expenditures. In the second case, it is enriched by the useless expenditures of private individuals. Let us add to all this an important distinction in the matter of political right, and to which governments, jealous of doing everything by themselves, should pay great attention. I have said that since personal taxes and taxes on absolute necessities attack the right to property and consequently the true foundation of public society, they are always subject to dangerous consequences, if they are not established with the express consent of the people or its representatives. It is not the same for duties on things whose use can be forbidden. For then, since the private individual is absolutely constrained to pay, one’s contributions can be reckoned as voluntary. Thus the individual consent of each of the contributions takes the place of the general consent, and even presupposes it in a certain way. For why would the people be opposed to any tax levy that falls only on whoever wants to pay it? It would appear to me certain that whatever is not prescribed by the laws or not contrary to mores and that the government can forbid, it can permit a payment of a duty. #RandolphHarris 19 of 22
If, for example, the government can forbid the use of carriages, a fortiori it can impose a tax on carriages, a wise and useful way to blame their use without terminating it. Then one can view the tax as a type of fine, whose proceeds compensate for the abuse it punishes. Someone may perhaps object that since those called impostors, that is, those who impose or invent the taxes, are in the class of the rich, they will not take care to spare others at their own expense and to burden themselves in order to relieve the poor. However, such ideas must be rejected. If in each nation those to whom the sovereign commits the government of the peoples were, in virtue of their position, the enemies of the state, it would not be worth the trouble to inquire what they should do to make people happy. In millions of middle-class homes a ritual drama is enacted: the recently graduated son or daughter arrives late for dinner, snarls, flings down the wants ads, and proclaims the nine-to-five jobs, and the mother, exhausted and depressed from paying the latest batch of bills, are outraged. They have been through this before. Having seen good times and bad, they suggest a secure job with a big corporation. They young person sneers. Small companies are better. No company is best of all. An advanced degree? What for? It is all a terrible waste! Aghast, the parents see their suggestions dismissed one after another. Their frustration mounts until, at last, they utter the ultimate parental cry: “When are you going to face the real World?” Such scenes are not limited to affluent homes in the United States of America or even Europe. Japanese corporate moguls mutter in their sake about the swift decline of the work ethic and corporate loyalty, of industrial punctuality and discipline among the young. Even in Russia middle-class parents face similar challenges form youth. #RandolphHarris 20 of 22
Is this just another case of epater les parents—the traditional generational conflict? Or is there something new here? Can it be that young people and their parents are simply not talking about the same “real World”? The fact is that what we are seeing is not merely the classical confrontation of romantic youth and realistic elders. Indeed, what was once realistic may no longer be. For the basic code of behaviour, containing the ground rules of social life, is changing rapidly as the onrushing Third Wave. We saw earlier how the Second Wave brought with it a “code book” of principles or rules that governed everyday behaviour. Such principles as synchronization, standardization, or maximization were applied in business, in government, and in a daily life obsessed with punctuality and schedules. Today a countercode book is emerging—new ground rules for the new life we are building on a de-massified economy, on de-massified media, on new family and corporate structures. Many of the seemingly senseless battles between young and old, as well as other conflicts in our classrooms, boardrooms, and political backrooms are, in fact, nothing more than clashes over which code book to apply. The new code book directly attacks much of what the Second Wave person has been taught to believe in—from the importance of punctuality and synchronization to the need for conformity and standardization. It challenges the presumed efficiency of centralization and professionalization. It compels us to reconsider our conviction that bigger is better and our nations of “concentration.” To understand this new code, and how it contrasts with the old one, is to understand instantly many of otherwise confusing conflicts that swirl around us, exhausting our energies and threatening our personal power, prestige, or paycheck. #RandolphHarris 21 of 22
Prayer and focus on God is important for Spirit-Energy. This also helps the concentration of thoughts. The refusal to study the Bible or pray is short-sighted, narrow-minded, and unjustified, for this lays some foundation for the mental and higher planes of existence. Devotion to God is not concerned only with gaining abnormal physical power as the opponents seem to believe, but also with gaining physical health, freedom from sickness, abundant vitality, and especially a purified nervous system and disciplined instincts. God can bestow youthful elasticity to the body, and He will give deeper, more refreshing sleep; also, one passes into sleep more quickly. The steadiness which prayer provides has an effect on the consciousness, to, and it is an indirect means of attaining the requisite concentration, and ultimately, because of the effect on the interaction of heart and brain, the requiste inhibition of thiking. Thus, the art of prayer for self-healing and self-control has come to be traditionally handed down to the present day. Bakerman God, I am your living bread, strong, Bakerman God. I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf. I am your rising bread, well-kneaded by some divine and knotty pair of knuckles, by your warm Earth hands. I am bread well-kneaded. Put me in fire, Bakerman God, put me in your own bright fire. I am warm, warm as you from fire. I am white and gold, soft and hard, brown and round. I am so warm from the fire. Break me, Bakerman God. I am broken under your caring Word. Drop me in your special grace. The while for water we entreat Thee now, athirst as willows by the waterside, the pouring forth of old, remember Thou! O God of our salvation, save Thou us! These bearings boughs held upward in the way they sprout from Earth; these burdened by their plea, O answer, when in sudden need they pray. O God of our salvation, save Thou us! #RandolphHarris 22 of 22
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More Wonders of the Invisible World
Witchcraft is one of the most hidden works of darkness. And California had its full share of obscurity. People groping their way in the dark are unlikely to be either stable or judicious, and thus it is hardly surprising that much of the legends about witchcraft are violent and partisan. The Devil improves the darkness of this affair to push us into a blind man’s buffet, and we are even ready to be sinfully, yea, hotly and madly mauling one another in the dark. Some people want to contact the dead and consider seances, but they are dangerous because it is easy for a gate to be opened and something evil to come along with the spirit you want to contact. There is an old urban legend about “Bloody Mary.” If you chant “Bloody Marry” thirteen times into a mirror in a dark room, her spirit will appear. Some say she will prophesize for you, other versions say she will attack you. Historically, Bloody Mary was a nickname for Mary I of England, who suffered several miscarriages. She was also alleged to be a witch and was burned at the stake. Divination by mirror has been practiced in nearly all cultures for as long as mirrors have been around. Before that, any reflective surface, especially still water, was used to prophesy or catch a glimpse of the future. In many of these legends, the danger is that while you are trying to catch a glimpse of your future, you might also see some aspect of Death. Tradition also holds that at the moment of death, all the mirrors in the house should be covered so hey do not trap the departing spirit. Ancient Greeks and Native Americans believed that the reflection contained the soul, and could be capture by water. #RandolphHarris 1 of 14
It is bad luck to break mirrors because they are reflections of the soul, and also because they hold the future. That is why the seven years of bad luck occurs, you have broken your future. Many of the persons confessing these myths are witches by their own confession and have therefore abjured God and Chris, and given themselves up to the Devil, the Father of Lies. And what credit is to be given to the testimony of such against the lives of others? Many historians believe these early American legends are important and endeavor that the complete history of secret California witchcrafts and possessions might not be lost. The preservation of that history might in a be a singular benefit unto the church and unto the World, which makes many solicitous about it. Mrs. Winchester, who has been strangely visited by some shining spirits during the construction of her mansion, believed they were good Angels in her opinion of them. She intimated several things unto her friends, whereof some were to be kept secret. She also said that a new storm of witchcraft would fall upon the country to chastise the iniquity that was used in the willful smothering and covering of the last, and that many fierce opposites to the discovery of witchcraft would be thereby convinced. Many people are looking to acquire authentic, single-family Victorian homes because they believe in the renaissance of witchcraft and these homes possess souls, spirit, ghost, hidden occult symbol, and are supposedly spiritual nexuses. They are a power source to contacting the other World. #RandolphHarris 2 of 14
All spirits have something in common, but it matters who they are haunting. It matters what their traditions were when they were alive. In many Native American legends, they have thousands of Gods, and each of them had attendant monsters and demons. Pishachas are beings who haunt places where violent deaths have occurred. They eat human flesh and are supposed to be the sons of anger. They haunt cemeteries and places where cremations have taken place and can change their shape and become invisible. Sometimes they attack and eat their victims, in other instances they possess them and drive them insane. It is believed because there was some covenanting with the Devil they had committed and it was an unpardonable sin, that sin of which the scriptures said we must not pray for. Sometimes anyone who was not in a proper covenant with God was considered to be a witch. Witches are known to change into rabbits, cats, other familiar animals. Halloween costumes are a surviving remnant of the belief that transformed witches would be abroad before All Hallow’s Eve. Some of the Indian Powows [id est, pries-magicians] in this country during the 17th century, having received the Gospel and given good evidence of a true conversion to God in Christ, had with much sorrow of heart declared how they had, whilst in their Heathenism, by the hands of Evil Angels murdered their neighbours. A Nagual is a human being, a Shaman, who has acquired the power to shapeshift. Some Nagual have vampire qualities, changing into bats or owls to drain blood; in other cases the nagual is a respected and feared member of the community. In some places nagual are said to attack Indians who have too much contact with mestizo or Anglo populations. #RandolphHarris 3 of 14
There are myriad instances of witchcraft both in history and in the Bible, but some of the demonologists personal experiences are remarkable enough to make us wish they had given a more detailed account of the. In referring to Balaam, the biblical conjurer of familiar spirits, one of them said, “we have seen and know such wizards among the Heathen in our own land.” If I meant anything, it was that a ghost story would have a great pull over other ghost stories if one could see the person it happened to. One does get rather provoked at never coming across him or her. In April, nearly fifteen years after the Winchester Mansion opened for tour, it was a clear spring day, with no fog or half-lights about, and it was not yet four o’clock in the afternoon—not very ghost-like circumstances, you will admit. I had come home early from my club—it was a sort of holiday time with me just then for a few weeks—intending to get some letters written which had been on my mind for some days, and I had sauntered into the library of the mansion, a pleasant, fair-sized room lined with books, on the first floor. Before setting to work I sat down for a moment or two in an easy-chair by the fire, for it was still cool enough weather to make a fire desirable, and began thinking over my letters. No thought, no shadow of a thought of Mrs. Winchester was present with me, of that I am perfectly certain. The door was on the same side of the room as the fireplace; as I sat there, half facing the fire, I also half faced the door. I had not shut it properly on coming in, I had only closed it without turning the handle, and I did not feel surprised when it slowly and noiselessly swung open, till it stood right out into the room, concealing the actual doorway from my view. #RandolphHarris 4 of 14
If you think of the door as just hen acting like a screen to the doorway, you will perhaps understand the position better. From where I say I could not have seen anyone entering the room ill he or she had got beyond the door itself. I glanced up, half expecting to see someone come in, but there was no one; the door had swung open of itself. For the moment I sat on, with only the vague thought passing through my mind, “I must shut I before I begin to write.” However, suddenly I found my eyes fixing themselves on the carpet; something had come within their range of vision, compelling their attention in a mechanical sort of way. What was it? I rubbed my eyes and the wavy something that kept gliding, rippling in, gradually assumed a more substantial appearance. It was—yes, I suddenly became convinced of it, it was rippled of soft silken stuff, creeping in as if in some mysterious way unfolded or unrolled, not jerkily or irregularly, but glidingly and smoothly, like little wavelets on the sea-shore. And I sat there and gazed. I sat there still, as if bewitched, or under some irresistible influence, I cannot tell, but so it was. And it—came always rippling in, till at last it began to rise as it sill came on, and I saw that a figure, a tall graceful woman’s figure, was slowly advancing, backwards of course, into the room, and that the waves of pale silk—a very delicate shade of pearly grey I think it must have been—were in fact the lower portion of a long court-train, the upper part of which hung in deep folds from the lady’s waist. She moved in—I cannot describe the motion, it was not like ordinary walking or stepping backwards—till the whole of her figure and the clear profile of her face and head were distinctly visible, and when at last she stopped and stood there full in my view just, but only just beyond the door, I saw—it came upon me like a flash, that she was no stranger o me, this mysterious visitant! #RandolphHarris 5 of 14
I recognized, unchanged I seemed to me since the day, twenty-five years ago, when I had last seen her, the beautiful features of Mrs. Winchester. I should not have said unchanged. There was one great change in the sweet face. You remember my telling you that one of Mrs. Winchester’s greatest charms was her bright sunny happiness—she never seemed gloomy or depressed or dissatisfied, seldom even pensive. However, in this respect the face I sat there gazing at was utterly unlike Mrs. Winchester’s. Its expression, as she—or “it”—stood there looking, not towards me, but out beyond, as if at someone or something outside the doorway, was of the profoundest sadness. Anything so sad I have never seen in a human face, and I trust I never may. However, I sat on, as motionless almost as she, gazing at her fixedly, with no desire, no power perhaps, to move or approach more nearly to the phantom. I was not in the least frightened. I knew it was a phantom, but I felt paralyzed and as if I myself had somehow got outside of ordinary conditions. And there I sat—staring at Mrs. Winchester, and there she stood, gazing before her with that terrible, unspeakable sadness in her face, which, even though I felt no fear, seemed to freeze me with a kind of unutterable pity. I do not know how long I had sat thus, or how long I might have continued to sit there, almost as if in a trance, when suddenly I heard the front-door bell ring. It seemed to awaken me. I started up and glanced round, half-expecting that I should find the vision dispelled. But no; she was still there, and I sank back into my seat just as I heard my brother coming quickly upstairs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 14
He came towards the library, and seeing the door wide open walked in, and I, still gazing, saw his figure pass through that of Mrs. Winchester in the doorway as you may walk through a wreath of mist—only, do not misunderstand me, the figure of Mrs. Winchester till that moment had had nothing unsubstantial about it. She had looked to me, as she stood there, literally and exactly like a living woman—the shade of her dress, the colour of her hair, the few ornaments she wore, all were as defined and clear as a real person, or perhaps became so again as soon as my brother was well within the room. He came forward, addressing me by name, but I answered him in a whisper, begging him to be silent and to sit down on the seat opposite me for a moment or two. He did so, though he was taken aback by my strange manner, for I still kept my eyes fixed on the door. I had a queer consciousness that if I looked away it would fade, and I waned to keep cool and see what would happen. I asked George in a low voice if he saw nothing, but though he mechanically followed the direction of my eyes, he shook his head in bewilderment. And for a moment or two he remained thus. Then I began to notice that the figure was growing less clear, as if it were receding, yet without growing smaller to the sight; it grew fainter and vaguer, the colours grew hazy. I rubbed my eyes once or twice with a half idea that my long watching was making them misty, but it was not so. My eyes were not at fault—slowly but surely Sarah Winchester, or her ghost, melted away, ill all trace of her was gone. #RandolphHarris 7 of 14
