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I Talked with Spirits—But it is Dangerous and Wicked!
Many people are pleased to know, although this is Satan’s World and Universe, it is reassuring that the power of Satan, and his hosts are limited by God’s omnipotence. The Christian Bible and Book of Mormon clearly teaches that the Lord is in ultimate control of the entire social and political realm. For example, in the story of Job, we are informed that Satan could do only what God allowed. The apostle Paul also tells us that the Earthly rulers are in their places of authority by God’s permissive decree. He declared, “Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God,” reports Romans 13.1. This does not mean that God approves of men like Nero, Hitler, or Stalin, but that He ordained government to prevent chaos by making laws and enforcing them. Wicked men and women who hate the Lord and His people have obtained their positions of authority only by God’s permission, and their power is limited by His will. Therefore, though He commands His followers to obey even the most evil of these Earthly rulers, He will return as King of kings and Lord of lords to overcome all obstacles and work out His plans and purposes. The power of Satan and his followers is further restricted by the presence of Christians in the World. Believers have been redeemed from the domination of this World system. In addition, obedient followers of the Lord Jesus exert a purifying and preserving influence in the World. Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the Earth,” reports Matthew 5.13. Salt immediately suggested purity to the people of Christ’s day. In fact, the Romans said that salt was the purest of all things because it cam from the sun and the sea. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Believers in Christ, by holding to a high standard of speech and conduct, and keeping themselves “unspotted” from the World (James 1.27), exert a strong cleansing effect upon humankind. Then, too, as salt was a common preservative, so Christians are a cleansing antiseptic in society, holding back the process of corruption. Faithful believers in Christ are therefore both a purifying and preserving influence. The apostle Paul also declared that all Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and that as long as they are on Earth the full outbreak of evil is impossible. “And now ye know what restraineth that he might by revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hindereth will continue to hinger until he be take out of the way,” reports 2 Thessalonians 2.6-7. Moreover, Satan works under the disability of knowing that his ultimate defeat has been made certain by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews said that Jesus took upon Himself our nature and went to the cross that “through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” reports Hebrews 2.14. Though Peter tells us that, “the devil, like a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,” reported in 1 Peter 5.8, Satan knows his doom is sure and therefore operates under definite limitations. In conclusions, if you are a follower of Christ, you must take seriously these Scripture passages which speak of the invisible army that is arrayed against you. If you think that in your own strength you are able to withstand Satan and his host, you will not be victorious in your Christian life. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Your testimony for Christ will be powerless and your way of life completely ineffective unless you walk in daily fellowship with God. This means you must confess and forsake every known sin, spend time with God in prayer, read the Scriptures, and submit yourself wholly to the Lord. In addition, in society, believers are called upon to pray earnestly for the leaders of nation, both on local, national, and subnational levels. Remember, the Bible teaches that an invisible host of evil spirits often uses political leaders as mere pawns, and these humans will not be able to function effectively and promote the right unless they receive help from the Lord. Since many of them are not true believers, they especially stand in need of the prayers of God’s people. The experience of Daniel demonstrates that when Godly men pray, the Lord sends His holy Angels to do battle with the Satanic forces and frustrates them in their efforts. Christians are therefore reminded by Paul to pray for all who have positions of authority: “I exhort, therefore, the first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all humans, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and honesty,” reports 1 Timothy 2.1-2. Many of God’s people do not realize that tremendous battle being waged in the spiritual realm, and as a result they are somewhat lackadaisical about praying for men and women and children who hold responsible positions in government. Therefore, we who know that evil spirits are putting tremendous pressure upon these people should make doubly sure we do not fail. Our prayers may make the difference between life or death for many people, for when we seek God’s face, He exerts His power to defeat the enemy. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
With the restoration of King Charles II witchcraft did not cease; on the other hand it went on with unimpaired vigour, and several important cases were brought to trial in England. In one instance, at least, it made its appearance in Ireland, this time far south, at Youghal. The extraordinary tale of Florence Newton and her doings, which is related below, forms the seventh Relation in Glanvill’s Sadducismus Triumphatus (London, 1726); it may also be found, together with some English cases of notoriety, in Francis Bragge’s Witchcraft further displayed (London, 1712). It is from the first of these sources that we have taken it, and reproduced it here verbatim, except that some redundant matter has been omitted, id est, where one witness relates facts (!) which have already been brought forward as evidence in the examination of a previous witness, and which therefore do not add to our knowledge, though no doubt they materially contributed to strengthen the case against the unfortunate old woman. Hayman in his Guide to Youghal attributes the whole affair to the credulity of the Puritan settlers, who were firm believers in such things. In this he is correct no doubt, but it should be borne in mind by the reader that such a belief was not confined to the newcomers at Youghal, but was common property throughout England and Ireland. The tale shows that there was a little covey of suspected witches in Youghal at that sate, as well as some skillful amateur witch-finders (Messrs. Perry, Greatrakes, and Blackwall). From the readiness with which the Mayor proposed to try the “water-experiment” one is lead to suspect that such a process as swimming a witch was not altogether unknown in Youghal. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
For the benefit of the uninitiated we may briefly describe the actual process, which, as we shall see, the Mayor contemplated, but did not actually carry out. The suspected witch is taken, her right thumb tied to her left great top, and vice vera. She is then thrown into the water: if she sinks (and drowns, by any chance!) her innocence is conclusively established; if, on the other hand, she floats, her witchcraft is proven, for water, as being the element in Baptism, refuses to receive such a sinner in its bosom. Florence Newton was committed to Youghal prison by the Mayr of the town, 24th March 1661, for bewitching Mary Longdon, who gave evidence against her at the Cork Assizes (11th September), as follows: Mary Longdon being sworn, and bidden to look upon the prisoner, he countenance chang’s pale, and she was very fearful to look towards her, but at last she did, and being asked whether she knew her, she said she did, and wish’d she never had. Being asked how long she had known she, she said for three of four years. And that at Christmas the said Florence came to the Deponent, at the house of John Pyne in Youghal, where the Deponent was a servant, and asked her to give her a piece of Beef out of the Powdering Tub; and the Defendant answering her that she would not give away her Master’s Beef, the said Florence seemed to be very angry, and said Thou had’st as good give it me, and went away grumbling. That about a week after the Defendant going to the water with a Pail of Cloth on her head she met the said Florence Newton, who came full in her Face, and threw the Pail off her head, and violently kiss’d her, and said, Mary, I pray thee let thee and I be Friends; for I bear thee no ill will, and I pray thee do thou bear me none. And that she the Defendant afterwards went home, and that within a few Days after she saw a Woman with a Vail over her face stand by her bedside, and one standing by her like a little old Man in Silk Cloaths, that that this Man who she took to be a Spirit drew the Vail off the Woman’s Face, and then she knew it to be Goody Newton: and that she Spirit spoke to the Defendant and would have her promise him to follow his advice and she would have all things after her own Heart, to which she says she answered that she would have nothing to say to him, for her trust was in the Lord. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
That within a month after the said Florence had kiss’s her, she this Defendant fell very ill of Fits or Trances, which would take her on a sudden, in that violence that three or four men could not hold her; and in her Fits she would be take with Vomiting, and would vomit up Needles, Pins, Horsenails, Stubbs, Wooll, and Straw, and that very often. And being asked whether she perceived at these times what she vomited? She replied, she did; for then she was not n so great distraction as in other parts of her Fits she was. And that before the first beginning of her Fits several (and very many) small stones would fall upon her as she went up and down, and would follow her from place to place, and from one Room to another, and would hit her on the head, shoulders, and arms, and fall to the ground and vanish away. And that she and several others would see them both fall upon her and on the ground, but could never take them, save only some few which she and her Master caught in their hands. Amongst which one that had a hole n it she tied (as she was advised) with a leather thong to her Purse, but it was vanish’d immediately, though the latter continu’d tied in a fast knot. That in her Fits she often saw Florence Newton, and cried out against her for tormenting her of her, for she says, that she would several times Stick Pins into her Arms, and some of them so fast, that a Man must pluck three or four times to get out the Pins, and they were stuck between the skin and the flesh. That sometimes she would be remov’d out of bed into another Room, sometimes she would be carried to the top of the House, and laid on a board between two Sollar Beams, sometimes put into a Chest, sometimes under a parcel of Wooll, sometimes between two Feather-Beds on which she used to lie, and sometimes between the Bed and the Mat in her Master’s Chamber, in the Daytime. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
And being asked how she knew that she was thus carried about and disposed of, seeing in her fits she was in a violent distraction? She answered, she never knew where she was, till they of the Family and the Neighbours with them, would be taking her out of the places whither she was so carried and removed. And being asked the reason and wherefore she cried out so much against the said Florence Newton in her Fits? She answered, because she saw her, and felt her torturing her. And being asked how she could think it was Florence Newton that did her this prejudice? She said, first, because she threatened her, then because after she had kiss’d her she fell into these Fits, and that she saw and felt her tormenting. And lastly, that when the people of the Family, by advice of the Neighbours and consent of the Mayor, had sent for Florence Newton to come to the Defendant, she was always worse when she was brought to her, and her Fits more violent than at another time. And that after the said Florence was committed at Youghal the Defendant was not troubled, but was very will till a little while after the said Florence was removed to Cork, and then the Defendant was as ill as every before. Then then the Mayor of Youghal, one Mr. Mayre, sent to know whether the said Florence was bolted (as the Defendant was told), and finding she was not, the order was given to put her Bolts on her; which being done, the Deponent saith she was well again, and so hath continued ever since, and being asked whether she had such like Fits before the said Florence have her the kiss, she saith she never had any, but believed that with the kiss she bewitch’d her, and rather because she had heard from Nicholas Pyne and others that Florence had confessed so much. This Mary Longdon having closed her evidence, Florence Newton peeped at her as it were betwixt the head of the bystanders that interposed between her and the said Mary, and lifting up both her hands together, as they were manacled, cast them in a violent angry motion (as was observed by W. Aston) toward the said Mary, as if she intended to strike at her if she could have reached her, and said, Now she is down. #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
Upon which the Maid fell suddenly down to the ground like a stone, and fell into a most violent Fit, that all the people that could come to lay hands on her could scarce hold her, she biting her own arms and shrieking out in a most hideous manner, to the amazement of all Beholders. And continuing so for about a quarter of an hour (the said Florence Newton sitting by herself all that while pinching her own hands and arms, as was sworn by some that observed her), the Maid was ordered to be carried out of Court, and taken into a House. Whence several Persons after that brough word, that the Maid was in a Vomiting Fit, and they brought in several crook’d Pins, and Straws, and Wooll, in white Foam like Spittle, in great proportion. Whereupon the Court having taken notice that the Maid said she had been very well when the said Florence was in Bolts, and ill again when out of them, till they were again put on her, demanded of the Jaylor if she were in Bolts or no, to which he said she was not, only manacled. Upon which order was given to put on her Bolts, and upon putting them on she cried out that she was skilled, she was undone, she was spoiled, why do you torment me thus? and so continued complaining grievously for half a quarter of an hour. And then came in a messenger from the Maid, and informed the Court the Maid was well. At which Florence immediately and cholerickly uttered these words, She is not well yet! And being demanded, how she knew this, she denied she said so, though many in Court heard her say the words, and she said, if she did, she knew not what she said, being old and disquieted, and distracted with her sufferings. However, the Maid being reasonably well come to herself, was, before the Court knew anything of it, sent out of Town to Youghal, and so was no further examined. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
The Fit of the Maid being urged by the Court with all the circumstances of it upon Florence Newton, to have been a continuance of her devilish practice, she denied it, and likewise the motion of her hands, and the saying, Now she is down, though the Court saw the first, and the words were sworn to by one Roger Moor. And Thomas Harrison swore that he had observed the said Florence peep at her, and use that motion with her hands, and she saw the Maid fall immediately upon that motion, and heard the words, Now she is down, uttered. Nicolas Stout was next produced by Mr. Attorney-General, who being sworn and examined, saith, That he had often tried her, having heard say that Witches could not say the Lord’s Prayer, whether she could or no, and she could not. Whereupon she said she could day it, and had often said it, and the Court being desired by her to hear her say it, gave her leave; and four times together after these words, Give us this our daily bread, she continually said, As we forgive them, leaving out altogether the words, And forgive us our trespasses, upon which the Court appointed one near her to teach her the words she left out. However, she either could not, or would not, say them, using only these or the like words when these were repeated, Ay, ay, trespasses, that’s the word. And being often pressed to utter the words as they were repeated to her, she did not. And being asked the reason, she said she was old and had a bad memory; and being asked how her memory served her so well for other parts of the Prayer, and only failed her for that, she said she knew not, neither could she help it. John Pyne being likewise sworn and examined, saith, That about January last [1661] the said Mary Longdon, being his Servant, was much troubled with small stones that were thrown at her [&c., as in the Deponent’s statement, other items of which he also corroborated]. That sometimes the Maid would be reading in the Bible, and on a sudden he hath seen the Bible struck out of her Hand into the middle of the Room, and she immediately cast into a violent Fit. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