I saw again the familiar pattern of the carpet where she had stood and the objects of the room that had been hidden by her draperies—all again in the most commonplace way: but she was gone, quite gone. Then George, seeing me relax my intense gaze, began to question me. I told him exactly what I have told you. He answered, as every common-sensible person of course would, that it was strange, but that such things did happen sometimes, and were classed by the wise under the head of “optical delusions.” I was not well, perhaps, he suggested. Been overworking? Had I not better see a doctor? However, I shook my head. I was quite well, and I said so. And perhaps he was right, it might be an optical delusion only. I had never had any experience of such things. “Poor” Mrs. Winchester I cannot help calling her. I heard of her indirectly, and probably, but for the sadness of her story, I should never have heard it at all. It was a friend of her husband’s family who had mentioned the circumstances in the hearing of a friend of mine, and one day something brought round the conversation to old times, and he startled me by suddenly enquiring if I remembered Sarah Winchester. I said, of course, I did. Did he know anything of her? And then he told me. She was dead—she had died some months after a long and trying illness, the result of a terrible accident. Something happened one evening when dressed for some grand entertainment or other, and though her injuries did not seem likely to be fatal at the time, she had never recovered the shock. “She was so pretty,” my friend said, “and one of the saddest parts of it is she could have not been any older than twenty when she passed away in 1922. She was such a sweet and bright lady.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 14
We all thought the she had finished construction of her mansion and moved up north to build another one. I did not tell him my story, for I did not want it chattered about, but a strange sort of shiver ran through me at his words. Not everyone was in agreement that the specters in the Winchester mansion had all been angry spirits or a delusion of the Devil. It having been represented to us that a most horrible witchcraft or possession of Devils hath invested several towns in Our Province of California under your government, and that divers persons have been convicted of witchcraft, like the Prison’s of the River, in Sacramento, California; some whereof have confessed their guilt, but others being of a known and good reputation these proceedings had caused a great dissatisfaction among our good subjects, for which reason you have put a stop thereunto until Our Pleasure should be known concerning the same, We therefore until Our Pleasure should be known concerning the same, We therefore approving of your care and circumspection herein have thought fit to signify Our Will and Pleasure, as We do hereby will and require you to give all necessary directions that in all proceedings against persons accused for witchcraft or being possessed by the Devil the greatest moderation and all due circumspection be used, so far as the same may be without impediment to the ordinary course of justice within Our said Province. And so We bid your very heartily farewell. Given at the Winchester Mansion the 15th day of April, 1947, in the fifth year of Our Reign. By Her Majesty’s Command. #RandolphHarris 9 of 14
Although the topic of witchcraft was now explosively controversial in California, nobody was to deny that people practiced it, and there was still some interest in investigating it. There are therefore references to it in many of the sermons in the 19th century. However, after the Winchester mansion was opened for tour, the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Winchester was thought to be paranormal and a circular letter was sent by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to investigate the collection of more instances of “remarkable providences” (these would include unusual natural phenomena as well as the preternatural). Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings in the Winchester mansion, on stones in the basement on the walls in the dressing room, in the monstrous or marvelous paintings in forbidden areas of the mansion which interpret to the mystical the inspired secrets of Mrs. Winchester, in the cryptic emblems of her old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practiced at reception by this secret society, there were found indications of a doctrine which was everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed. It is likewise to be understood, those who are desirous to raise any souls of the dead, ought to select those places wherein these kind of souls are most known to be conversant; or by some alliance alluring the souls into their forsaken bodies, or by some kind of affection in times impressed in them in their life, drawing the souls to certain places, things, or persons; or by the forcible nature of some place fitted and prepared to purge or punish these souls: which places for the most part are to be known by he appearance of visions, nightly incursions, and apparitions. #RandolphHarris 10 of 14
Mrs. Winchester lists convincing evidence that her experience of witchcraft extended well beyond what she had committed to writing: I know a young man who had gone so far as to get ready a Covenant with Satan, written all of it in his own blood. However, before the signing of it, the sinful, I was made the happy instrument of his deliverance. As soon was this man was left alone in the mansion, the devil, imagining that he had found the right moment for breaking his courage, incontinently roused up his own chosen vessel, who appeared to have reposed longer than usual. Having beheld this from afar, he grew stiff with terror by reason of his being alone; but soon recovering his courage, and no place of refuge being at hand, he valiantly withstood the onset of the fiend, who came rushing upon him with a terrible noise, and he struck the axe which he wielded in his hand deep into his body. On receiving this wound, the monster groaned aloud and turning his back, fled with a rapidity not at all inferior to that with which he had advanced, while the admirable man urged his flying foe from behind, and compelled him to seek his own tomb again; which opening of its own accord, and receiving its guest from the advance of the pursuer, immediately appeared closed again. Hence it is that the souls of the dead are not to be called up without blood or by the application of some part of their relict body. In the raising therefore of these shadows, we are to perfume with new blood the bones of the dead, and with flesh, eggs, milk, honey, and oil, which furnish the soul with a medium apt to receive its body. Gosh, it must be terrible to know you witnesses something, but that you will never be able to remember it or tell anyone about it. #RandolphHarris 11 of 14
I know a woman whose brother was tortured with a cruel, pricking, incurable pain in the crown of his head, which continued until there was found with her a puppet in wax, resembling him, with a pin pricked into the head of it, which being take out her recovered immediately. He goes on about demons. A demon killed his wife, he says, and just expects me to believe it. However, what he looks like to me is someone who let grief turn him into a monster. Whatever happened to his wife, it does not excuse what he had done. He attacks, kills, then springs away before anyone can react. Wicked sorceries have been practised in the land, and, in the late inexplicable storms from the invisible World thereby brought upon us, we were left by the just hand of Heaven unto those errors whereby great hardships were brough upon innocent persons, and (we fear) guilt incurred which we have all cause to bewail with much confusion of face before the Lord. We confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the Powers of Darkness and Prince of the Air, but were, for want of knowledge in ourselves and better information from others, prevailed with to take up with such evidence against the accused as on further consideration and better information we justly fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of any, whereby we fear we have been instrumental with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this People of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood, which sin the Lord saith in scripture He would not pardon (2 Kings 24.4), that we suppose, in regard of His temporal judgments. #RandolphHarris 12 of 14
I know a person who, missing anything, would use to sit down and muter a certain charm, and then immediately by an invisible hand ben directly led unto the place where the thing was to be found. turquoise carvings placed in Native American graves to attract good spirits and guard the grave. Also, turquoise tied onto a bow was supposed to make you shoot more accurately. The body of saints often times cannot be found when their graves are dug up because their bones were frequently interred in the cornerstones of cathedrals, so their spirits would guard the holy location. Unwilling sacrifices would be more likely to become angry spirits instead of guarding. Canaanites sacrificed infants and put them in the foundations of houses and temples. “At the cost of his first-born shall he se up its gates,” reports Joshua 6.26. Bones were discovered in the basement of the original farm house that was engulfed as part of this estate during the expansion. Sightings of Hell Hounds date back to 1888. Some reports say the creatures are threatening. The Victorian parklike grounds seem to breed sightings of big wolf creatures or beast at night. Since the legends have been uncovered, many people have reported seeing a big black wolf and two men walking around the Winchester mansion at night, even when it is closed. Four kids and a police officer allegedly disappeared after climbing the gate to get a closer look one night. Nearly 134 years of sightings. These people are probably sadly deluded and mistaken, their minds are more likely disquieted and distressed, and we do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ’s sake for this error, and pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others. And we also pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living suffers as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with and not experienced in matters of that nature. #RandolphHarris 13 of 14
I know a woman who upon uttering some words over very painful hurts and sores did use instantly to cure them, unto the amazement of the spectators. Now, thought I, if this wretch can effectually employ Devils to cure hurts, why may not she to cause them also, which is the worst that the witches do? The matter being so dark and perplexed as that there is no present appearance that all God’s servants should be altogether of one mind in all circumstances touching the same and believing the Devil’s accusations. These practices and principles have been the beginner and procurer of the sores afflictions, not to Llanda Villa only, but to this whole country, that did ever befall them. It should be noted in passing that Llanda Villa’s attorneys have concluded that these peoples visions and afflictions are due to illness caused by demonic possession. No specters evidence may be hereafter accounted valid or sufficient to take away the life or good name of any person or persons within this province. God hath a controversy with us about what was done in the time of the witchcraft. I fear that innocent blood hath been shed, and that many have had their hands defiled therewith. Public acknowledgement of guilt, and humiliation for it, and the more particularly and personally it is done by all that have been actors, the more pleasing it will be to God and more effectual to turn away his judgments from the land, and to prevent his wrath from falling upon the persons and families of such as have been most concerned. Moreover, if it be true, as I have been often informed, that families of such as were condemned for supposed witchcraft have been ruined by taking away and making havoc of their estates and leaving them nothing for their relief, I believe the whole country of lies under a curse to this day, and will do till some effectual course be taken by our honored governor and Supreme Court to make them some amends and reparations. #RandolphHarris 14 of 14
Winchester Mystery House
Get in the Halloween spirit and celebrate the first weekend of October 2021 at the Winchester Mystery House! Our All Hallows’ Eve tickets are selling fast so be sure to grab them while you can 👻
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The Devil Loveth No Salt in His Meat!
Every night in the year, four of us sat in the parlous of the Winchester Mansion. This particular night, there was a thin, bright moonshine: it was bitter cold, windy, and frosty; the town had not yet awakened, but an indefinable stir already preluded the noise and business of the day. The ghouls had come later than usual, and they seemed more than usually eager to be gone. They wished, and declared their wish, that their blood might be the last innocent blood shed. They prayed that God would discover the witchcraft were among us. They forgave their accusers. The fervency of the spirits were very affecting and drew tears from many. Affecting and melting to the hearts of some considerable spectators. They prayed earnestly for pardon for all other sin and for an interest in the precious blood of our dear Redeemer, and seemed to be very sincere, upright, and sensible of their circumstances. One of the ghouls said, “I have been put to death, and my grandfather suffered, and all his estate seized because of my own vile and wretched heart, confessed several things contrary to my conscience and knowledge, though to the wounding of my own soul—the Lord pardon me for it. But oh! the terrors of a wounded conscience, who can bear? Blessed be the Lord; He would not let me go in my sins, but in mercy I hope so my soul would not suffer me to keep it in any longer, but I was forced to confess the truth. Gunshots in the hills and the echo of that awful hellspawn voice in my head. I was sought after by a sorcerer, which resulted in fatal mishaps for those sorcerers because they caught me in the wrong mood, and I turned into a lethal weapon. Dear Mrs. Winchester, let me beg your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, and please send us a joyful and happy meeting in Heaven.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Mrs. Winchester replied, “But the Lord He know it is, if it be possible, that no more innocent blood be shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go in. I question not but your honours do to the utmost of your powers in the discovery and detecting of witchcraft and witches, and shall not be guilty of innocent blood for the World.” A horrible sense of blackness and the treachery of fate seized hold upon the soul of the unhappy student and the other ghouls. “My God! she cried, “but what have I done? and when did I begin?” Nothing could be explained any further because we realized that we had long since ceased to pay attention to anything said by the suspect. Our minds and hearts were so filled with the hideous torments of the afflicted and the frightful tales of the confessors that we were quite unable to absorb anything else. The student was violent, and it was said that she had beaten to death a former teacher and other students in the classroom before she and her accomplices were shot dead by a Winchester model 1866. They were much addicted to sorcery in the said town, and there were forty men in it that could raise the Devil as well as any astrologer. Time had little changed this small town. It stood then, as now, upon a crossroad, out of call of human habitations, and buried fathom deep in the foliage of six thousand cedar trees. The cries of the sheep upon the neighbouring hills, the streamlets upon either hand, one loudly singing among pebbles, the other dripping furtively from pond to pond, the stir of the wind in mountainous old flowering chestnuts, and once in seven days the voice of the bell and old tunes of the precentor, were the only sounds that disturbed the silence around the rural Winchester Mansion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
The Resurrection Man was not to be deterred by any of the sanctities of customary piety. It was part of his trade to despise and desecrate the scrolls and trumpets of old tombs found on the estate, the paths worn by the feet of legions of spirits and mourners, and the offerings and the inscriptions of bereaved affection. To rustic neighbourhoods, where love is more than commonly tenacious, and where some bonds of blood or fellowship unite the entire society of a parish, the body-snatcher, far from being repelled by natural respect, was attracted by the ease and safety of the task. To bodies that had been laid in Earth, in joyful expectation of a far different awakening, there came that hasty, lamp-Iit, terror-haunted resurrection that often happened at the Winchester Mansion, which was fully of uneasy ghosts. It was pitch dark; and we had just raised a few souls from the dead. Their bodies awaited them in the basement. Here and there a white gate or a white stone in the wall guided them for a short space across the night; but for the most part it was at a foot pace, and almost groping, that they picked their way through the resonant blackness to their solemn and isolated destination. In the basement the last glimmer failed them, and it became necessary to kindle a match and reillumine one of the lanterns of the gig. Thus, under the dripping pipes, and environed by huge and moving shadows, they reached the scene of their unhallowed labours. However, the devil, imagining that he had found the right moment for taking possession of one of these resurrected bodies. A creeping chill began to possess my soul. It grew upon my mind that some unnatural miracle had been accomplished, that some nameless change had befallen one of the dead bodies, and in fear of their unholy burden wolves were outside the mansion howling. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The curse of evil had come into one of the bodies, and the evil malediction spread into his parts with a strange kind of screaming sound that made me turn pale with fear. He then rose to his feet, proclaiming he was the Devil and that he would take these other resurrected bodies with him to the underworld and speak with the dead. Mrs. Winchester said, “I rebuke you, Satan!” The Devil laughed and said he was not at all afraid of us. “You insult me with these testimonies as if you were Divine Oracles!” he said. Then departed in a black cloud of smoke with the resurrected bodies. How often I have read in books written by Jesuits that Martin Luther was a wizard, and that he did himself confess that he had familiarity with Satan! The Holy Son of God himself was reputed a magician, and one that had familiarity with the greatest of Devils. The blaspheming Pharisees said, “He casts out the Devils through the Prince of Devils,” reports Matthew 9.34. There is then not the best saint on Earth, man or woman, that can assure themselves that the Devil shall not cast such an imputation upon them. At the time when Luther died all the possessed people in the Netherlands were quiet. The Devils in them said the reason was because Luther had been a great friend of theirs, and they owed him that respect as to go far as Germany to attend his funeral. But the Father of Lies is never to be believed. He will utter twenty great truths to make way for one lie; he will accuse twenty people of witchcraft if he can but thereby bring one innocent person into trouble. However, it is better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned. The Devil makes his witched to dream strange things of themselves and others which are not so. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos, who invented the Pythagorean theorem, a^2+ b^2 = c^2, also lead seances in approximately 540 BC, using something like a Quija board. Grim reapers are purely psychic entities, with power over time and perception. They can change the way a human sees one’s surroundings, and change their own appearance, usually to ease the transition from life into death. If it is by virtue of some contract with the Devil that witches have the power to do such things, it is hard to conceive how they can be bid to do them without being too much concerned in that Hellish covenant. We ought not to practice witchcraft to discover witches. The Devil have of late accused some eminent persons. It is an awful thing which the Lord had done [id est, permitted] to convince some among us of their error. To take away the life of anyone merely because a specter or Devil in a bewitched or possessed person does accuse them will bring the guilt of innocent blood on the land where such a thing shall be done. What does such an evidence amount unto more than this: either such an one did afflict such an one, or the Devil in one’s likeness, or one’s eyes were bewitched. The natural way for a living person to see a reaper is as a wraith-like figure wearing tattered winding sheets or burial cloth. Black dogs are also buried in the foundations of churches to guard and protect the gates between here and the afterlife. What will be the issue of these troubles God only knows. I am afraid that ages will not wear off that reproach and those stains which these things will leave behind them upon our lands. It is possible that bewitched and possessed person are afflicted by the Devil, but without agency of witches. Yes, there are witches, and there have been since the beginning of the World. Their craft is performed with the Devil’s assistance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
During one evening at the mansion, Mrs. Winchester invited the maid in for a séance. She chanted, “By the virtue of the holy resurrection and the torments of the damned, I conjure and exorcise thee, spirit of Malphas, thirty-ninth Spirit, to answer my liege demands, being obedient unto these sacred ceremonies, on pain of everlasting torment and distress. Arise, arise, arise, I charge and command thee.” A black man appeared, I do not think he was human. His skin was black as midnight and I could not see his eyes, teeth, or any other features. He was just black and in the shape of a man. He offered her a book to sign. The book was supposed to contain witches’ pacts, and he told her that is she touched it, it would cure her of the hauntings. In all, Mrs. Winchester was tempted from three boos. The third she demanded that they let her read before she think of signing it. The man refused. In general the book seemed a journal of the chief things acted or designed a their great witch-meetings, not without some circumstances that carried an odd resemblance of the Koran. It has in it the methods to be used in seducing of people unto the service of the Devil, and the names of them that had been seduced, with terms which they were to serve. It particularly surprised some in the room, on the even of May 13, 1888, to overhear her, in the book then opened unto her, spelling a word that was in Latin. The letters she recited was “Quadragesima.” Mrs. Winchester conversed at length with the spirit(s) who visited her, and the voices were “big, low, thick,” as they had been reported to be in European witchcraft accounts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
We saw flames arise from the cauldron on the table, and the room smelled of brimstone. The spirit of a bird appears. It attacked the maid and the next morning, she was found tied to the tree top. She was excessively sore when we brought her down from the tree. There were blisters raised upon her. To cure the soreness which last night’s fiery trail gave to her, we were forces sometimes to apply oil commonly used for the cure of scads. And yet (like other witch-wounds) in a day or two all would be well again. Only the marks of some wounds thus given her, she will probably carry to her grave. I may add that once they thrust an hot iron down her throat, which though it were to us invisible, yet we saw he skin fetched off her tongue and lips. Indeed, her sufferings were so severe that Mrs. Winchester thought the rapid healing of her wounds was part of a design to keep her in continual torment. She was, Mrs. Winchester wrote, “wounded with a thousand pains all over, and cured immediately that the pains of these wounds might be repeated.” One of the maid’s symptom occurred when her hallucinations were peopled by specters bring her a little cup that had a whitish liquor in it (unto us wholly invisible), which they would pour down her throat, holding her jaws wide open, in spite of all [her] shriekings and strivings. We saw her swallow this poison, though we saw not the poison, and immediately she would swell prodigiously and be just like one poisoned with a dose of rats-bane [arsenic trioxide]. After these potions she was capable ordinarily to beg of us that we would he her to some salad-oil, upon the taking whereof the swelling would in a little while abate. Sometimes our laying our hands on the mouth of the maid, when she perceived the specters forcing their poisons into her mouth, did keep her from taking of them in. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The maid, Agnus, was unable to hear prayer or religious instruction directly. However, not only did she hear the spectral Christmas dance, but several times Agnus had her arms cruelly scratched and pins thrust into her flesh by Fiends while they were molesting her. Several persons did sometimes actually lay their hands upon these Fiend. The wretches were palpable while they were not visible, and several of our people though they saw nothing, yet felt a substance that seemed like a dog. And though they were not fanciful they died away [id est, fainted] at the fright. And at this time, Mrs. Winchester believed much of this unchristian practice was the result of someone delivering curses. A curse delivered by a woman, Margaret Rhodes Crocker, known to have dabbled in witchcraft, although again it is not absolutely certain that she practiced malefic witchcraft. It was upon the Lord’s Day, the 8th of September, in the year 1889, that Margaret Crocker, after some hours of previous disturbance in the Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, fell into odd fits, which caused her friends to carry her home, where her fits in a few hours grew into a figure that satisfied the spectators of their being preternatural. Some of the neighbours were forward enough to suspect the rise of this mischief in an house hard-by, where lived a miserable woman who had been formerly imprisoned on the suspicion of witchcraft, and who had frequently cured very painful hurts by muttering over them certain charms, which I shall not endanger the poisoning of my reader by repeating. This woman had, Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins Searless, the evening before Margret fell into her calamities, very bitterly treated her and threatened her. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
However, the hazard of hurting a poor woman that might be innocent, notwithstanding surmises that might have been more strongly grounded than those, caused the pious people in the vicinity to try whether incessant supplication to God alone might not procure a quicker and safer ease to the afflicted than hasty prosecution of any supposed criminal. Mary Francis was assaulted by eight cruel specters, whereof she imagined that she knew three or four, but the rest came still with their faces covered, so that she could never have a distinguishing view of the countenance of those who she thought she knew. She was very careful of my reiterated charges to forbear blazing the names, lest any good person should come to suffer any blast of reputation through the cunning malice of the great Accuser. Nevertheless, she having since privately named them to myself, I will venture to say this of them, that they are a sort of wretches who for these many years have gone under as violent presumptions of witchcraft as perhaps any creatures yet living upon Earth, although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young woman were evidence enough to prove them so. Margaret Crocker’s hallucinations were somewhat varied. She saw not only spectral witches and the “Black Man….their master” who was often seen in abandoned mansions, where he resisted new residents, but also a “White Spirit” who she took to be an Angel. Such a figure had also been seen at the Winchester and in several Oakland witchcraft cases, such as at the Ellen Kenna Mansion, Emma Bray’s Mansion, and at Alexander Dunsmuir’s mansion. The white spirit comforted and advised Margaret during her attack. Among other things, the Angel told her that Oliver Winchester was her spiritual father. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The Angel had always maintained the Devils might appear in the shape of an innocent person. Mrs. Winchester cried for the Lord, as for the deliverance of these women from the malice of Hell, for the deliverance of the powers of Hell has now seized upon all of them. And that the whole plot of the Devil to reproach her poor maid, Angus, be defeated by the Lord Jesus Christ. During a séance Mrs. Winchester was told that one of the several beings that was haunting her and these other grand estates was a Rakshasa. A being reincarnated from evil human beings. They are a type of demon. Rakshasa have the power to change their shape at will and appear as animals, as monsters, or in the case of female demons, as beautiful women. They also have magical powers, including invisibility. They are cannibalistic, and particularly target anything religious or holy. In addition to human flesh they, they will eat spoiled food. Their finger nails are poisonous. They are most powerful in the evening, particularly during the dark person of a new moon, but are dispelled by the rising sun. They especially detest sacrifices and prayer. Most powerful among them is their kind, the 10-headed Ravana. Many believe him to be Satan. Margaret had the common inability of afflicted persons to hear religious words, especially, in her case, the words of prayer. She had a full catalog of physical symptoms. She would be strangely distorted in her joins an thrown into such extravagant convulsions as were astonishing unto the spectators in general. She would be cruelly pinched with invisible hands very often in a day, and the black and blue marks of the pinches became immediately visible unto the standers by. She was also afflicted with pins, both real ones found about her person and spectral ones. The psychosomatic skin lesions would in a few minutes ordinarily be cured. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
As with Mary Frances, her specters burnt her with spectral brimstone, and she would be so bitterly scorched with the unseen sulphur thrown upon her that very sensible blisters would be raised upon her skin. Like Angus, Margaret was forced to swallow spectral poison. She would sometimes have her jaws forcibly pulled open, whereupon something invisible would be poured down her throat. We all saw her swallow, and yet we all saw her try as she could that she might not swallow. She would cry out “as of scalding brimstone poured into her” and would be so monstrously inflamed that it would have broken a heart of stone to have seen her agonies. The spectators would testify also that the Crocker Mansion often reeked “so hot of brimstone that we were scarce able to endure it.” And one of the occasion “the standers by plainly saw something of that odd liquor itself on the outside of her neck.” There was a spectral powder thrown into her eyes, and “one time some of this powder was fallen actually visible upon her cheek, from whence the people in the room wiped it with their handkerchiefs.” Mrs. Winchester was also afflicted by spirits. “We once thought we perceived something stir upon her pillow at a little distance from her, whereupon one present [the Butler Clayton] laying his hand there, he to his horror apprehended that he felt, though none could see it, a living creature not altogether unlike a vampire bat, which nimbly escaped from him. And there were diverse other persons who were thrown into a great consternation by feeling, as they judged, at others times the same invisible animal.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
However, the most starling phenomenon in Mrs. Winchester’s case was levitation. “Once,” said Clayton, “her tormentors puled her up to the ceiling of the chamber and held her there before a very numerous company of spectators, who found it as much as they could all do to pull her down again.” Clayton obtained signed confirmations of this and other instances of levitation: “I do testify that I have seen Mrs. Winchester in her hauntings from the invisible World lifted up from her bed, wholly by an invisible force, a great way towards the top of the room where she lay. In her being so lifted she had no assistance from any use of her own arms or hands or any other part of her body, not so much as her heels touching her bed or resting on any support whatsoever. And I have seen her thus lifted when not only a strong person hath thrown his whole weight across her to pull her down, but several other persons have endeavoured with all their might to hinger her from being so raised up, which I suppose that several others will testify as well as myself when called unto it. Witness my hand,” Clayton Straus. “We can also testify that we have several times seen Mrs. Winchester so lifted up from her bed as that she had no use of her own limbs to help her up, but it was the declared apprehension of us, as well as others that saw it, impossible for any hands but some of the invisible World to life her.” Henry Brown, Frank Drew, Phillip Goodwin. “We whose names are underwritten do testify that one evening when we were in the chamber where Mrs. Winchester then lay in her haunting, we observed her to be by an invisible force lifted up from the bed whereon she lay, so as to touch the garret floor, while yet neither her feet nor any other parent of her body rested either on the bed or any other support, but were also by the same force lifted up from all that was under her, and all this for a considerable while. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
“We judged it several minutes, and it was as much as several of us could do with all our strength to pull her down. All which happened when there was not only we two in the chamber, but we supposed ten or a dozen more whose names we have forgotten.” W. R. Leigh and Spenser T. Olin. These accounts could not be the power of suggestion because these people were not just bystanders. They believed that they witnessed levitation, and they were engaging in violent physical activity, trying to bring her body back to the bed. Such activity would, ordinarily, break the power of suggestion. And levitation has been so frequently reported, from so many times and places (from the 5th century to the 21st century), that one cannot be at all sure there is a satisfactory explanation for it, particularly since so many witnesses insisted that no part of Mrs. Winchester’s body was touching the bed. However, whatever the explanation for these symptoms, Mrs. Winchester and her estate are truly a mystery. However, it is also noted the other prominent Queen Anne Victorian Mansions and other built during the Victorian times experienced afflictions. Witchcraft is one of the most hidden works of darkness. Although some people and some estates were more haunted than others, the Bay Area, during Victorian Times, had its full share of obscurity. All publications on witchcraft and supernatural events have been forbidden by these prominent families at the time. Their desire was to quail tempers, and use wisdom to relax fear, while upholding their honour, integrity, and reverence for the Victorian era. “All things are possible to one that believeth,” reports Mark 9.23. Who that beareth it upon one shall not dread one’s enemies, to be overcome, nor with no manner of poison be hurt, nor in no need misfortune, nor with no thunder one shall be smitten nor lightning, no in no fire be burnt suddenly, nor in no water be drowned. Nor one shall not die without shrift, nor with thieves to be take. Also one shall have no wrong neither of Lord or Lady. This be in the names of God and Christ. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Winchester Mystery House will be going dark this weekend for All Hallows’ Eve, but we will be back to haunt you Thursday, September 30th! Purchase your tickets for next weekend early and let the ghoul times roll 👻
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You are Giving Away Your Soul—The Blood is Life!