That in the Fits he hath seen two Bible laid on her Breast, and in the twinkling of an eye they would be cast betwixt the two Beds the Maid lay upon, sometimes thrown into the middle of the Room, and that Nicholas Pyne held the Bible in the Maid’s hand so fast, that it being suddenly snatch’d away, two of the leaves were torn out. Nicholas Pyne being sworn, saith, That the second night after that the Witch had been in Prison, being the 24th [26?] of March last, he and Joseph Thompson, Roger Hawkins, and some others went to speak with her concerning the Maid, and told her that it was the general opinion of the Town that she had bewitched her, and desired her to deal freely with them, whether she had bewitched her or no. She said that she had not bewitched her, but it may be she had overlooked her, and that there was a great difference between bewitching and overlooking, and that she could not have done her any harm if she had not touch’d her, and that therefore she had kiss’d her. And she said that what mischief she thought of at that time she kiss’d her, that would fall upon ger, and that she could not but confess she had wronged the Maid, and thereupon fell down upon her knees, and prayed God to forgive her for wronging the poor Wench. They wisd’d that she might not be wholly destroyed by her; to which she said, it must be another that would help her, and not they that did the harm. And then she said, that there were others, as Goody Halfpenny and Goody Dod, in Town, that could do these things as well as she, and that it might be one of these that had done the Maid wrong. He further saith, That towards Evening the Door of the Prison shook, and she arose up hastily and said, What makest thow here this time a night? #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
And there was a very great noise, as if some body with Bolts and Chains had been running up and down the Room, and they asked her what it was she spoke to, and what it was that made the noise; and she said she saw nothing, neither did she speak, and if she did, it was she knew not what. However, the next day she confess’d it was a Spirit, and her Familiar, in the shape of a Greyhound. He further saith, That he and Mr. Edward Perry and others for Trial of her took a Tile off the Prison, went to the place where the Witch lay, and carried it to the House where the Maid lived, and put it in the fire until it was red-hot, and then dripped some of the Maid’s water upon it, and the Witch was then grievously tormented, and when the water consumed she was well again. Spiritism is the belief that people survive death as spirits, and that they can communicate with the living through a medium, a person having a special psychic gift. The fact has been established that nearly 150 million people in the World today have participated with some regularity in efforts to receive messages from the dead. Many have had experiences so convincing that they now possess unwavering assurance of a future existence in another World after death. One such man was the late Bishop Pike, liberal theologian who at one time did not believe any form of life was possible on the other side of the grave. However, then a series of strange circumstances impelled him to go to a medium, who claimed to be able to put him in touch with his dead son Jim. The young man had recently committed suicide, and the bishop left the séance satisfied that Jim had really spoken to him through the medium. In fact, he was persuaded that he had also conversed with the late Dr. Paul Tillich, a celebrated theologian and philosopher whom the bishop had greatly admired and to whom he had dedicated one of his books. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Dr. Pike, with Diane Kennedy who later became his wife, published a book entitled The Other Side, in which they told the whole story of his spirit encounters, beginning with the haunted apartment in Cambridge, England, and including his seances with Ena Twigg, George Daisley, and Arthur Ford. A number of events recounted are so extraordinary that they baffle the mind. One cannot read this book without concluding that Bishop Pike was either the victim of a plot so carefully contrived that no one to this date has been able to decipher it, or that he actually participated in some kind of supernatural activity. In any case, we do not agree with the bishop’s assumption that he had spoke with his son or with Dr. Tillich. Many people have written recently of their experiences in spiritism, and some of them come to conclusions far different from those of Bishop Pike and his associates. Raphael Gasson, a former medium who was converted to Christ, recently published a work entitled The Challenging Counterfeit. He convincingly sets for the idea that demons, by impersonating the dead, are able to deceive those who attend seances in hope of contacting the spirits of their loved ones. In another publication I Talked With Spirits, Victor Ernest tells the story of his early life as a member of a spiritualistic family. He is now a highly respected minister of the Gospel, and declared unequivocally that the religion of his childhood contained supernatural element, but that it is dangerous and wicked. In this study we careful examine spiritism, seeking to answer four basic questions: What does the Christian Bible teach regarding spiritism? How do spirits work? What do spirits believe? Why is spiritism so dangerous? #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
Many also want to know why did Mrs. Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, spent the last half of her life and $155,991,224.49 (2021 inflation adjusted) building a house that now contains 160 rooms and stands four stories? The mystery remains unsolved to this very day. In 1884, Mrs. Winchester left New Haven, Connecticut, and the graves of her husband and only child, and moved to San Jose, California, and began the obsession that was to last for the rest of her life. The death of William Wirt Winchester, of the Winchester House, in the country of America, would in the ordinary way have received no more attention than the death of any other simple country gentleman. The circumstances of his death, however, though now long since forgotten, were sensational, and attracted some notice at the time. It was one of those cases which is easily forgotten within a year, except just in the locality where it occurred. The most sensational circumstances of the case never came before the public at all. I give them here simply and plainly. The physical people may make what they like of them. On the death of his new born daughter, after a prolonged illness, Mr. Winchester wrote to Leonard Pardee and asked him to come down to New Haven for the funeral, and to remain with at least a few days. There were many visitors in the hose for the funeral, which took place in the village churchyard, but they left immediately afterwards. The air of heavy gloom which had hung over the Winchester mansion in New Haven seemed to lift a little. The servants (servants are always emotion) continued to break down at intervals. Mr. Winchester spoke of his wife with great affection and regret, but still he could speak of her and not unsteadily. At dinner, Mr. Winchester spoke of one or two subjects, of politics and of his duties as magistrate and President of a company, and of course he made the requisite fuss about his gratitude to Leonard for coming down to the Winchester mansion at the time. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