This morning I saw a star twinkling just over the nine-story tower—the first since the beginning of May. My son, when he was examined, because he would not confess that he was guilt when he was innocent, they tied him neck and heels till the blood gushed out at his nose, and would have kept him so twenty-four hours if one more merciful than the rest had not taken pity on him and caused him to be unbound. These actions are very like the Popish cruelties. A man’s outer case generally gives some indication of the soul within. He has told me several times that the thought of death was a pleasant one to him, which is a sad thing for a young man to say; he cannot be much more than thirty. Some great sorrow must have taken him and blighted his whole life. Why of course, they were in effect saying, the Devil can impersonate the innocent, just as we have said all along. God might permit Satan to impersonate the virtuous. But surely, he would not permit discord in the Winchester mansion? I should have thought Mrs. Winchester’s staff would have been above such vulgar delusions. All this disquisition upon superstition leads me up to the fact that my son saw a ghost last night—or at least, says that he did, which of course is the same thing. Indeed the fellow is honestly frightened, and I had to give him some chloral and bromide of potassium this morning to stead him down. He has been hired as a ranch had to work at the estate. When grounds keepers found a mutilated cow, some of the other men thought he had been possessed by the devil, and torture him to confess. I was obliged to pacify him by keeping as grave a countenance as possible during his story, which he certainly narrated in a very straightforward and matter-of fact way. No one wanted Mrs. Winchester to believe the curse was real and the hauntings had started again. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
“I was on the balcony,” he said, “about four bells in the middle watch, just when the night was at its darkest. There was a bit of a moon, but the clouds were blowing across it so that you could not see far from the mansion. John Brunton, the foreman, came after from the tool shed and reported a strange noise on the estate. I came down and went forward and we both heard I, sometimes like a bairn crying and sometimes like a wench in pain. I have been seventeen years to the country and I never heard an animal, old or young, make a sound like that. As we were standing on the rear porch the moon came out from behind the cloud, and we both saw a sort of black figure moving across the farm in the same direction that we had heard the cries. We lost sight of it for a while, but it came back insight, and we could just make it out like a shadow amongst the trees. I sent a hand art for the rifles, and Brunton and I went down to the fruit orchard, thinking it might be a bear. When we got near the trees I lost sight of Brunton, but I pushed on in the direction where I could still hear the cries. I followed them for a mile or may more, and then running round a well I came right on to the top of it standing and waiting for me seemingly. I do not know what it was. It was not a bear any way. It was tall and black and straight. This black dog, or the devil in such a likeness, running all along down the body of the mansion with great swiftness, and incredible haste, he passed between two people, wrung the necks of them both. I made my way for the mansion as hard as I could run, and precious glad I was to find myself inside. I signed articles to do my duty by the estate, and on the estate I will say, but you will not catch me on the grounds after sundown.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
That is his story given as far as I can in his own words. I do not know what happened there. I fancy what he saw must in spite of his denial, have been a young bear erect upon its hind legs, and attitude which they often assume when alarmed. In the uncertain light this would bear a resemblance to a human figure, especially to a man whose nerves were already somewhat shaken. Whatever it may have been, the occurrence is unfortunate, for it has produced a most unpleasant effect upon the crew. Their looks are more sullen than before and their discontent more open. The double grievance made more dreadful when a barn of dead bodies was found on the edge of the estate. Written in blood, “Keep building,” and a huge bloody hand print was discovered on the wall. Some say it was the Devil’s handprint. In the old days in the New World, people used to say “I put my hand and seal” on a document when signing it. In the Old World this was literal in some cases. The emperor of Japan in ancient in ancient days “signed” important documents by dipping his hand in blood and putting a full bloody handprint on the page. In the history of pacts with the Devil, people were supposed to sign their names in blood. I have seen a couple of alleged pacts from earlier centuries. Blood undoubtedly stressed the seriousness of the signing. The Devil may sometimes have a permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under diabolical harassments, but that such things are rare and extraordinary. You were giving away your soul. The Blood is life. Afflicted persons were subject to diabolical torments; making evidence of such torments was accepting the word of the Devil; worse, accepting such evidence was holding commerce with the Devil, and therefore in itself a kind of witchcraft. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The afflicted persons do tell who are witches, of which, some they know and some they do not. Secondly, they tell who did torment such a person, though they know not the person. Thirdly, they are tormented themselves by he looks of the persons that are present, and recovered again by the touching of them, they recover, or do not fall into torment. Fifthly, they can tell when a person is coming before they see them, and what clothes they have [on], and some, what they have done for several years past, which nobody else ever accused them with nor do not yet think them guilty of. Sixthly, the dead out of their graves do appear unto them and tell them that they have been murdered, and require them to see them to be revenged on the murderers, which they name to them, some of which persons are well known to have died their natural deaths, and been publicly buried in the sight of all humans. Now if these things be so, I thus affirm: First, that whatsoever is done by them that is supernatural is either divine or diabolical. Secondly, that nothing is or can be divine but what has God’s stamp upon it, to which he refers for trial (Isaiah viii. 19,20): If they speak not according to these, there is no light in them. Thirdly, and by that rule none of these actions of theirs have any warrant in God’s Word, but are condemned wholly. First, it is utterly unlawful to inquire of the dead or to be informed by them (Isaiah viii. 19). It was an act of the Witch of Endor to raise the dead, and of a reprobate Saul to inquire of him (1 Samuel xxviii.8, 11-14; Deuteronomy viii. ii). Secondly, it is a like evil to seek to them that have familiar spirits (Leviticus xix.31). It was the sin of Saul in the forementioned place (1 Samuel xxviii.8) and of wicked Manasses (2 Kings xxi.6). #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Thirdly, no more is it likely that their racking and tormenting should be done by God or good angels, but by the Devil, whose manners has ever been to be so employed. Witness his dealing with the poor child (Mark v.2-5) besides what he did to Job (Jon ii.7) and all the lies he told against him to the very face of God. Fourthly, the same may be rationally said of all the rest. Who should tell them things that they do not see but the Devil, especially when some things that they tell are false and mistaken? May we believe the confessed witches that do accuse anyone? Can the fruit be better than the tree? If the root of all their knowledge be the Devil, what must their testimony be? Their testimony may be legal against themselves, because they know what themselves do. However, their words should not be taken against those who denied the charges and whose previous behaviour had been blameless. The fits to which the afflicted and of come of the confessors were subject to, they were the Devil’s way of force them to accuse the innocent. We see by woeful and undeniable experience, both in the afflicted persons and the confessors, some of them, that the Devil torments them at his pleasure to force them to accuse others. The accusations of the apparently innocent makes some people think that both the afflicted and the confessors are liars. However, perhaps the sufferings are pitiable and genuine. It is possible that the Devil is lying through them. And no matter who is lying, the effect of the lie is still the same. For if they counterfeit, the wickedness is the greater in them and the less in the Devil; but if they be compelled to it by the Devil against their wills, then the sin is the Devil’s and the suffering is theirs. However, if their testimonies be allowed of, to make persons guilty by, the lives of innocent persons are alike in danger by them, which is the solemn consideration that does disquiet the country. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The Devils have a natural power which makes them capable of exhibiting what shape they please I suppose nobody doubts, and I have no absolute promise of God that they shall not exhibit mine. It is the opinion generally of all Protestant writers that the Devil may thus abuse the innocent. My son told me of another experience he had while working at the Winchester mansion. “I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in my bed. (My bed stood with its foot toward the window; in front of the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and nighttime.) Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some black wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite black, and looked more like foxes or sheep dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up. I swore there was something there. I could feel it, hovering over me. It is watching, it is waiting, I think it is even mocking me.” Apart from this absurd outbreak of superstition, things are looking rather more cheerful. Mrs. Winchester loved the new year; she loved the idea of a fresh start for everyone. She always made a resolution, one a year, and unlike most people, she kept hers. Every year she tried to talk her staff into making one, but some of them never saw the point. The estate was undergoing heavy construction. Some workers reported seeing a ghost woman in nineteenth-century dress. That is not what was strange. What was strange is the fact that it was there was a thunder storm, but no rain was falling on a section of the mansion were the roof was still being added to the nine-story tower. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Mrs. Winchester wanted the tower because she said that she could get visions of the spirit World more clearly there. I always got a wee bit creeped out in the tower because the crucifix on the wall would turn upside down when anyone went near it. The Devil is said to appear there twice a year, on the vernal equinox and Halloween. The tower marks the grace of one of his children, born of a human witch and dead after a few days. I am learning about the hauntings at the Winchester mansion. Everyone has heard about them, but they all have different stories. In the World of spirits there is always a very great number of them, but there is no fixed time for their stay on Earth; for some are translated to Heaven and others confined to Hell soon after their arrival; whilst some stay on Earth days, weeks, maybe even centuries. Gerald Pomper thinks that my son devoted himself to construction of the Winchester simply for the reason that it is the most dangerous occupation which he could select, and that he courts death in every possible manner. He mentioned several instances of this, one of which is rather curious, if true. It seems that on one occasion he did not put in an appearance on the estate, and a substitute had to be selected in his place. That was at the time the tower was near completion. When he turned up again next spring he had a puckered wound in the side of his neck which he used to endeavour to conceal with his cravat. Whether the mate’s inference is true or not, it was certainly a strange coincidence. Of course, Johann Weikhard von Valvasor recorded the first written documented on vampires. Jure Grando Alilovic (1579-1656) was a villager from the region of Istria (in modern-day Croatia) who may have been the first real person described as a vampire in historical records. He was referred to as a strigoi, a local word for something resembling a vampire and a warlock. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Jure Grando lived in Kringa, a small town in the interior of the Istrian peninsula near Tinjan. He died in 1656 due to illness but according to legend, returned from the grave at night as a vampire and terrorized his village until his decapitation in 1672. The legend tells that, for 16 years after his death, Jure would arise from his grave by night and terrorize the village. The village priest, Giorgio, who had buried Jure sixteen years previously discovered that at night somebody would knock on the doors around the village, and on whichever door he knocked, someone from that house would die. This is why Mrs. Winchester boarded up the East Wing of her mansion. During one of her seances, she said Jure communicated with her. No telling? When you contact the spirit World, there is no telling what will come through. Some of the spirit in the mansion may be hundred of years old. Mrs. Winchester owned an original copy of Die Ehre deB Herzogthuma Crain, which she kept locked away in a safe. Vampires are said to infest come parts of this country. These Vampires are supposed to be the bodies of deceased persons, animated by evil Spirits, which come out of the graves, in the night-time, suck the blood of many of the living, and thereby destroy them. Petar Blagojevic was also accused of being a Vampire, and was alleged to have killed several people after his death. When the body was exhumed, it was undecomposed, the hair and beard were grown, there was new skin and nail, and blood could be seen in the mouth. When people grew outraged and staked his body through the heart, a completely fresh amount of blood flowed through the ears and moth of the corpse. Finally, the body was burned. The wind is veering round the mansion in an easterly direction, but it is still very slight. As far as the eye can reach, there is a shadow. The butler was staring out up the stairs with an expression in which horror, surprise, something approaching to fear were contending for the mastery. In spite of the cold, great drops of perspiration were coursing down his forehead and he was evidently fearfully exited. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
His limbs twitched like those of a man upon the verge of an epileptic fit, and the lines about his mother were drawn hard. “Look!” he grasped, seizing me by the seizing me by the wrist, but still keeping eyes upon the window, and moving his head in a horizontal direction, as if following some object which was moving across the field of vision. “Look! There, man, there! Between the palm trees! Now coming out from behind the far one! You see her, you must see her! There still! Flying from me, by God, flying from me—and gone!” His face was so livid that I expected him to become unconscious, so lost no time leading him down the stairs, and stretching him out upon one of the sofas in the parlour. I then poured him out some brandy which I held to his lips, and which had a wonderful effect upon him, bringing the blood back into his white face and steading his poor shaking limbs. He raised himself up upon his elbow, and looking round to see that we were alone, be beckoned me to come and sit beside him. “You are it, did you not?” he asked, still in the same subdued awesome tone so foreign to the nature of the man. “No, I saw nothing.” They have made up their minds that there is a curse upon the mansion, and nothing will ever persuade them to the contrary. The next night, there was a glorious sunset, which made the great fields look like a lake of blood. I have never seen a finer and at the same time more ghastly effect. Wind is veering round. There was a cry, sharp and shrill, upon the silent air of the night, beginning, as it seemed to me, at a note as such a prima donna never reached, and mounting from that ever higher and higher until it culminated in a long wail of agony, which might have been the last cry of a lost soul. The ghastly scream is still ringing in my ears. Grief, unutterable grief, seemed to be expressed in it and a great longing, and yet through it all there was an occasional wild not of exultation. It seemed to come from close beside me, and yet as I glared into the darkness, I could make out nothing. I waited some little time, but without hearing any repetition of the sound, so I came below, more shaken that I have ever been in my life before. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Odd things have happened here. Four kids in three years, from 1887-1890, vanished without a trace. Other people see things. No one will talk about. The butler was certain that something had come up through the “door to nowhere” five years ago, and was about to again. Some kind of hellspawn. The Devil may impudently impose his communion upon some that care not for his company. However, if the communion on the person’s part be proved, then the business be done. Specter evidence may be grounds for investigation, and may strength other presumptions, but it is not evidence on which to convict. The mansion could be a dangerous place, even at its best—a treacherous, dangerous place. The butler was staring at something. By the sudden intensity of his attitude, I felt that he saw some. I crept up behind him. He certainly was looking at something with an eager questioning gaze, at what seemed to be a wreath of smoke. It was a dim nebulous body devoid of shape, sometimes more, sometimes less apparent, as the light fell on it. The moon was dimmed in its brilliancy at the moment by a canopy of thinnest cloud, like the coating of an anemone. He held out his hand as if to clasp it, and so ran into the darkness with outstretched arms. That came from somewhere. Was it a demon? It took the shape of a man, and eventually of the man of whom we were in search of. He was lying face downwards upon the floor, frozen. Many little crystals of ice and feathers of snow had drifted on to him as he lay, and sparkled upon his dark seaman’s jacket. As we came up some wandering puff of wind caught these tiny flakes in its vortex, and they whirled up into the air, partially descended again, and then, caught once more in the current, sped rapidly away in the direction of the east wing. To my eyes it seemed but a snow-drift, but the butler averred that it started up in the shape of a woman, stooped over the corpse and kissed it, and then hurried away across the floor. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
It was the former cook Bill Thompson, who has gone missing in 1886. Sure he had met with no painful end, for there was a bright smile upon his blue pinched features, and his hands were still outstretched as though grasping at the strange visitor which had summoned him away into the dim World that lies beyond the grave. Surely this same apparition would also lead the butler into the eternal darkness. The smoke went into his mouth and he started to jerk, and speaking in tongues. That awful hellspawn had possessed him, and with his body dying and something inside of him, the butler staggered over to the sulfur stinking wall, sat down and died. Then he faded away and was gone. There he shall lie, with his secret and his sorrows and his mysteries all still buried in his breast, until that great day when the Winchester Mansion shall give up its dead, and Clarence Earl Gideon, known as “the butler,” come out from among the shadows with a smile upon his face, and his stiffened arms outstretched in greeting. I pray that his lot may be a happier one in that life than it has been in this. As for my son, I have not seen him in several years. In 1904, at the palace late at night, men who were pure of spirit, had thought they say a strange demoniac form taking the place of my son, John Wesley Thompson Faulkner. One man said that Mrs. Winchester suddenly rose from her throne and walked about, and immediately John’s head vanished, while the rest of hos body seemed to ebb and flow: whereat the beholder stood aghast and fearful, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. However, he perceived the vanishing head filling out and joining the body again as strangely as it has left it. Another said he stood beside Mrs. Winchester as she sat, and all of the sudden the face changed into a shapeless mass of flesh, with neither eyebrows nor eyes in their proper places, nor any other distinguishing feature; and after a time the natural appearance of his countenance returned. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
I write these instances not as one who saw many of them myself, but heard them from people who were sure they had seen these strange occurrences at the time. They also say that the cook, Bill Thompson, very dear to God, at the instance of dinner time, went to beg forgiveness that some of the guess had been offended beyond endurance by a dish he made. And when he arrived at the dining room, he forthwith secured an audience with Mrs. Winchester; but just as he was about to enter his apartment, he stopped short as his feet were on the threshold, and suddenly stepped backward. Whereupon the maid who escorted him, and others who were present, importuned him to go ahead. However, he answered not a word; and like a man who has had a stroke staggered back to his lodging. And when some followed to ask why he acted thus, they say he distinctly declared he saw the King of the Devils sitting on the throne in the palace, and he did not care to meet or ask any favour of him. I shall not continue my journal. Our road home lies plain and clear before us, and the great Winchester palace will soon be but a remembrance of the past to me. It will be some time before I get over the shock produced by recent events. When I began this record of my visit, I little thought of how I should be compelled to finish it. I am writing these final words in the lonely chamber, still starting at times and fancying I hear the quick nervous step of the dead man upon the floor above me. I entered his chambers tonight as was my duty, to make a list of his effects in order that they might be entered in the official log. All was as it has been upon my previous visit, save that the picture which I have described as having hung at the end of his bed had been cut out of its frame, as with a knife, and was gone. With this last link in a strange chain of evidence I close my diary of the Winchester mansion. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Note by William Clark Falkner, Col. CSA: “I have read over the strange evens connected with the mystery, as narrated in the journal of my son. That everything occurred exactly as he describes it I have the fullest confidence, and, indeed, the most absolute certainty, for I know him to be a strong-nerved and unimaginative man, with the strictest regard for veracity. Still, the story is, on the face of it, so vague and so improbable, that I was long opposed to its publication. Within the last few days, however, I have had independent testimony upon the subject which throws a new light upon it. I had run down to Edinburgh to attend a meeting of the British Medical Association, when I came across Aleister Crowley, an old college chum of my son’s, now involved with the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Allan Bennet. Aleister told me that he had been contacted by a supernatural entity named Aiwass, who confirmed that that Witch Trials were started by people who wanted to break up convents and get their magic potions, spells, talismans, and secrets, while also getting the church in an uproar. Upon my telling him of this experience of my son’s, he declared to me that he was familiar with the man, and proceeded, to my no small surprise, to give me a description of him, which tallied remarkably well with that given in the journal, expect that he depicted him as a younger man. According to his account, the cook and butler and my son had all been in love with the same woman. However, the cook was engaged to the young lady of singular beauty residing upon Sierra. During their absence at the Winchester mansion, his betrothed had died under circumstances of peculiar horror. She became a Chenoo, a winter spirit with a heart of ice, created from a human, which wants to kill those it loves. In the period of transformation, the person who is becoming a Chenoo eats snow and refuses other food. One will be ill-tempered and angry. After the transformation, the Chenoo will attack and kill other members of the tribe.” There are many mysteries surrounding the Winchester Mansion. Have a visit and tell me a little story. Winchester Mystery House–a 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
In the 1800s, so many deer and cattle within the mansion’s proximity were found dead that staff members were accused of being werewolves. Today, staff and visitors have reported banging sounds, footprints, seeing white mists, and feeling someone breathe on them. They also report tormented ghosts wandering through the mansion at night. Even if you do not believe ghost stories, you might still get goosebumps passing by, do not chalk those taps on your shoulder and whispers in your ear as all up to imagination.
During mansion renovations in the early 1900s, workmen found a secret dungeon in the Bloody Tower with so many human skeletons, they filled three cartloads when hauled away. The basement was designed so that prisoners would fall through a trap door. These hallways won’t wander themselves 😳 Give you and your friends a fright this weekend on the Lost in The House Tour during All Hallows’ Eve at the Winchester Mystery House!
All Hallows’ Eve value night tickets are still available!
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In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror—Afraid to Move Hand or Foot II!