After dinner they sat in the library, a room well and expensively furnished. There were a few oil paintings on the walls, a presentation portrait of himself, and a landscape or two and the praised Ulysses in the Land of the Lestrygonians Fresco. Mr. Winchester had eaten next to nothing at dinner. When he said, “I want you to tell my daughter that I will be with her tomorrow.” He went to bed early that night. Leonard has been with him the following day. They rode together, and he expected an accident every minute, but none happened. All that evening, Leonard expected him to turn suddenly faint and ill, but that also did not happen. When at about ten o’clock he excused himself and said goodnight, Leonard felt distinctly relieved. Mr. Winchester went up to his room and rang for the servant Robert Law. The rest is, of course well known. The servant’s reasons had broken down, possibly the immediate cause being the death of the Winchester infant. On entering his master’s bedroom, without the least hesitation, he raised a loaded revolver which he carried in his hand, and shot Mr. Winchester through the heart. I believe the case is mentioned in some of the textbooks on homicidal mania. Mrs. Winchester said she had kind of felt for so long, and she had a queer feeling coming over her as if there was somebody or something round the house, more than appeared. She had felt it in the air; but it seemed to her silly, and she tried to get over it. But two or three times, she said, when it got to be dusk, she felt somebody go by her up the stairs. The front entry was not very light in the daytime and in the storm, come ten o’clock, it was so dark that all you could see was just a gleam of something, and two or three times when she started to go upstairs, she saw a soft white something that seemed going up before her, and she stopped with her heart beating like a trip-hammer, and she sort of saw it go up and along the entry to the Mr. Winchester’s chambers, and then it seemed to go right through, because the door did not open. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
There are times and tones and moods of nature that make all the vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and supernatural, as if the outlines of reality present were fading into the invisible and unknown. When Mrs. Winchester went to bed the next evening, she slept in a different room. She went right off to sleep as sound as a new born baby, on until somewhere about morning, when something awakened her broad in a minute. Her eyes flew open, and the storm had gone down and the moon had came out; and there, standing right in the moonlight by her bed, was a woman just as white as snow, with long raven black hair hanging down to her waist, and the brightest, mournfullest black eyes you could have ever seen. She stood there looking right at Mrs. Winchester; and Mrs. Winchester thought this is what woke her up because if someone stares at you like that, it is felt in your very soul. Mrs. Winchester felt just as if she was turning to stone. She could not move nor speak. She lay a minute and then shut her eyes, and begin to say her prayers; and a minute after she opened them, and the specter was gone. Mrs. Winchester was a sensible woman; and she just got up, put on a shawl around her shoulders, and went first and looked at the doors, and they were both locked just as she left them when she went to bed. Then she looked under the bed and in the closet, and felt all around the room: where she could not see she felt her way, and there was nothing there. The story got around that there was a woman lurking in the Winchester mansion. Someone said that moonlight nights they would see her walking out in the back garden kind of in and out of the trees and vineyards. The maid Agnus said she had seen the woman in plain daylight just sitting and looking out and doing nothing. She was very white and pale and had black eyes. #RandolpHarris 15 of 17
Mrs. Winchester went to bed again that evening, she again, locked her chamber-doors, both of them, and woke up in the middle of the night and there was a colourless, tall, and harshly thin woman. Her face was pale, paler than it had been before. She was just standing there, and then she was gone. Mrs. Winchester gets up and looks, and both doors were locked, just as she left them. That woman was not flesh and blood as we know; but then they say that Mrs. Winchester must had dreamed her. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and yogis in Europe and India. Fortelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and tone for such mass murder. She was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. Retuning from her global trip, she arrived in San Francisco and find this area seldom subject to thunderstorms, she purchased eight-room house four miles west of San Jose. She hired an architect, a foreman and an army of carpenters and work began; architect and foreman quit the first day. There souls seemed to me on one common ground of a terrified understanding through their eyes. Mrs. Winchester also felt a creep as some live horror over her very soul. Her flesh prickled with cold. She was tottering on weak knees. That afternoon, Mrs. Winchester was in the study, the large front room on the ground floor across the hall from the south parlour, when dusk deepened. Mrs. Winchester was writing some letters when she noticed a strange shadow on the wall. She rose and began walking around the room, moving various articles of furniture, with her eyes on the shadow. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
Then suddenly she shrieked out: “Look at this awful shadow! What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Winchester’s face was livid with horror. She stood stiffly pointing at the shadow. It has been there every night since William died,” cried Mrs. Winchester. Agnus the maid assured her that it was just a fold in the curtain that make its. However, the door opened suddenly and the butler George Pollock entered. He began to speak, then his eyes followed the direction of others’. He stood stock still staring at the shadow on the wall. It was life size and stretched across the white parallelogram of a door, half across the wall space on which the picture hung. “What is that?” he demanded in a strange voice. “It must be something in the room.” “He looked like a demon!” said Mrs. Winchester. “I can’t sit in this room again!” She ordered it to be boarded up. Later that evening, they went to the library. Then George took out the lamp and sat it on the center table, and the shadow sprang out of the wall. Again, he studied the furniture and moved it about, but deliberately. Nothing affected the shadow. Then he returned to the south room with the lam and again wait. Again he returned to the study and placed the lamp on the table, and the shadow sprang out upon the wall. It was midnight before he went upstairs. Mrs. Winchester could not speak nor sleep, she heard him. She looked all over the room and saw two shadows. She lied in bed staring at the wall. The Word of God clearly and emphatically condemned all efforts to communicate with the dead. The Lord declared that the observances of people who engaged in such activity were equivalent to the worship of other gods. Mrs. Winchester had no interest in communicate with the spirits before they started trying to communicate with her. Her sacred Blue Séance room, her secret rendezvous with the spirits, was said to be locked to all but herself. So we leave you to decide for yourself the mystery of the Winchester mansion. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
Winchester Mystery House
The 1906 earthquake must have been frightening for Sarah and her employees, but can you imagine being trapped in a room for hours? Take a look at the Daisy Bedroom, the very room Sarah was rumored to be stuck in during the 1906 earthquake 😳 Tour Tickets | http://ow.ly/Uyjl50H8voA
Evil Spirits are Able to Exert a Great Deal of Influence Upon Humans!