Immediately after I sat down…and did see a black thing jump into the window. And it came and stood just before my face. The body of it looked like a monkey, only the feet were like a cock’s feet with claws, and the face somewhat more like a man’s than a monkey’s. And I being greatly affrighted, not being able to speak or help myself by reason of fear, I suppose, so the thing spoke to me and said, “I am a messenger sent to you. For I understand you are troubled in mind, and if you will be ruled by me you shall want for nothing in this World.” I would have cried out—would have shrieked, if every never had not been paralyzed. I could not doubt the evidence of my sense—if I could have done so the cold, unearthy horror which sicked my very soul would have borne its undeniable testimony that I had behold the impersonation of the hidden curse that rested on this dwelling. I stood there rigid and immovable, as if that blighting Medusa-glance had indeed changed me into stone. It may have been but a very few minutes—it seemed to me a cycle of painful ages, when the light of a brightly burning lamp shone before me, and I heard the cheerful sounds of the new nurse’s voice in my ears: “Come along, cook. Bless your heart, my dear! you need not be nervous; there is no occasion. Mrs. Winchester, ma’am, are you not well, ma’am? “No,” I said faintly, staggering to the woman’s outstretched hands. “Not down there—upstairs to the children.” She turned as I bade her, and supported me up the stairs and into the nursery, the cook following close at my skirts, muttering fervent prayers and chants. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
The sight of the peacefully sleeping little ones did far more to restore me than all the essences and chafing and unlacing which the two women busily administered. I had got suddenly ill when coming upstairs was the explanation I gave, which the cook, plainly perceived, most thoroughly doubted, at least without the cause she suspected being assigned, which, even in the midst of my terror-stricken condition, I refrained from giving, I did not speak to the nurse either of what had happened, but I felt that she knew as well as if she had been by my ide all the time. However, when William returned I told him. Distressed and alarmed on my account though he was, yet he did not, as before, refuse credence to my story. “We must leave the house, William. I should die here very soon,” I said. “Yes, Sarah; of course we must leave if you have anything to distress or terrify you in his manner, though it does seem absurd to be driven out of one’s house and home by a thing of this kind. Someone’s practical joke, or a trick prompted by malice against the owner of the property in order to lessen its value. I have heard of such things often.” “William, it is nothing of the kind,” I said earnestly; “you know it is not.” “No, I do not,” said William shortly and grimly, as he opened his case of revolvers, “and I wish I did.” The night passed away quietly, to our ears at least; but next morning when William had concluded the usual morning prayers, instead of the usual move of the servants, they remained clustered at the door, Jansen with an exceedingly elongated visage standing slightly in advance of the group as a spokesman. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
“Please, sir and ma’am, we cannot tell you what to do.” “Why, go and do your work,” retorted William, with a nervous tug at his moustache and an uneasy glance at me. Jansen shook his head slowly. “It cannot be done, sir—cannot be done, ma’am. Why, no living Christian, not to speak of humble, but respectable servants,” said Jansen with a flourish, quite unconscious of the nice distinction he had made, “could stand it any longer.” “What is the matter, pray?” said my husband. “Ghosts, sir—spirits—unclean spirits,” said Charles, in an awestruck whisper which was re-echoed in the cook’s “Lor” “a” mercy!” as she dodged back from the doorway with the housemaid holding fast to one of her ample sleeves, and the lady’s maid holding fast to the other. The New nurse, quietly dandling the baby in her arms, was alone unmoved. “What stories have you been listening to now?” said their master, what a slight laugh and a frown. “No stories, sir; but what we have seen with our eyes and understanded with our ears, and—and—comprehended with our hearts,” said Jansen, with an unsuccessful attempt at quoting Scripture. “What was it as walked the floors last night between one and two, sir? What was it as talked and shrieked and run and raced? What was it as frightened the mistress on the stairs last evening?” And the whole posse of them turned to me, triumphantly awaiting my testimony. I was feeling very ill, and looking so, I daresay, having struggled downstairs in order to prevent the servants having any additional confirmation of their surmises. “That is no affair of yours,” said William gravely; “your mistress is in delicate health, and was feeling unwell all day.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
“Will you allow me to speak, please, sir?” said the nurse, and, as her maser nodded assent, she turned to the frightened group with a pleasant smile. “You have no cause to be afraid, cook, or Mr. Jensen, or any of you,” said she, addressing the most important functionary first—“not in the least. I am only a servant like the rest, and here a shorter time than any one; but I think you are very foolish to unsettle yourself in a good situation and frighten yourselves. You need not think they will harm you. Fear God and do your duty, and you need not mind wandering, poor, lonely souls—-” “Lor” “a” mercy! ‘ow you talk, Mrs. Lewis!” said the coo indignantly. “I have seen them more times than one—many and many a time, Mrs. Cook; and they never harmed a hair of my head,” said the nurse, “nor they will ever harm your.” “Well, then,” said the cook, packing into the hall, followed by her satellites, “not to be made Cleopatra, nor the Virgin Mary neither, would I stay to be frighted out of my seven senses, and made into a lunatic creature like poor Linda was!” “Please to make better omelettes for luncheon, cook, than you did yesterday,” said William calmly, though he looked pale and angry enough, “and leave me to deal with the ghost—I will settle accounts with them!” The nurse turned quickly and looked earnestly at him: “I would not say that, sir—God forbid,” said she in an undertone, and the next moment was singing softly and blithely as she carried the children away to their morning bath. William and I looked at each other in silence. “I wish we have never come into this house, dear,” I said. “I wish from my heart that we never had, Sarah,” he responded; “but we must manage to stay the season out, at all events. It would be too absurd to run away like frightened hares, not to speak of the expense and trouble we have gone through expanding the mansion to four floors with a nine-story tower.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
“We can may get it taken off our hands with a substantial loss, perhaps,” I suggested. “See the house-agent, William.” “I have seen him, but we have one of the largest, and most expansive estates in the country. No one can afford it,” he replied. “He deeply regretted that we should have any occasion to find fault, especially after our huge investment in expanding the estate, and it is not even completed yet. The agent also said he was happy to do anything in the way of clearing up this little mystery, et cetera. Of course he was laughing at me in his sleeve.” Again, as after our previous alarms, says passed on and lengthened into weeks in undisturbed quietude. William had a good many business matters to arrange; the children looked as rosy and healthy as in their country home, from their constant walking and playing in the airy, pleasant parks. My own health was not every good; and Dr. Winchester, William’s cousin, was kindest and wisest of grave, gentlemanly doctors; so, all thing considered, we stay at the Winchester mansion we have build into a 600 room Queen Anne Victorian mansion from an 18-room farmhouse. Only on my husband’s account, I wished for any change. Something seemed to affect his health strangely, although he never complained of anything beyond the usual lassitude and want of a tone which a gay Santa Clara season might be expected to bequeath him. He was sleepless, frequently depressed, nervous, and irritable; and still he vehemently declared he was quite well, and seemed almost annoyed when I urged him to put his business aside for the present and leave town. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
He had been induced to enter into a large “Highly Finished Arms” promotion and sales of deluxe Winchesters, and had, besides, some heavy money matters to arrange, connected with his sister’s marriage settlements, which he expected would be required about Christmas. So, all things considered, he had some cause for feeling as haggard as he did. “It will be as well for William to leave Santa Clara, Mrs. Winchester, as soon as he can, said his cousin Dr. Winchester at the close of one of his pleasant “run-in” visits. “His nerves are shaky. We men get nervous nearly as often as the ladies, though we do not confess to the fact quite so openly. A little unstrung, you know—nothing more. A few weeks in sea or mountain air will quite brace him up again.” And as I dressed for dinner that evening, I determined that if wifely entreaties, and arguments, and authority, should not fail for the first time in our wedded life, William should have the sea or mountain air without another week’s delay; and, of course I determined, likewise, to back up entreaties, arguments, and authority with the prettiest dress I could put on. I cannot tell why wives, and young wives too, will neglect their personal appearance when “only one’s husband” is present. It is unpolitic, unbecoming, and unloving; and men and husbands do not like neglect—direct or implied, be sure of that, ladies—young, middle-aged, or old. “Your brown silk, ma’am?—it is rather cold this evening for that cream-coloured grenadine,” said Agnus, rustling at my wardrobe. “No, Agnus, I will not have that brown, I am tired of it,” I replied. If so happened that it was this dress which I had worn on the three occasions when I had been terrified by the strange occurrences in this house; and I had acquired a superstition aversion for this particular robe. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
So Agnus arrayed me in a particularly charming demi-toilette of pale yellow silk grenadine and white lace; and I felt myself to be a most amiable and affectionate little wife, as I went downstairs to await William’s return for dinner. I never sat in my pretty dressing-room alone. Truth to tell, I disliked the apartment secretly and intensely, and only for fear of troubling and displeasing George I would have shut it up from the first evening I spent in it. He was late for dinner, and I was quite shocked to see how thin and ill he looked by the gas-light; and, as soon as it was concluded, and that by the assistance of excellent coffee and a vast amount of petting, I had coaxed him into his usual smiles and good-humour, I began my petition—that he would leave town for his own sake. He listened to me in silence, and then said, “Very well, Sarah, we will go as soon as we can board up the east wing; I suppose you may come back here. “Oh! yes, I think so,” I replied, “maybe someone attracted these bad spirits and we need to let things cool off again. We shall spend Winter in New Haven, in our dear old house, William.” “Very well,” he said wearily, “though you must know, Sarah, I am not going on account of this one thing. I would hardly quit my house, indeed, because of ghostly or bodily sights or sounds.” He started up from the couch on which he was lying, flushed and excited as he always was when the subject was mentioned, his eyes gleaming as brightly as the flashing scabbard which hung on the wall before him. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
“Certainly not, dearest,” I said soothingly. “I wish I could solve the mystery,” he pursued, more excitedly; “I would make somebody suffer for it! One’s peace destroyed, and people terrified, and servants driven away, as if one was living in the dark ages, with some cursed necromancer next door!” “Oh! well, it is some time ago now, and the servants have got over their fright. Pray, do not distress yourself about it, dear William.” “Ah, well—you do not—never mind,” he muttered; “but I mean to have tangible evidence before ever I leave this house—I have sworn it!” He was not easily roused, and I felt both surprise and alar to see him so now, and for so inadequate a cause. I had almost fancied he had forgotten the matter, as we, by tacit consent, never alluded to it. “Do not you allow yourself to be alarmed, Sarah, that is all I care about,” he went on, pacing the floor. “I have been half mad with anxiety on your account, for fear those idiotic servants should manage to startle you to death some dark evening-cowards, every one of them; but I mean to have someone to stay here and sit up—-” He paused suddenly, and listened, then stepped noiselessly to the door, and opening it, listened again intently. “William,” I whispered. He took no heed of me; but rapidly unlocking a cabinet drawer, he drew out a thirty-shooter, loaded and capped, and with his finger on the trigger stole softly to the door and into the hall, whither I followed him. Everything was silent, and the hall and stairs lamps were burning clear and high. I could hear the throbbing of my own heart as I stood there watching. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Suddenly we both heard heavy rapid footsteps, seemingly overhead; and then confused noises, as of struggling, and quarrelling, and sobbing, mingled in a swelling clamour which sounded now near, deafeningly near, and then far, far away; now overhead, now beside us, now beneath, undistinguishable, indescribable, and unearthly. Then the rushing footsteps came nearer and nearer. And, clenching his teeth, while his face grew rigid and white in desperate resolve, William sprang up the staircase with a bound like a tiger. It has all passed in less than half the time I have taken to relate it, and while I yet stood breathless and with straining eyes, William had nearly reached the last step when I saw him stagger backwards, the thirty-shooter raised in his hand. There was a struggle, a rushing, swooping sound, two shots fired in rapid succession, a floating cloud of white smoke, through which I saw the streaming yellow hair and steel-blue eyes flash downward, and then a shriek rang out—the dreadful cry of a man in mortal terror—a crashing fall, beneath which the house trembled to its foundations, and I saw my husband’s body stretched before the conservatory door, whither he had toppled backwards—whether dead or dying I knew not. I remember dimly hearing my own voice in agonized screams, and the terror-stricken servants hurrying from the kitchens below. I remember the kind of face of my new nurse as she bravely rushed down and dispatched someone for the doctor, and made others help her to carry the senseless figure, with blood slowly dripping from the parted lips and staining the snowy linen shirt-front in great gouts and splashes, up to the chamber, where they laid him on his bed, and I, a wretched frenzied woman, knelt beside him with the sole, ceaseless prayer that brain or lips could form—“God help me!” #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
I remember the physician’s arrival, and the grave face and low clear voice of Dr. Winchester, as he made his enquiries; and then another physician summoned, and the low frightened voices, and peering frightened faces, and the lighted candles guttering away in currents of air form opening and shutting doors, and the long hours of night, and the cold grey dawning, the heart-rendering suspense, and speechless, tearless, wordless agony, and the sun rose, gloriously cloudless, smiling in radiance, as if there was not the shadow of death over the weary World beneath his rays, and I hear the verdict—“there was scarcely a hope.” However, God was merciful to me and to him, and my darling did not die. With a fevered brain and a shattered limb he lay there for weeks—lay there with the dark portals half opened to receive him; lay there, when I could no longer watch beside him, but lay prostrate and suffering in another apartment, tended by kind relatives and friends; but at length, when the mellow sunshine, and the crisp clear air of the soft shadowy October days stole into the sick room. William was able to be dressed and sit up for an hour or two amongst the pillows of his easy-chair by the window. And there he was, longing to be gone away from London. “Sarah, darling, weak or strong I must go,” he said in his trembling uncertain voice, and with a restless longing in his faded eyes, “I shall never get better in this house.” And so a few days afterwards, accompanied by the doctor and two nurses, we went down in a pleasant swift railroad journey to our dear, beautiful, peaceful home in New Haven. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
William never spoke of that night of horror but once, when Dr. Winchester told of the story connected with the original 18-room farmhouse we purchased, which morphed into a labyrinth of endless room, twisting and winding tunnels, and catacombs. Thirty years before we bought the farmhouse, the man who was both proprietor and tenant of the estate died, leaving his two daughters all he possessed. He had been a bad man, led a bad wild life, and died in a fit brough on by drunkenness; and these two daughters, grown to womanhood, inherited with his ill-gotten fold his evil nature. They were only half-sisters, and were believed to have been illegitimate also. The elder, a tall, masculine, strongly built woman, with masses of coarse fair hair, and bright, glitter blue eyes; and the younger, a plump, dark-haired rather pretty girl, but as treacherous, vain, and bold, as her elder sister was fierce, passionate, and cruel. They lived in this house, with only their servants, for several years after their father’s death, a life of quarrelling and bickering, jealousy, witchcraft, and heart-burnings, on various accounts. The elder strobe to tyrannize over the younger, who repaid it by deceit and crafty selfishness and black magic. At length a lover came, who the elder sister favoured; whom she loved as fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by fiercely and rashly as such wild untamed natures do; and by falsehood and deep-laid treachery the younger sister cast a love spell on the man and won his fickle fancy from the great, harsh-featured, haughty, passionate elder one. The elder woman soon perceived it, and there were dreadful scenes between the two sisters, when the younger taunted the elder, and the elder cursed the younger. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
However, as fate would have it, one night and at length—there had been a fiercer encounter of words than usual, and the dark-haired girl maddened her sister by insults, and the sudden information that she intended leaving the house in the morning, to stay with a relative until her marriage, which was to take place in one week from that time—the wronged woman, demon-possessed from that moment, waited in her dressing-room, until her sister entered, and then she sprang on her and screaming and struggling, they both wrested until they reached the staircase, where the younger sister, escaping for an instant, rushed wildly down, followed by her murderess, who overpowered her in spite of her frantic struggles, and with her strong, cruel, bony hands deliberately strangled her, until she lay a disfigured palpitating corpse at her feet. She had several scars that seemed as if they had been long there, and they were done by witchcraft. The officers of justice arrested the murderess a few hours afterwards. The jailers put irons on her legs (having received such a command). [It was the curious theory that chaining the prisoner would prevent her specter from afflicting anyone.] The weight of them was about eight pounds. These irons and her other afflictions soon brought her into convulsion fits so they thought she would die that night. She died by poison self-administered on the second day of her imprisonment. What is now known as the Winchester Mansion had been shut up and silent for many a year afterwards, and when, at length, and when, at length, an enterprising landlord put it in habitable order, and found tenants for it again, he only found them to lose them. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Year after year passes away, its evil fame darkening with its massive masonry, for none could be found to sanctify with the sacred name and pleasures of home that dwelling blighted by an abiding curse. “I never told you, Sarah,” William said, “although I told my cousin Dr. Winchester, that from the first evening I led a haunted life in that beautiful house, and the more I struggled to disbelieve the evidence of my senses, and to keep the knowledge from you, the more unbearable it became, until I felt myself going mad. I knew I was haunted, but will that last night I had never witnessed what I dreaded day and night to see. And then, Sarah, when I fired, and I saw the devilish murderess face, with its demon eyes blazing on me, and the tall unearthly figure hurrying down to meet me, dragging the other struggling, writhing figure, with her long sinewy fingers seemingly pressed around the convulsed face, then I knew it was all over with me. If there had been a flaming furnace beside me I think I should have leaped into it to escape that awful sight.” That was over a century ago. Sarah eventually returned to the Winchester all along and made several changes to it over 38 years. It is now a 4 story, 160-room mansion, with over 25,500 square feet, sitting on four acres. It was once up to 600 rooms, likely 95,625 square with as many as 737 acres. The strange thing about witchcraft and legends is many of them are based in truth, and sometimes there are unexplainable continuity errors. Take for example An hysterical fit, from J.M. Charcot, Lectures on the Disease of the Nervous System (London, 1877). Look at the extruded tongue, reported during the seventeenth century in witchcraft cases at Gordon, Boston, Salem, and elsewhere. Notice also the legs crossed in spasm; at one time Mary Warren’s legs could not be uncrossed without breaking them. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
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In a Nightmare of Supernatural Terror–Afraid to Move Hand or Foot!