The Christian Bible teaches us that acceptance of this World system which is dominated by erroneous principles, selfish desires, improper motives, and unworthy standards of value that draws humans away from God and makes them “measure of all things,” is influenced so strongly by Satan and his army of evil spirits, which caused humans to adopt attitudes and to perform deeds which hinder God’s work and harm His people is done with every trace of wickedness (depravity, malignity) and all deceit and insincerity (pretense, hypocrisy) and grudges (envy, jealousy), and slander of every kind and evil speaking of every kind. This should make us crave like newborn babies the pure spiritual milk that by it one may be nurtured and grow unto salvation. Society in every age is characterized by such iniquities as selfishness, pride, immorality, and dishonesty, in spite of the efforts of sincere people to make it a better World. Twenty-first century humans, with more technical skills and knowledge than any previous generation, is unable to solve the problems of poverty, crime, racial hatred, and war. An increasing number of people go to bed hungry every night, crime is on the rise, racial hatred has never been more intense, and wars continue to be fought all over the World. Why? Because humankind has accepted a self-centered philosophy of life, and Earth’s citizens in general are motivated by the three evils of which John speaks in his first epistle—“the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” reports 1 John 2.16. The “lust of the flesh” is the desire for possession. It is the gratification of self by participation. Careful study of the word “flesh” indicates that this evil propensity of humankind involves more than just sins of impurity. The term, as used by John in this passage, does not have reference to the body but to the sinful Adamic nature. The individual sinner is born with a nature that is selfish, and one is part of a social structure which operates on grasping, egocentric, and selfish principles. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
A vast majority of men and women are materialistic, live to gratify the senses, and are self-centered even in the good things they do. Nations, too, seek only what is best for themselves. Leaders in industry, education, and even religion are primarily concerned about their own welfare, often neglecting the needs of those they serve. The “lust of the flesh” drives humans to desire and obtain material possessions, and to satisfy their physical appetites and passions at the expense of spiritual values. This basic selfishness and craving for the Earthly tangible pleasures of life leads people to misuse the physical and material blessings God has given all humans to enjoy. On a Worldwide scope, it has brought about a situation in which thousands live in unparalleled luxury while millions starve. When we stop to think about it, much of the World’s unrest and unhappiness today can be traced to the “lust of the flesh.” The “lust of the eyes,” the second characteristic of this World system, is sometimes defined as “gratification by contemplation.” The use of our eyes has vast potential for either great blessing of for degradation. For example, we are able to look upon the endless beauty of creation and sing praises to the Lord. Reading God’s Word, we can meditate upon the riches of glory in joyous expectation. However, Satan and his evil partners have perverted the use of the eye, inducing wicked humans to display scenes by which lustful thoughts are incited. They capitalize upon humans’ sinfulness and natural tendency to immorality. Down through the ages, immodest dress, impure books and pictures, and unholy theatrical productions have been used to degrade and degenerate both young and old. In addition, the eye affords an opportunity to enjoy by contemplation certain evils which one cannot or dare not actually perform. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Therefore, people from all classes of society and every age bracket are influenced by the allurement that comes through the gift of sight. Discerning people who glance at the newsstands, read the advertisements in the theater page of the newspaper, or watch the programs and commercials presented on television, know full well that “lust of the eyes” has been exploited by the powers of evil. The evidence certainly indicates that Satan and his followers are truly the “leaders of the darkness of this World.” The “pride of life,” the third characteristic of this World system, refers to vanity and ostentation. Men and women put great stock in “being somebody.” To make a name for themselves they throw impressive parties, purchase expensive automobiles, and live in luxurious homes. Their only measure of success is by these standards. Others may acquire academic degrees to display their intellectual prowess, while athletes may exert maximum effort, not principally out of team spirit, but for money and applause. The struggle for power, prestige, and even glory is at the heart of almost every human endeavour. However, through all of this, humankind has been unable to discover true happiness and satisfaction. Most people confess they are not finding pleasures they expected, but nonetheless continue on their way, ever pursuing new baubles. The invisible forces of Satan so blind humans that they do not see true values, nor recognize the folly of their vain quest for this elusive will-o’-the wisp, “the pride of life.” According to the Bible the whole social structure of this World is controlled by a pervading principle of life that is foreign to God and leads humans away from Him. True every human is a sinner by nature and alienated from God, but this inherent human selfishness, under the direction of intelligent and powerful wicked spirits, compounds this basic sinfulness by brining out the very worst in humans. Evil spirits cruelly blind and deceive fallen humanity through the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
These fallen creatures actively try to manipulate the political rulers of the World. Satan’s organized army operates quietly and invisibly in the minds and the wills of Earthly sovereigns to achieve their evil purposes. The Bible indicates the nature and course of their activity in several references. Daniel 10 teaches that specific evil spirits are assigned the task of influencing human rulers. The chapter opens with a picture of Daniel in earnest prayer. He entreats the Lord for a period of three weeks, seeking God’s favour upon the Jewish people who have returned to Jerusalem from captivity. He learned that they were experiencing difficulty in rebuilding the temple. Ezra 4, which gives the history of these former exiles, indicates that the work of restoration was interrupted by adversaries almost immediately after the foundation of the temple had been laid. Finally, three weeks after Daniel began to pray, God sent him a most amazing experience. An angel came to Daniel and said, “Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. However, the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia,” reports Daniel 10.12-13. The angel declared that he had left Heaven immediately after Daniel’s first prayer, but that on his way to Earth he had encountered opposition from “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.” The Heavenly messenger went on to say that it was not until Michael came to help him that he was able to overcome this opposing “prince.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The struggle was obviously between angelic beings, for the one speaking to Daniel was an angel, and Michael is well known as the angelic protector of Israel. (See Daniel 10.21; 12.1; Jude 9; Revelation 12.7). This “prince of the kingdom of Persia” was obviously a wicked spirit of high rank. He had been delegated by the arch-enemy of God, the devil himself, for the task of influencing the Persian government to obstruct the Israelites in their rebuilding program. Thus success of this evil spirit’s attempt was apparent upon Earth. Even while the battle between the angelic beings was taking place in the air, the rulers of Persia were hindering the Jews in the task of rebuilding their temple. The people in Jerusalem could see only the treachery of their human enemies, not knowing that invisible spirits had been exerting pressure against them behind the scenes. The leaders of Persia were not aware that their decision to oppose Israel was the result of the working of evil spirits in their minds. These human rulers were actually mere puppets, carrying out the wishes of the invisible powers who were manipulating them. Even today humans who hold high political office may be the unwitting tools of evil spirits. Many humans lust for power. National groups vie for supremacy in the economic World. In this prevailing atmosphere of selfishness, evil spirits are able to exert a great deal of influence upon humans. Opportunistic politicians become ideal underlines of these evil spirits. In addition, the followers of Satan, in dominating the godless World rulers, are able to incite beastly behaviour in them. Many living today have witnessed the indescribable brutality of Nazism and theistic Communism. Highly civilized people find great pleasure in the development of more effective weapons with which to kills members of other nations. Humans tell lies, oppress others, and commit mass murders with no hint of shame or remorse. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