The warning came too late to change that course of event. There has been time when many admitted some doubt of the validity of spectral evidence. This story I will tell to you now, as I have promised to do so, and yet I can hardly make you believe in the reluctance with which I even allow my thoughts go back to the times which I spent in my house—my first town residence after I was married. I loved so much my lovely mansion, I suppose. The wide emerald green lawns and quiet, glassy ponds and streams, bordered by luscious, blooming rhododendrons; of silent, mossy avenues, glorious with the flickering light that stole through pale green beech leaves; of rose gardens with grassy paths, jewel-sprinkled with shell-like petals of white, crimson, pink, and cream-like hues; of old-fashioned rooms with narrow, mullioned windows embowered in scarlet japonica and fragrant, starry jessamine. I supposed I possessed a deep love of them all. This was the first house we were sown in the Santa Clara, California. It was certainly a very fine house, both as o exterior and interior appearances. Large, massively built, agreeably darkened in woodwork and masonry by Time’s shading brush, in excellent repair, and the locality all that could be desire. Wide, lofty apartments, staircases, and landings; a handsome dining-room panelled in velvety dark-green “flock” and gold; a handsome drawing-room panelled in pale cream-colour and gold; airy bed-chambers and dressing-rooms—one, in particular, attached to what seemed the principal bedroom, with a vast mirror occupying the whole side of the apartment which was opposite to the door leading into the bed-chamber. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
“What a nice dressing-room! This house is perfect and expansion will be a joy.” I exclaimed, having a weakness, I confess, for large, handsome mirrors in the rooms I inhabit—William says impertinent things about my “wishing to see as much of myself as I can.” I know I am not all, in fact, rather what he should call petite, if he wished to be polite—but that is not my reason for liking a large mirror. As I spoke the words I looked about mechanically for the house—agent’s clerk who had been sent with us—a nervous-looking little man, with a pasty complexion, and orange-colored hair meekly plastered down at each side of his face. He had been untiringly trotting up and down stairs, unlocking doors, answering questions, and keeping up a harmless soliloquy of chatter about the beauties and excellencies of the “mansiond,” as he called it, ever since he entered its doors, but now he was nowhere to be seen. “What door have you open?” I said, speaking aloud to him, for suddenly a cold blast of air swept up the wide staircase and into the dressing-room door, but not entering. His face looked wither than before, and in his accents there was an almost terrified earnestness that puzzled me. The shadows of the afternoon seemed to deepen. The aspect of the suites of rooms and long silent corridors, with their doors ajar, as if unseen inhabitants were stealthily crouching behind them, drearily impressed me with a sense of dull desolation; and it was with a sudden sensation of childish fear and loneliness that I rushed after my husband, and took his arm as he hastily descended the stairs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
“A spacious, handsome staircase, William” I remarked. “Yes; and a spacious, handsome price, you may be sure,” William responded. However, in this particular, he was exceedingly, and I agreeably, astonished. To our surprise, the house was rather affordable. William figured there must be a screw loose somewhere. He mentioned his opinion to the clerk in a more business-like expression, to the effect that the price seemed low, and that he trusted there was no—peculiar—eh? “Drains, gas, water, all right, sir—right as—a—a trivet, sir. However, the 18-room farmhouse is incomplete,” sad the clerk, looking over his shoulder oddly, as he spoke. “But chimneys, ventilators, roof, tiles—everything in the perfect repair and order, sir!” However, wonderful or not, the house seemed all that we could desire; the lowness of the price made it a decided bargain. I planned to expand the house, and make it even more lofty, and handsome; and in three weeks, huge furniture vanes, and a clever upholstered, had carpeted, curtained, and furnished our town mansion from garret to basement, and William and I, our two babies, a nurse, two maids, a cook, and a butler, were installed in what would become the Winchester Mansion. Dear William had been very generous—nay, almost extravagant—in his provisions for the comfort and pleasure of his wife and children; and my dressing-room and their nursery were fitted up so luxuriously and tastefully, that my feeling at the first inspection of them was that of self-gratulation on being such a fortunate woman, in having such a home, such babies, and such a husband. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
I arrayed myself for dinner that evening quite gleefully; standing before my splendid mirror amid the bule drapery, cushions, and couches of my charming dressing-room. I put on William’s favourite dress—a bronze-brown lustrous silk, with sparkling gold ornaments: he invariably kissed me when he saw it on, stroked my brown curls and face, and called me “Mrs. Winchester”—and was still standing before the glass smiling at myself, like the happy, foolish little woman I was, when I perceived to my discomfiture that William was standing in the doorway watching my doings, and grinning very visibly under his moustache. “Do not mind me, my dear, I beg! do not me the least. However, when you have done admiring Mrs. Winchester, perhaps you will be kind enough to let me know”—then, suddenly changing his tone, he exclaimed, “Have you the window open, Sarah, this chilly evening?” “No William,” I replied, glancing at it to make sure of the fact. “Change in the weather, then,” my husband said. “Come, Sarah, there is no use in making yourself any prettier!” He had just uttered the last words when I saw him spring aside suddenly, and look around. “What is the matter?” I said—“William, dear, what is the matter?” For his face had grown quite white, and with his back against the wall, he was staring about him wildly. “I do not know—Sarah—something”—he explained in a low tone; then recovering himself, with a laugh, he cried—“I struck myself against the door, I suppose! I declare one would think I was composed of old china, or wax, or sugar candy, I hurt and stunned me so! Come, dearest.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
He had not struck himself, for I had been watching him going out on the lobby, and I felt an uneasy conviction that he knew he had not done so, and only spoke as he did in order to deceive or satisfy me. why? Why did I think so? As I live I cannot tell why I thought so then—I know now. We had the “babies”—as William always called them—in the dessert, after the time-honoured fashion of making olives as well as olive branches of them; and then, when the lite ones had gone to bed, we sat side by side in he summer twilight, I lazily fanning myself, William bending over me the lover-husband he was. Then came the lamps, and I played for him, and we sang duet and spent as happy an evening in our new home as a married pair could wish to spend. I cannot tell why I felt so disinclined to go upstairs that night, tired as I was, too—for we had had a long journey up from the country. However as eleven struck, I routed William out of the easy chair where he had been indulging in a preliminary doze, and, ringing for my maid went up to my dressing-room. I like gas in my dressing-room, though not in my bedroom, and the globes at either side the great mirror were a blaze of light. As I entered I caught the reflection of a woman’s figure in the depths of the glass, no my maid’s. The glimpse I had was of a tall woman, strongly built, and broad-shouldered, a quantity of light hair hanging in a disordered manner on her neck, and the profile of a white, hard, masculine face, with the keen glittering eye turned watchfully towards the door. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
This may seem an elaborately detailed description for the momentary glance I obtained, but it is well known with what lightning rapidity the organs of vision will, in moments of terror and amazement, convey impressions to the startled brain, impression accurate and indelible. I had taken but one step on entering, the next step the figure had vanished, and the mirror reflected by my own terrified face, and the homely, cheerful one of my maid Agnus, as she stooped over the dressing-table opening a jewel case. I dropped down on the nearest chair, and, in answer to the girl’s alarmed questions, replied that I did not feel very well. I was sick and shuddering from head to foot. Suddenly it flashed across me that it was from a similar cause I had seen my husband’s face grow ghastly, and that strange, terrified look come into his eyes,–he, who had been a soldier and unflinchingly had fought amidst the dead and dying on bloody Indian battlefields, almost boy as he was then! What was it? What had he seen? Nonsense! was I going to believe I had seen a ghost? Nonsense, a thousand times over! I heard my husband’s cheery voice as he ascended the stairs, and, quite angry with myself for giving way to such folly, I threw on my dressing gown, and, snatching up the brush from Agnus, I pulled my hair down and brushed it quite savagely, until my head ached well—for punishment. If the bright morning light disperses sweet illusions formed overnight, as people say it does, it disperses gloomy ones as well. With the warmth and brightness of the unclouded summer’s sun streaming in through softly coloured blinds, brining out the velvety green of soft new carpets and lounges, the rainbow tints of glittering chandeliers, vases, and ornaments, the gilding on bright fresh wallpaper and the spotless folds of snowy window drapery, it was impossible for an instant to connect anything dark or dismal with the Winchester House. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Why, my dressing-room even where I had been so silly last evening, was like a woodland bower, with its deep purple-blue hangings and rose painted china flower-vases filled with bouquets from our country home. Clustering fragrant honeysuckle half-opened moss roses, drooping emerald-green fern, and masses of delicious jessamine dropping its over-blown blossoms on the white toilet cover, lace-flounced and tied with blue ribbons, as Agnus delighted to have it. “I think this such a charming room and such a charming house altogether, William!” I said; “and you have been such a dear, thoughtful old darling!” For I had perceived that the dear fellow had had his own half-length portrait hung over my writing-table. Quite a pleasant surprise for me, for I thought he intended it to be hung in the dining-room, and I delighted in having the dear pleasant brown eyes looking for a me when I was busy writing or sewing. “I am so glad you like everything, Sarah,” said he. “Why, William, do you not?” However, William had walked off whistling, and presently I heard uproarious baby-laughter, and baby-chatter, and thumping, trotting of small fat feet, as William put the tiny nursery into dire confusion by his morning game of romps with his son and heir, and red-cheeked baby-daughter. And it did seem as if I must have been dreaming or delirious, when this day and many a succeeding one passed away swiftly and pleasantly, without the slightest recurring event to remind me of my strange alarm on the night of our arrival. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
We had been in the Winchester House about a fortnight, when one morning I received a visit from Mrs. Ellen Kenna. A very pretty, lady-like person she was, and as we had some common acquaintances we chattered away very freely and pleasantly for half-an-hour or so. As she rose to go she asked suddenly if we like the house. I replied in the affirmative rather warmly. She was opposite the light, and I saw an involuntary elevation of her eye-brows and compression of her lips that puzzled me. I fancied it was because I had spoken so enthusiastically. Yet her own manner was anything but languidly fashionable, being very cordial and decided. “Yes; it is a very nice house, roomy and well-built,” she said, after a moment’s pause; “I am so glad you like it—I live down the road in Oakland.” We took the carriage to have dinner at Bertha Hass’s mansion that for the following evening, and when we returned about three days later, in spite of a yawning remonstrate from William, I tipped off softly to have a peep at my darlings, before I went to bed. The nursey was a large, pleasant room at the end of the long corridor leading from our own apartments, and, gently turning the handle and gathering my rustling silk dress around me, I opened the door and went in. There was a night-lamp burning clearly, shining softly on the tiny cribs with the sweet flushed infant faces, the long golden-brown lashes lying in dimpled apple-bloom cheeks, the waxen hands and little rounded arms thrown above the tossed golden curls, and the Heavenly calm of the little sleeping forms and pure, peaceful breathing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
I wondered would any mother, no matter how cold and careless, have neglected doing what I did, as I bent over my treasures, and prayed God that His angels might keep watch over each cherub head on its little, soft, white pillow? I had looed at and kissed them, and turned to go, when I glanced toward the nurse’s bed. “Are you not well, Linda? What is the matter?” I said in an anxious whisper. She was a very respectable and trustworthy servant, as well as being, a kind, gentle creature with the little ones, and consequently highly valued by me, but her health was never very good, and she was subject to severe attacks of nervous headache and sleeplessness. She was sitting up in bed, her hands grasping the bedclothes, her face and lips ashy white, and her as big as saucers and staring wildly, as if they would start from their sockets. “Linda! Good Heavens! what is the matter?” I gasped. “Ma’am! Oh, ma’am—oh, mistress, I am dying!” We summoned a doctor and administered restoratives, and chafed the half-senseless girl’s damp, cold hands. I could imagine no cause for her sudden illness, and the others servants were very voluble in exclamations and laments. However, when the physician—a pale, kindly, grave-looking man arrived—after a moment’s examination, he demanded if she had been frightened? I replied in the negative, and was proceeding to describe to him the state in which I had found her, when I heard the housemaid and Agnus whispering energetically together. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The doctor was paying tribute to the dramatic affliction of the girl, when he said, “This strikes hard upon me, that you are at this very present charged with unfamiliar spirits. This is your bodily person they speak to. They say now they see these unfamiliar sprits some to your bodily person. Now what do you say to that?” Agnus said that she saw a specter leaving Linda’s body, as she was going into hideous convulsions. The fit was far too violent to be acting. This was terribly “real” and convincing. “What is it? Speak out at once my god girl!” said the doctor sternly to the housemaid; “you know something of this.” Both servants looked apprehensively at me and at William. “Speak up at once, Bethany; the girl’s life may depend on it! Tell the truth, my girl, and do not be afraid,” said her master kindly, but firmly. “I do not know nothing, sir—indeed, no ma’am, said Angus confusedly; “but—I think, ma’am—she seen the ghost, sir!” “That what!” cried William angrily. “She have, sir!” persisted Agnus eagerly, now that her confession was made. “We are all afraid, sir; but she has been worser nor the rest of us. And she says to me only this morning, ‘Agnus,’ she says, ‘if I see it, I will die!’” “What ghost, you fool?” cried William more angrily. “A pretty set you are!—great, grown men and women, afraid of some bogie story you have heard when you were gossiping with the servants on the balcony, I suppose!” “No, indeed, sir,” said Agnus; “I was not gossippin’, sir; but the parlour-maid over the way, sir Mrs. Kenna’s parlour-maid, ma’am—she told me that there was the Devil–” #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
“I thought so!” interrupted William. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves not to have an ounce of brains among you.” “But, sir! Agnus burst out again, unheeding her master’s rather uncomplimentary phrenological verdict, “we did not mind, sir, though we was a bit frightened, until we see it, sir! The butler see it, and he ran, and cook ran.” “And you ran after them?” said William, with an indignant laugh. “I did, sir, for I saw it too—a big woman with fair hair all over her shoulders,” said Agnus, in an awestruck whisper to Harriet, who nodded her head. The doctor looked up, gravely and without a smile. The servants clustered together near the door, and muttered in undertones. William looked at me with a forced smile, which died away in an instant: “You are not so foolish as to credit any of this nonsense, Sarah?” he said. The servants all turned eagerly to hear their mistress’s opinion. I am afraid it was written in my pallid face. Was it true? Was it what I had seen? Could there be any reality in this, that here, in our pleasant, happy home, beneath the roof with out helpless little one, was a dreadful, unblessed presence—a shadowy horror; that that thing with the watchful, cruel eyes had not been a mere vision of imagination, the mere offspring of an active brain, and the unstrung nerves of an overtired frame? Is there conclusive proof that the person represented had been trafficking with the Devil? “Oh! they imagined something from the stories they heard, I dare say,” I faltered. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
The butler shook his head solemnly: “I could swear to it, ma’am.” “And so could I ma’am!” chorused the cook and housemaid. “Hush!” said the doctor, as the nurse, roused, at length, from her stupor, lay quietly, with closed eyes, from which the tears streamed down her face. “Some one must sit up with her now,” said the doctor, looking around. “I will, sir, if my mistress allows me, said Bethany. Certainly, Bethany,” she said at once. He communicated his instructions to her and took his leave, promising to call in the morning. “Did you ever hear anything like this folly, doctor,” said William, as he shook hands with him at the head of the stairs. “Oh! yes, sir, I often hear such stories,” said the doctor quietly, as he bade us both goodnight.” William! what has frightened the girl? What has she seen?” I whispered, clasping my husband’s arm. “Sarah, go to bed, and do not be a goose,” was William’s reply. “William—I saw that thing—that woman, in my dressing-room,” I said, trembling, “and oh! think if the children were to see I and be frightened like poor Mary!” “Well, Sarah,” said my husband sharply, “if you are going to listen to ignorant servants’ superstitions and run out of your house, just as we are comfortably settled in it, on account of a foolish sickly woman fainting from hearing a ghost story—I say—it is a pity you ever came into it.” He spoke very decidedly and sternly, and yet I felt in my inmost heart that the uttered what he wished me to believe, not what he believed himself. I said no more, but went to my bedroom—not into the dreaded dressing-room—and lay awake listening and fevered with nervous anxiety until the next morning dawned. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