In fact, it is amazing that this modern age of civilization and refinement has been characterized by an inhumanity far worse than that of the ancient barbaric times. We believe this pathological condition can be traced to the fact that many highly educated humans of influence and power have rejected God. In so doing, they have opened themselves to the activity of evil spirits. Therefore, we have a confirmation of Paul’s declaration that the real World rulers of this darkness (Ephesians 6.12) are not the humans who have positions of leadership, but the evil spirits who rule their hearts and influence their thoughts and decisions. From the commencement of the seventeenth century to the Restoration of Charles II, be barren of witchcraft proper, it must at least be admitted that it is prodigal in regard to the marvellous under various shapes and forms, from which the hysterical state of the public mind can be fairly accurately gauged. During 1642, O’Daly in his History of the Geraldines relates that during the siege of Limerick three portents appeared. The first was a luminous globe, brighter than the moon and little inferior to the sun, which for two leagues and a half shed a vertical light on the city, and then faded into darkness over the enemy’s camp; the second was the apparition of the Virgin, accompanied by several of the Saints; and the third was a lusus nature of the Saimese-twins type: all three of which O’Daly interprets to his own satisfaction. The first of these was some from of the northern lights, and is also recorded in the diary of certain Puritan officers. That learned, but somewhat too credulous English antiquary, John Aubrey, relates in his Miscellanies that before the last battle between the contending parties “a woman of uncommon Statue all in white appearing to the Bishop [Heber McMahon, who Aubrey terms Veneras] admonished him not to cross the River first to assault the Enemy, but suffer them to do it, whereby he should obtain the Victory. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“That if the Irish took the water first to move towards the English they should be put to a total Rout, which came to pass. Ocahan and Sir Henry O’Neal, who were both killed there, saw severally the same apparition, and dissuaded the Bishop from giving him the first onset, but could not prevail upon him.” N instance of an Irishman suffering from the effects of witchcraft outside Ireland is afforded us in a pathetic petition sent up to the English Parliament between the years 1649 and 1653. The petitioner, John Campbell, stated that twelve years since he lost his sight in Co. Antrim, where he was born, by which he was reduced to such extremity that he was forced to come over to England to seek some means of livelihood for himself in craving the charity of well-disposed people, but contrary to his expectation he has been often troubled there with dreams and fearful visions in his sleep, and has been twice bewitched, insomuch that he can find no quietness or rest here, and so prays for a pass to return to Ireland. The saintly James Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, was a Prelate who, if he had happed to live at an earlier period would certainly have been numbered amongst those whose wide and profound learning won for themselves the title of magician—as it was, he was popularly credited with prophetical powers. Most of the prophecies attributed to him may be found in a little pamphlet of eight pages, entitled “Strange and Remarkable Prophecies and Predictions of the Holy, Learned, and Excellent James Usher, &c…Written by the person who heard it from this Excellent person’s own Mouth,” and apparently published in 1656. According to it, he foretold the rebellion of 1641 in a sermon on Ezekiel iv. 6, preached in Dublin in 1601. “And of this Sermon the Bishop reserved the Notes, and put a note thereof in the Margent of his Bible, and for twenty years before he still lived in the expectation of the fulfilling thereof, and the nearer the time was the more confident he was that it was nearer accomplishment, though there was no visible appearance of any such thing.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
He also foretold the death of Charles I, and his own coming poverty and loss of property, which last he actually experienced for many years before his death. The Rev. William Turner in his Compleat History of Remarkable Providences (London, 1697) gives a premonition of approaching death that the Archbishop received. A lady who was dead appeared to him in his sleep, and invited him to sup (eat supper) with her the next night. He accepted the invitation, and died the following afternoon, 21st March 1656. There is another story from Glanvill’s Relations. One Mr. John Browne of Durley in Ireland was made by this neighbour, John Mallett of Enmore, trustee for his children in minority. In 1654 Mr. Browne lay a-dying: at the foot of his bed stood a great iron chest fitted with three locks, in which were the trustees’ papers. Some of his people and friends were sitting by him, when to their horror they suddenly saw the locked chest begin to open, lock by lock, without the assistance of any visible hand, until at length the lid stood upright. The dying man, who had not spoken for twenty-four hours, sat up in the bed, looked at the chest, and said: “You say true, you say true, you are in the right (a favourite expression of his), I’ll be with you by and by,” and then lay down again, and never spoke after. The chest slowly locked itself in exactly the same manner as it had opened, and shortly after this Mr. Browne died. In the mid-1880s, during a Connecticut thunder storm, Mrs. Winchester’s husband and baby lost their lives in a tragic fire. The distracted widow turned to spiritualism and was advised to take a trip around the World. This she did, visiting mediums, spiritualists and yogis in Europe and India. Fortelling her future, one seer warned her of all the countless thousands of departed souls slain by her husband’s rifles; she must protect herself and atone for such mass murder. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Mrs. Winchester was told to plan a castle and continue its building indefinitely because as long as it was under construction, she would live; cessation would prove immediately fatal. The head of a celebrated firm of Victorian restorers and decorators took a keen interest in Mrs. Winchester’s mansion. She constructed it for 38 years until she passed away in 1922. It is currently, approximately 24,000 square feet, and four stories tall, but at one time reached a height of 9 stories and may have been more than 50,000 square feet, but the 9-story tower and much of the 4th floor was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. Back then, two thirds of Mrs. Winchester’s estate was dark, unbroke forests, through whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind groaned and shrieked and howled with weird noises and unaccountable clamors. The aged told their stories to the young—tales of early life; tales of war and adventure, of forest days, of Indian captives and escapes, of bears and wildcats and panthers, of rattlesnakes, of witches and wizards, and strange and wonderful dreams and appearances and providences at the Winchester mansion. Along the iron bound gates, the stormful skies of Llanada Villa raved and thundered, and wind dashed its moaning turrets, as if to deaden and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled life of the old civilized World, and shut the estate into wilderness. In 1923, there was work being done on the Winchester mansion. It was one of special interest to many antiquarians, and they wanted to restore it. However, in the basement, a large tomb was unearthed, and needed to be moved. The workers were very loth to disturb the tomb, but it was necessary to ensure the safety of the mansion. The tomb belonged to Sarah Winchester. She mostly lived alone in the castle. Her reputation was one of mystery, the supernatural and untold wealth. It was popularly supposed that she could never be killed. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The restorer made an especial study of old legends or family histories that came under his observation He was necessarily very well read and thoroughly well posted in all questions of folklore and medieval legend. Mrs. Winchester kept a careful record of every case she investigated involving a haunting. The manuscripts she left at her death were a special interest. From amongst them, were some particularly bizarre and extraordinary experiences. Now, the fact was, that ghost stories had been told so often about the Winchester mansion, that they were all arranged and ticketed into the minds of the movers. Still, they shivered, and clung to their knees at the mysterious tomb, and felt gentle, cold chills run down their spines. If the tomb be moved, it would have to be done in two pieces, the covering slab first and then the tomb proper. The movers decided to remove the covering slab first. Everything was ready for lifting off the covering stone, and after the men’s dinner, they started the jacks and pulleys. The slab lifted easily enough, though if fitted closely into its seat and was further secured by some sort of mortar or putty, which must have kept the interior perfectly air-tight. And it was one of those thundering stormy nights, when the winds appeared to be holding a perfect mad carnival over the mansion. They yelled and squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling and roaring down the chimney; and they shook and rattled the buttery door and the sink room door and the cellar door and the chamber door, with a constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tried to warn them not to touch the tomb. People used to say Mrs. Winchester was set apart, when she was a child, to the service o’ the Devil, but many say she could never be made nothin’ but a Christian. Perhaps that was the appeal. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
She used to come to meeting with her husband, praying for the Indians. None of them were prepare for what they discovered under the cover lid of the tomb. There lay the fully dressed body of a woman, who had not aged nor decayed, but was ghastly pale, as if from starvation. The body was extraordinary fresh. Except for the appearance of starvation, life might have been only just extinct. The flesh was soft and white, the eyes were wide open and seemed to stare at them with a fearful understanding in them. The body itself was a young woman. For several moments, the movers gazed with horrible curiosity, and then it became too much for the workmen, who implored their boss to replace the covering slab. That, of course, they could not do; but he set the carpenters to work at once to make a temporary cover while they moved the tomb to its new position. This was a long job, and would take two of tree days. At sunset the next evening, they were startled by the howling of, seemingly, every dog in the village. It lasted for thirteen minutes, and then ceased as suddenly as it began This, and a curious mist that had risen round the mansion, make them feel rather anxious about Mrs. Winchester. According to the best-established traditions of the Vampire-haunted countries the disturbance of dogs or wolves at sunset is supposed to indicate the presence of one of these creatures, and local fog was always considered to be a certain sign. The Vampire has the power of producing it for the purpose of concealing its movements near its hiding-place at any time. Just before midnight, there was another outburst of hideous howling. It was commenced most distinctly by a particularly horrible and blood-curdling wail from the vicinity of the churchyard. The chorus lasted only a few minutes, however, and at the end of it, they crew say a large dark shape, like a huge dog, emerge from the fog and lope away at a rapid canter toward the open country. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
At 1.13 a.m., they saw another beast returning. It stopped at the spot where the fog seemed to commence, and lifting up its head, gave tongue to that particularly horrible long-drawn wail that the movers had noticed as preceding the outburst earlier in the evening. The boss got so frightened, you could faintly hear his teeth chatter. The next day it was discovered that some neighbouring sheepfold had been raided by a nocturnal marauder. The workmen that morning were much disturbed in mind about the howling of dogs. “We don’t like it, sir,” one of them said to the boss—“we don’t like it; there was somethin’ abroad last night that was unholy.” They were still more uncomfortable when the news came round that a large dog had made a rapid upon a flock of sheep, scattering them far and wide, and leaving thee of them dead with torn throats in the field. The boss and the crew were determined to catch the wild dog. During the afternoon, the men were lifting the temporary cover that was on the tomb, giving as an excuse the reason that they wished to obtain a portion of the curious mortar with which it had been sealed. After a slight demur, the raised the lid. If the sight that met their eyes gave them a shock. The woman was alive. And so it seemed for a moment. The corpse had lost much of its straved appearance and looked generously fresh and alive. They all believed that Mrs. Winchester was a Vampire and that is why she was so well preserved in her tomb. However, she had not yet come to full strength. It was just after midnight that the crew of movers noticed the fog creeping in again in the still of the night. Their first move was to try to penetrate the sense fog round the mansion, but there was something so chilly about it that their nerves nor stomachs were proof against it. Instead, they stationed themselves in the dark shadow of a cypress tree that commanded a good view of the jeweled front doors to the estate. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
The howling of the dogs began again, and in a few minutes, there was a large grey shape, with green eyes shining like lamps, shambling swiftly down the path towards them. The both stood very still and watched as the great beast cantered swiftly by. It was real enough, for they could hear the clicking of its nails on the stone flags. It passed within a few yards of the movers, and seemed to be nothing more nor less than a great grey wolf, thin and gaunt, with bristling hair and dripping jaws. It stopped where the mist commenced, and turned round. It was truly a horrible sight, and made their blood run cold. The eyes burnt like fires, the upper lip was snarling and raised, showing a great canine teeth, while round mouth clung and dripped a dark-coloured froth. It raised its head and gave tongue to its long wailing howl, which was answered from afar by the village dogs. After standing for a few moments it turned and disappeared into the thickest part of the fog. The boss said, “When the Devil drives: and in the face of what I have seen I must believe that some unholy forces are at work Yet, how can they work in this beautiful estate?” They set their teeth, however, and hardened their hearts. Then they went inside and replaced the cover on the tomb, took what they had collected from the estate and left. Never to return. Some believe that the movers were too afraid to return to the estate and that is why it was not completely looted and some valuables were left behind. It also why much of the damage was not repaired. I guess the estate has a way of protecting itself from those with bad intentions. Mrs. Winchester’s tomb was eventually moved to her home town New Haven, Connecticut to rest with her husband and daughter. Legend has it that it took movers six weeks, six trucks a day, to remove most of the furniture because they kept getting lost in the catacomb. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
“Wide Unclasp the Tables of Their Thoughts.” (From Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare.) What do you think this quote meant to Sarah Winchester? 🧐 winchestermysteryhouse.com
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle 👻
Many People Wanted the Pleasure of an Invitation to a Séance!