The nurse was better and able to speak the next day, though extremely weak and unnerved yet. The doctor forbade much questioning, and all that could be got from her at intervals was that something had come up the staircase and ran through the corridor, that she heard struggling and scuffling outside, and then the nursey door opened and she saw a woman’s face peering in, the eyes gleaming wickedly at her, and it had the yellow hair that “belong to the ghost.” “The woman has had a bad fit of nightmare—that is all, Sarah,” said William, rattling his paper unconcernedly, when I repeated to him the story I had just heard from poor Linda’s trembling lips. It might be so; but why were they all agreed as to what they had seen? Why did they all speak of the tangled fair hair, and the wicked gleaming eyes? Was our house haunted? Was this the mysterious cause of the exceedingly moderate price of the house and land and the house-agent’s profuse civility? The nurse did not recover strength, and being worse than useless in her present weak, hysterical condition, I sent her down to her country home for change of air, and hired another temporarily in her place. The newcomer was a stout, small, cheerful woman of about forty. I liked her face the moment I saw her; for, besides its smiling, honest expression, there was a good deal of decided character in the large firm features. “You appear to be a sensible person,” I said, when giving her her first instructions in the nursey, “and I think I can rely on you. You know my nurse is leaving because of illness, and that illness was caused by her being frightened by—a ghost-story.” I paused; but the woman remained unmoved, listening to me in respectful silence. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“The servants downstairs have got some nonsense of the kind into their head,” I went on; “they will try to frighten you, too, and tell you they have seen—-” I could not go on. For my life I could not calmly giver her the description of that shadowy image of fear. “They cannot frighten me, ma’am, said my new nurse quietly. “I am not afraid of spirits.” I thought she spoke in jest, and smiled. “I am not indeed, ma’am,” she repeated. “I have lived where there were such things seen but they never harmed me.” “You do not mean to say you believe such nonsense?” said I, hypocritically trying to speak carelessly. “Oh yes, ma’am, I do! I could not disbelieve it,” said the nurse, opening her eyes with earnestness, “I know the story of this house, ma’am.” What story” I cried. The woman coloured and looked confused. “I beg your pardon, ma’am—I mean what people say is seen here.” “What do they say? Do not frighten me,” I said, and my voice quivered in spite of me; “I have heard nothing but what the servant said.” The nurse looked deeply concerned. “I am very stupid, ma’am; I beg your pardon for repeating such stores to you—I daresay it is only idle people’s gossip.” She went about her duties, and I went—not into my dressing-room—but down into the drawing-room, where I say by the window looking out until my husband returned. Two or three weeks more passed away. I lay down on my pet chintz-covered couch, near the window, to look at the sky and the starts. Dead silence—and the “ting, ting” of the French clock on the mantelpiece marked the half-hour after eight. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Dear me, how dark it was growing! this brooding storm I supposed, which had been making me feel so languid and restless. I wish it would come down and cool the air—not tonight, though. Dear me, how lonely it is. I wish William were home. Those women are talking very loudly—I wonder nurse would—here I got drowsy, and my eyes ached looking for the stars that had not come. In a few minutes I roused again, my maternal anxiety changing into indignation as I heard the women’s voices growing louder and shriller, and some doors opened and shut violently. What can nurse be thinking of? They will wake the children most certainly, and William was so long in falling asleep—quite fevers my own boy! I shall really reprover her very plainly. I never needed to do so before. What could she be thinking of? Dead silence again. Well, this was lonely; I was inclined to ring for lights, and turn on all the burners in the chandeliers by way of company. Then I remembered there were some wax matches in one of the drawers of a writing-tray just at hand, and thought I would light the gas myself instead of brining the servants down—yes—but I wanted company. It was so dark and dreary, and—and—I was afraid. Afraid to stir—afraid to look at the door! a numbing, chilling tide of icy fear ebbing through every vein—afraid to draw a breath—afraid to move hand or foot, in a nightmare of supernatural terror. At last, by a violent effort, I sprang at the bell-handle, and pulled it frantically, and as soon as I had done so, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my childish cowardice, although I could not have helped it, and it had overcome me as suddenly as unexpectedly. How William would have laughed at me! #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
There were those servants talking again, tramping about and banging the doors as before. Really, this was unbearable; cook must be in one of her fits of temper, and certainly had forgotten herself strangely. And, as the quarrelsome tones grew louder and louder—evidently in bitter recrimination, although I could not catch a word—my own anger rose proportionately, and, forgetting loneliness and darkness in my indignant anxiety lest my children should be waked by this most unseemly behaviour of the servants, I ran hastily out of the room and up the wide staircase. The dime light from the clouded evening sky, still further subdued by the gold and purple-stained glass of the conservatory door, streamed faintly down the steps from the first landing, and by it, just as I had ascended half way, I discovered the short, thick-sett figure of the nurse rushing down—of course, in answer to my ring, I supposed. Involuntarily I stepped aside to avoid coming in violent contact with her as she feld past. No, it was not the nurse; and the woman following her in headlong haste, sweeping by me so that the current of air from their floating dresses struck icily cold on my brow where the clammy dew of perspiration had started in great drops, was—was—-Merciful Heavens! What was that tall figure, with the coarse, disordered, yellow hair, the white face, and glittering, steel-blue eyes, that glinted fiendishly on me for one dreadful instant, and then vanished? Vanished as the pursed and pursuing figures had disappeared in the shadows of the wide, lofty hall, without sound of voice or footstep? #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
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A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Some People Feel they May Be Flying Apart–We Do Not Forgive Because it Benefits Us!
My turn at last, my Loquacious if Lofty Friend. “How multitudinous are Your sweetness, O Lord, which You have hoarded for those who fear you!” That was the shout of the Psalmist (31.19), and it is my shout too. However, what are You to those who love? And to those who serve You with their whole heart? You are the sweetness of contemplation—who can describe it?—that You bestow generously on those who love You. To this point, in the most generous way possible, You have shown me the sweetness of Your charity. How do I know? You have made me into something better than I was, what I am not, and when I have strayed far afield, You found me and led me back. Hence it is that I serve You now. What is more? You have laid down the one condition, that I should love You. No big deal! I do that already. Although not very well, as You are so fond of pointing out. O Fountain of Perpetual Love! What may I say about You? How can I forget You after You kept me on Your list of friends, even after I pined away and died the spiritual death. Your response to Your servant at that unhappy time was extravagant, an act of friendship, making my every hope a mercy, and my every merit a grace. “What can I give You in return for that grace?” I ask with the Psalmist (116.12). Not everyone has received it. Not everyone has been called to leave everything behind, renounce the World, enter the monastic life. At this point—and, before You say it, O Lord, I do have a point—may I ask a stupid question? What is so great about serving You? We are already under all obligation to serve You; yes, the whole of Humankind. So pardon me if I do not think it is such a great new idea. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
What is really great, though—and this is an argument You seemed to have missed—is that You picked a pauper and a pooper like me for You monastery and put me in the company of Your beloved self-actualized. Now that is astounding! That is astonishing! Look at all this Earthly clutter of mine! It is Yours too, as the First Book of Chronicles has it (29.14), at least according to the terms of our present agreement, and I use bits and bobs of it to serve You. However, that is the wrong end to approach it from. You serve me more than I serve You. Just take a look at Heaven and Earth. You created them for the use of Humankind. They are right here in front of our eyes, and every day they do just what You have ordered them to do. And this is just the beginning. “You have ordered the Angels to minister to Humankind,” as the Psalmist has it (91.11). Transcending all of this transcendence is Your deigning to serve Humanity and promising to give Yourself to us. All those thousands of gifts You have given me, what can I give in return? I know. I will serve You all the days of my life! Better, I will serve You just one day of my life, but I will make it a day of perfect service! Ah, my Lord and Gracious Friend, “You are worth the perfect service, and all the honour and eternal praise that go with it,” as the twenty-four elders in Revelations sang to the Spirit on the throne (4.11). As for me, poor servant that I am, I have vowed to serve You with every fiber of my being, to praise You without ever stinting. That is my wish. That is my desire. And you know what I like best? Whenever I come undone, You kindly see to my mending. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Great honor? To serve You! Great glory? To condemn everything else because of You. Like me, those who on the spur of the moment enlisted in Your Most Holy Service have a great grace. That is to say, we who ditched every carnal delight now discover the most delightful consolation of the Holy Spirit. We who ignored the World’s broad highways and followed Your pointy sign down the narrow dirt road, as Matthew quoted You (7.14), are having a fairly pleasant journey. How sweet is the service of the Lord! Yes, my Lordly if sometimes Leery Friend, we like to think the monastery a great and happy place, and we hope You think the same. And yes, religious service has a lot to recommend it. As You say, it does indeed promote Freedom and Holiness. And it does render Humankind equal to Angels, satisfactory to God, unwelcome to Demons, and commendable to all faithful! It is a life one can learn to love and embrace for a lifetime. A service promising the Summum Bonum. With the Gaudium Perenne to boot! In the Church, we are frequently reminded about the importance forgiving one another. We are told that we are “required to forgive all humans,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 64.10. Forgiveness is our responsibility. However, when we teach our children the principle of repentance, more is involved than saying “I am sorry.” Repentance required that we change our lives and, if possible, make amends for our mistakes. This is where the principle of restitution comes in. Restitution has always been a part of the gospel plan. We read in the law of Moses that when one has sinned against another, “one shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more hereto,” reports Leviticus 6.5. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
When we make a restitution for our sins, we show our Father in Heaven that we are willing to change our lives. As parents, we can d much to instill this important principle in our family. Restitution should be made for mistakes. If we run into the back of someone else’s car, it is called an “accident.” However, the law still expects us to pay for having the other car repaired. Restitution is just one part of repentance. Repentance really involves changing our hearts and our lives and accepting the atonement of Christ. Everyone needs to know that God loved them so much that “He gave his only begotten Son,” reports John 3.16. God did that so people could repent. He paid the wages for your sins. The wages of sin is death. It is also important to understand that restitution would be of little worth without the great sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are so tied to the foolish idea which regards body and mind as two wholly separate and different entities, that all too many regard it as undignified to practice physical exercises in order to influence the mind. The discoveries of mentalism show how foolish is such an attitude, how much we miss in outer helps to inner attainment. Whether or not someone else provides restitution to us when we have been hurt, we should still forgive. Two types of studies inform what we know about forgiveness and mental health: studies of people with forgiving personalities, and studies that teach people how to forgive. Some research examines the mental health of people who already have unforgiving or forgiving personalities. Some people seem to harbor grudges, and some practice forgiveness across a range of hurtful experiences. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
Unforgiving people—whether college students in research studies or clients in therapy—feel more anxious, depressed, and inferior than forgiving people. But why? Does a forgiving personality result in better mental health? Does better mental health make it easier to forgive across situations and over time? Or does adherence to faith—or even the support of family and friends—promote both a forgiving personality style and better mental health? Although we do not yet know the answers to these questions, we do know something about the effects of forgiving in response to specific hurts. In separate universities, both Robert Enright and Everett Worthington Jr. have studied the effects of teaching forgiveness. Can people learn to forgive? It seems so—for adolescents and the elderly, men and women, survivors of incest and people with everyday hurts, and people in individual and group therapy. What are the mental-health benefits? Generally, forgiveness therapies increase clients’ willingness and ability to forgive. When clients complete forgiveness therapies, they feel less grief, depression, anxiety, and anger. They also feel more self-esteem, more hope, more-optimistic attitudes toward family members and other offenders, and more desire for reconciliation. Forgiveness therapies work better than control conditions without treatment. However, forgiveness therapies do not always surpass supportive discussion therapies (both treatments can benefit mental health). Even so, people who forgive more—regardless of the type of therapy—have lower depression and anxiety, and high self-esteem. If clients feel wounded by or vengeful toward an offender—forgives therapy can both help them forgive and improve their mental health. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
Most physical health studies have focused primarily on the health consequences of being unforgiving. In type A personalities—highly competitive, ambitious, rushed, easily angered, and hostile—hostility is the dangerous part, ratcheting up the risk of dying early from heart disease. Why? For one, hostile people are more physically reactive when they perceive interpersonal offenses (and they might even be more likely to perceive offenses in the first place). When angered, hostile people experience an exaggerated release of stress hormones, a large cholesterol dump into the blood stream, and a suppressed immune response, to name a few. On top of that, hostile people typically smoke more, overeat, and drink more alcohol—all risky for heart health. As if that were not enough, hostile people often lack social support—they are not as much fun to be around!—placing them at risk for both mental and physical problems. If hostility—an unforgiving personality style—is physically dangerous, then reducing hostility should reduce coronary problems. Indeed, type A’s who learned to manage their anger and become more forgiving also improved their cardiac health. What are some other consequences of being unforgiving or forgiving? College students in one study remembered someone from real life who had hurt them. At different points in the experiment, they focused on four different reactions to his offender: they mentally rehashed the hurt and nursed a grudge (two unforgiving responses), and they focused on the humanity of the offender and tried to genuinely forgive him or her (two forgiving responses). #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
When the students focused on unforgiving responses, their blood pressure rates, heart rates, sweat levels, brow muscle tension, and negative feelings: all were significantly higher than when the students were forgiving. By contrast, forgiving responses induced calmer feelings and physical responses. It appears that harboring unforgiveness comes at an emotional and physiological cost. By contrast, cultivating forgiveness may cut these costs and even bring some benefits, at least in the short term. The jury is out on the long-terms health effects of forgiveness. Perhaps future research will trac people over time and document long-term health outcomes. Will forgiving and unforgiving responses have long term effects on health if they are sufficiently frequent, intense, and enduring? When physiological systems stay highly aroused, they can eventually lead to physical breakdown. If forgiveness clams that arousal, it could buffer health. The challenge we now face is to help people learn not only how to forgive in the short term, but how to make forgiving a way of life. When we consistently practice the virtue of forgiving, we may see the greatest mental and physical health benefits. As Christians, we care about forgiveness and might readily embrace the beneficial messages about forgiveness and health. However, does this promising research have any potential pitfalls? Let us look at three examples. Can research prove Christian claims? Scientific research on forgiveness—and other virtues—holds value for addressing some questions (such as who is more likely to forgive, and what effects forgiveness has on feelings and physiology). #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
However, the scientific method in incapable of testing the ultimate truth claims of Christianity. Although science can illuminate the relationships among forgiveness-related thoughts, feelings, and physiology, science cannot tell us whether we ought to forgive. And whereas science can assess whether certain people judge forgiveness to be a virtue (and whether this is related to their behaviour), science cannot determine whether forgiving is virtuous. Is good behavior always good for us? It seems reasonable that something that we believe is good would also be good for us. However, this is not necessarily so. Being faithful and doing what is good does not inevitably secure good mental and physical health. People may alienate us because our beliefs are countercultural. We may suffer scorn for our faithful labours. We may feel depressed as we work with the sick and sorrowing. Sometimes discipleship has a cost. Why forgive? Some Christians have come to think that the reason they should forgive and should not hold grudges is because forgiveness is healthier. The because in that sentence is problematic. As valuable as research data are, they simply cannot serve as our ultimate motivation. Scientific data describe the way things are and help us predict what will happen in the future. However, these predictions do not always hold up. What would happen if—in future research—we discovered that forgiveness was so difficult for some people that it caused stress, negative emotion, and physical problems? Would that mean that we should stop forgiving? What would Christians do? In the best case, Christians’ motivation to forgive would be unshaken. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
We do not forgive because it benefits us. Those benefits may be a welcome by-product. However, our motivation to forgive is rooted in God’s call to forgive, our gratitude for God’s forgiveness of us, and our desire to imitate Christ—the one who perfectly modeled forgiveness and even now perfects our efforts to practice forgiveness. Many therapists believe that some people need to go to pieces, to become totally disorganized, in order to have a chance at better organization. I think this may be true as things stand at present. Our understanding of psychotherapy is not sufficiently developed for therapists to be able to help people disintegrate just in the right area and to the right extent, and in fifty-minute packages! Nor is enough known as yet about the circumstances in which the natural healing process (vis medicatrix naturae) will work best, and how we may encourage it. There is still much to learn. What is clear, however, is that some people feel that they may be falling apart, or even flying apart. An absolutely terrifying state of mind, an unbearable agony; yet this may have already happened in infancy: the unbearable has already happened. Yet is maybe that this is a thing that may need to happen to them again before they can get to an integrated personality-structure which feels better at a fundamental level. It is also clear that they need to be held somehow during that falling-apart time. It is surely almost obvious that being held by a hospital organization or a bed or drug. In practice, however, there is still a lot that psychotherapists need to learn. A little more is known about more controlled therapeutic regressions and relaxations of integration. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
At certain times in therapy, we may be in touch with a baby part of ourselves, and its terrible experiences, while at an adult level, too, all is confusion, disintegration, lack of connectedness, lack of context or meaning. This horrible experience is nothing new. What is new is the experience of feeling like this in the presence of someone who can take all this without losing one’s hold. At first, the adult part of us cannot hold on, never having been able to since babyhood. However, the therapist holds it, is not swallowed up by it, does not deny it but continues to be in touch both with the disintegrated adult and the disintegrated baby parts. In due course, if things go well, the adult part of us co-operates with the therapist in holding the baby and, further along in time, the therapist’s help is no longer needed. Then, the adult is able to feel the baby’s disintegration without feeling overwhelmed by it—the disintegration is integrated as part of the personality: it is not the whole. It is this that helps people get better. The facilitating environment is there to enable the maturational processes to proceed: safety, recognition, opportune reality-presentation. What else? A facilitating environment is in the end not enough. People are needed. Persons. Personal relationships between two whole persons, because one of them is still a tenuous patchwork of disintegrated and suffering adult and baby bits, even then it is important that there is a person in the relationship who is adult and whole, and that is the therapist. Like a good parent, like a good friend, the therapist is there to maintain the consoling knowledge that there are still good things, and most basically, that the good relationship has survived. “You are still you, I am still I, we are still together and sharing.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
“You and I are both at risk of natural disaster but the relationship is surviving.” “You may be (I may be) more confused, more lost, more inept, more of a coward, more sadistic or dirtier than you wanted to believe, but we both know it now and the relationship is still there.” “Your parent(s) may have been more confused, lost, inept, cowardly, sadistic, or dirty than you wanted to believe, but we both know it now, and the relationship is still intact.” That is what holding is. It is not easy to achieve. If analysts concentrate on either the grandiose or the wretched part of the psyche, they waste their time. Both must be accepted, both held: when they are, then parts of the personality which were previously disowned will contribute strength and solidity to the whole. Less than two centuries ago most humans were working on the land, the sea, and the forests and mines. In the cities they worked in hand-operated workshops and the cities themselves were no so large; the countryside was close at hand. They worked hard and long, using the muscles of their bodies, and so did their wives. This involuntary exercise of the muscular system, this exposure to sunshine and fresh air, this limitation to fresh and unpreserved foods, kept most of them healthy and strong even if the lack of better housing and sanitation kept short the lives of some of them. Then came the industrial revolution, when the machine and the civilization it created changed their habits of living. Now they crowd into cities, enter sedentary occupations, sit in chairs for long hours, or stand at mechanical assembly lines. Their bodies become soft, flabby, and undeveloped. Their organs of digestion function imperfectly. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
Yet such is their hypnotized condition that these people do not realize the harm which modern ways have done them; indeed, they usually pity their ancestors! However, those who do realize it and feel uneasy in their conscience about it, need to make a constructive effort to eliminate the deterioration and the atrophy which are the price paid for straying away from Nature. There is no better way to bring the body under control than the way used to bring the mind under control—to put in under a daily routine of exercise and to have a fixed time for their repeated practice. The best time naturally to do exercise is on rising from bed, but it may not be the most convenient time. If the body is a battery and needs regular recharging (through relaxation practices), it is also a structure and needs reconditioning (through indicated exercises). Cicero’s prescription to follow the daily period of exercise with a period of rest is an excellent one. It is possible with only twelve months of regular, daily work to build up a perfect physical control. The ordinary bodily exercises can soon become tiring to middle-aged people. Moreover they take twice or treble the time needed for the simple culture of the spine, which is the most concentrated form of exercise possible. It stretches the body to the limit. It may be too much to ask students who have reached middle or old age to try all these exercises in physical betterment or follow all these instructions in physical condition. However, what they may find impossible to perform or what they may be disinclined to practice, they can still make advantageous use in the following way. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Let them bring such teaching to the notice of younger persons, to children in their teens and those just beyond the threshold of adulthood—for it is far easier for these younger persons to do than for older ones. The effort required is much less, the habits not so much encrusted. The body is deliberately made to exercise itself in certain attitudes and gestures. Any gesture become an attitude when it is arrested. Care of the physical organism will require attention to physical exercise as well as physical relaxation and to deep and abdominal breathing. The disuse of some muscles and the misuse of others can only lead to bodily faults. Restore he first to use, correct the second. As the new 20th century opened, antiquated Victorian social patterns were further substantially modified by a Progressive Era emphasis on the housewife as a “domestic engineer.” This was consciously advocated by Progressives and middle-road feminists to elevate household activities to the realm of skilled domestic engineering in order to provide housewives both higher status and greater personal freedom. No longer could a middle-class woman know only how to manage servants; now she was a manager responsible for the “scientific management” of the home. This meant she had to know budgeting, sanitation, and the characteristics of foods (balanced meals); she had to be an informed consumer. This emphasis on domestic science was reflected in schools and colleges, which established departments of Home Economics. The land grant colleges which had first brought professional programs such as dentistry and engineering onto campuses, were also in the forefront in establishing programs of home economics for the application of domestic science. (Following World War II, the idea of scientific management was further extended by universities into the realm of personal relations with the proliferation of courses on Marriage and Family.) #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
All the concern with domestic management was designed to increase women’s freedom by making the home role more professional and less restrictive. Mary Pattison made this explicit in her influential Principles of Domestic Engineering, where she sought to make the home more efficient by standardizing household tasks into science (May Pattison, Principles of Domestic Engineering: or What, Why, and How of a Home, Trow Press, New York, 1915). Through the use of stopwatch and charts plus several thousand questionnaires that had been distributed to Ne Jersey housewives, the efficient ways to cook clean, and sew were detailed. The titles of some of the chapters give a sense of the scope of the work. Titles of chapters include, “An Auto-Operative House,” “The Business of Purchasing,” “The Regeneration of the Kitchen,” “Personal Freedom,” “Organization of the Family,” “The Cultural Value of Housework,” “The Organization of the Consumer,” and “Housework and Democracy.” The scientific management of the home was tied to progressive idealism. According to the book’s final paragraph, “the truly progressive home is akin to democracy’s method…Domestic engineering would encourage cooperation between men and women leading to personal freedom and personal independence.” The new progressive idealism shows Democracy as a Religion, where men and women guided by God, united, shall work for its issues. “He is in glory, Who whilst He rejoices in Himself, needs not further praise,” reports Moral xxxii, 7. To be in glory, however, is the same as to be blessed. Therefore, since we enjoy God in respect to our intellect, because “vision is the whole of reward,” as Augustine says (De Civ. Dei. xxii), it would seem that beatitude is said to be in God in respect of His intellect. #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
Beatitude is perfect good of an intellect operation, by which in some sense it grasps everything. When the beatitude of every intellectual nature consists in understanding. Now in God, to be and to understand are one and the same thing; differing only in the manner of our understanding them. Beatitude must therefore be assigned to God in respect of God in respect of His intellect; as also to the blessed, who are called blessed [beati] by reason of the assimilation to His beatitude. This argument proves that beatitude belongs to God; not that beatitude pertains essentially to Him under the aspect of His essence; but rather under the aspect of His intellect. Since beatitude is good, it is the object of the will; now the object is understood as prior to the act of power. Whence in our manner of understanding, divine beatitude precedes the act of will at rest in it. This cannot be other than the act of the intellect; and thus beatitude is to be found in an act of the intellect. With both the brief Glimpse and the lasting Fulfilment comes a strong feeling of release. This refers to release from all the various kinds of limitation and restriction which have hemmed and oppressed one heretofore. Like a prisoner emerging from a gloomy cell after many years of an invalid liberated from long confinement in a hospital bed, one will feel an overwhelming sense of relief as the glimpse deepens and all cares, all burdens, fade away. There is an air of effectiveness in the experience which accompanies the glimpse, a feeling that here is real power ready for use and easy to use, in the way that the Overself directs, of course. It is like the feeling of returning to a well-beloved home after long absence, a joy whose arisal is spontaneous and unavoidable. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
When the glimpse is at its most, one hears within one the harmony of things like a joyous song. The stillness made one feel as religious and reverential as could be, yet one remained unpraying, even unthinking. The base, the mean, the unworthy, and the low seem alien and far from one: the noble, the high, the true, and the ideal seem to become one’s own very nature. From this rare contact one draws an unspeakable peace, a divine upliftment. Too many lives have a hard grey colour about them. The glimpse changes this, for an hour or a day, and puts a delicate pastel beauty in its place. All that is negative in one’s character fades away for the time of this glimpse, as if it had never existed. For one feels that there is pure harmony at the heart of things, within the Universe’s Mind, and that one has momentarily touched it. In these enchanted moments, all life takes on the shadowlike quality of a dream. The gulf between the impersonal calm of one’s present state and the egotistical emotion of one’s earlier one, is immense. The sudden Olympian elation which the glimpse gives, the unfamiliar feeling that it is like looking through a window on an entirely different and wholly glorious World of being, the inner knowing that this is reality—these things make it a benediction. When one is in that consciousness, there is nothing either in place or time which one wants for. For one’s mind is at peace. It is a strange paradox that in this experience although a human becomes infinitely humbler—for one has to be passive to surrender, if it is to happen at all—one finds at the same time an immense dignity within oneself. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
In these glorious moments the awareness of evil in the World faces out; by contrast the continuity of original goodness stays unbroken. The sense of well-being which comes with a glimpse spreads into the body, lights up the mind, glows in the emotions. In its enfolding peace, one will lose one’s Earthly burdens for a time; by its brooding wisdom, one will comprehend the necessity of renunciation; through its mysterious spell, one will confer grace on suffering humans. As its beauty seeps into one and affects one’s entire feeling-nature, all one’s grievances against other humans, against life itself, dissolve. All regrets for the past, complaints about the present, and grumbles over the future, pass away. Even more, all contempt or hatred for other humans passes too. The glimpse brings a feeling of enchantment. It is the opening of a secret door. The effect is a magical release from burdens and a flooding by hope. So, friends, every day do something that will not compute. Love the Lord. Love the World. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be humble. Love someone who does not deserve it (from afar). Denounce corruption and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Praise ignorance, for what humans have not encountered one has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant redwoods. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion—put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
Expect the end of the World. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as the honourable do not go cheap for power, please honourable people more than others. Ask yourself: Will his satisfy an honourable person satisfied to a bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Let easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the general and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trial, the way you did not go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection. For the sake of Thy truth, Thy covenant, Thy greatness and glory; for the sake of Thy Torah, They majesty, Thy troth and Thy fame; for the sake of Thy mercy, Thy goodness, Thy unity, Thine honour, and Thy wisdom; for the sake of Thy sovereignty, Thine eternity, Thy mystic bond with us, Thy strength and Thy splendor; for the sake of Thy righteousness, Thy holiness, Thine abundant mercies, and Thy divine presence, do Thou save us; for the sake of Thy praise, do Thou save us, we beseech Thee. O Eternal, do Thou save us. Save Thou the World’s foundation-stone, the Temple, the house of Thy choice, the threshing-floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, from whom David bought the site of the Temple, the sacred shrine, even Mount Moriah, hill of revelation and abode of Thy majesty, where once David dwelt, godliest of Lebanon, lovely height, the joy of the whole Earth, perfection of beauty, lodging-place of righteousness. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 