Perplexity is leavened by extravagant Victorian beauty, and no casual visitor can see it all. Palatial elegance unfolds with each turn along every path of exploitation of the catacomb. One gazes through oval lens windows now only magnifying the pandemonium of Winchester Boulevard; through them, over a century ago, imagine the warm summer evenings, as Sarah Winchester admired her quiet gardens steeped in the low western sunshine; the bird singing loud in the hawthorn and sycamore of her deer park, the cascading fountains spouting holy water, and the peaceful blossoming orchards vesper calm upon all things. The best tea-things were set out in her best parlour. There was usually a bunch of roses on the table, and Mrs. Winchester was dressed in her light blue muslin, with a rose in her hair. She would arise before her guests like a picture, with the sunshine flickering about her dark hair. She was very sweet, tender and gentle. Many people wanted the pleasure of an invitation to a séance in the Blue Séance Room. Mrs. Winchester would gather together many birds of alien feather. A humans’ own suffering mind must be, of all moral food, the most poisonous for one to feed on. Surround a scorpion with fire and it stings oneself to death. Throw a diseased soul entirely upon its own resources and moral suicide result. It was a principle with Mrs. Winchester to oppose bullying. She believed we were here on this Earth for a definite purpose–and God’s duty plain to any human who wills to read it. There may be disembodied spirits who seek to distress or annoy where they can no longer control. If there are, hers, which is not yet divorces from its means to material action, declines to be influenced by any irresponsible whimsy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Mrs. Winchester was very happy in her new home. She had been used to keeping her father’s house since her early girlhood days, and her shortly lived matronly duties came very easy to her. The expansive Victorian mansion, with its neat furniture and fresh dimity draperies, 160 rooms, 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, and 47 fireplaces was the pretties thing possible in the way of rustic interiors; the estates was like a temple dedicated to some Heavenly divinity, and Mrs. Winchester took a natural womanly pride in this bright home. She had come from a good house; but this was quite her own. For 38 years, 1884-1922, the sound of saw and hammer never ceased. Commonly, 16 carpenters were employed at one time, some having worked for 20 years without changed. They produced the largest, most complicated and exclusively private residents in the United States of America. There are five different heating systems and three elevators, one hydraulic and two electric. Some of the 13 bathrooms lacked privacy; they have clear glass doors! One rambling room has four fireplaces and five hot-air registers. A spiral stairway has 42 steps, each two inches high. Other stairways melt into blank walls. A second story door opens into the great outdoors and a 20-foot step. A linen closet has the area of a three-room apartment; a nearby cupboard is less than one-inched deep. A skylight is placed in the middle of a room, in the floor! Another floor is a series of trap-doors. The visitor must stoop through one door to enter, the next gives clearance for an eight-foot giant. Many stairway turn posts are upside down. Entire walls are built entirely of half-inch, “half-round” strips. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Everywhere prevail that uncanny deference to the number 13; 13 stairsteps, 13 hangers in a closet, 13 wall panels, 13 lights in the chandeliers, 13 windows to a room and if necessary to make that number, some placed in an inside wall. One of the guests at this séance was Ludwig Leichhardt. He thought of men and women who had died of a fever the previous year, and the spirits told him to depart for “people who had wished to live, for whom life was full of duties and household joys; whose loss left wide gaps among their kindred, not to be filled again upon this Earth.” Ludwig felt a dull blankness of his existence which he felt—an utter emptiness and hopelessness; nothing to live for in the present, nothing to look forward to in the future. He bragged about how much capital he had in the Bank of Italy and how he could provide Mrs. Winchester with a comfortable life. However, this was to be his last day as a guest at the Winchester mansion. His two great sea chests, containing his clothes, books, and other property had gone to San Francisco by that evening’s luggage train. His last memory of the Winchester would be Mrs. Winchester’s bright tender face looking at him compassionately, as she had looked the day she broke his heart. After the death of her husband and daughter, Mrs. Winchester remained celibate and never remarried. Precious moments went by, and Ludwig pushed his teacup away with a listless air. He got up presently and showed him she to the exit of the mansion, after a brief good evening to all. The sun was low by this time, and the western sky flooded with an orange light. The garden was abloom with roses and honeysuckle. Ludwig Leichhardt fancied her should never look upon such flowers or such a garden again. The mansion seemed to grow dark all at once when he was gone. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Adam Worth had also been at the séance that evening and did not seem to care for the tea. Ludwig promised to write Mrs. Winchester to let her know he was safe. The sun had gone down, and there was a long line of crimson yonder in the west above the edge of the estate. All the guest prepared to leave and Mrs. Winchester retired to her chambers for the evening. While laying in bed, Mrs. Winchester heard a bang on a door with a sounding slap. She figured it was just a piece of stupid discourtesy and went back to sleep. The following morning, she swore that one of the rooms on the second floor was not empty—and was quite upset about it—said there was some infernal influence at work in her home. To satisfy her curiosity, she asked her butler Henry to open the door. The light was dim in the room and Mrs. Winchester paused in the corridor outside. His eyes glistened. His features relaxed, and he gave a short sigh, “the room is empty,” said Henry. With some stir of curiosity, Mrs. Winchester slipped out, but had a certain vague wonder in her mind. As she heard, the medium from the night before in the parlour was struggling on the floor, in what looked like an epileptic fit. Mrs. Winchester walked deliberately back to the closed door, as Henry went to hold the medium from doing any injury to herself. Huddled against the massive end wall, and half embedded in it, as it seemed, there lay a shadow. Looking closely, Mrs. Winchester saw that the trap door was not only firmly bolted, but screwed into its socket. She strode off in a fume. She was in an odd frame of mind, and for long moved her sitting-room to and fro, too restless to go to bed, or, as an alternative, to settle down to a book. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
She could not whistle her mind from the chase of a certain graveyard will-o’-wisp; and on it went stumbling and floundering through bog and mire, until she fell into a state of collapse, and was useful for nothing else. She went to bed and to sleep without difficulty, but was conscious of herself all the time, and of a shadowless horror that seemed to come stealthily out of the corners and to bend over and look at her, and nothing but a curtain or a hanging coat when she started and stared. Over and over again this happened, and Mrs. Winchester’s temperature rose by leaps, and suddenly she saw that is she failed to assert herself, and promptly, fever would leap her in a consuming fire. Then in a moment she broke into a profuse perspiration, and sank exhausted into delicious unconsciousness. Morning found her restored to vigour, but still the with flutter of curiosity in her brain. It worked there all day, and for many subsequent days, and at last it seemed as if her every faculty were honeycombed with its ramifications. Then “this will not do,” Mrs. Winchester thought, but still the tunnelling process went on. As the curious devil mastered her, she grew into such harmony with it that she could shut her eyes no longer to the true purpose of its insistence. It was the closed room about which her thoughts hovered like crows circling round carrion. In the dead waste and middle of a certain night, Mrs. Winchester awoke with a strange, quick recovery of consciousness. There was the passing of a single expiration, and she had been asleep and was awake. She had gone to bed with no sense of premonition or of resolve in a particular direction; she sat up a monomaniac. It was as if, swelling in the silent hours, the tumour of curiosity had come to a head, and in a moment, it was necessary to operate upon it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
She made no excuse for her then condition. Mrs. Winchester was convinced she was the victim of some undistinguishable force, that she was an agent under the control of the supernatural. Some thought had been in her mind of late in her position it was her duty to unriddle the mystery of the closed room door. However, time went by. The new year came, and still there was no letter from Ludwig Leichhardt. However, early in January, Henry, the butler came home from the Bank of Italy one afternoon, and told Mrs. Winchester she need not worry herself about her old friend any longer. “Ludwig Leichhardt is safe enough, mistress,” he said. “I was talking to Gilbert, the cashier at the Bank of Italy, this morning, and he told me that Leichhardt wrote to them for $2,000.00 last October from San Francisco, and he has written $1,000.00 more since. He is buying land somewhere—I forget the name of the place—and he’s well and hearty, Gilbert tells me.” However, a sense of fear and constriction was upon Mrs. Winchester. “Well, I’m afraid I’m rather fanciful, Henry; but I could never explain to you what a strange feeling came over me the night Ludwig Leichhardt went away from this estate. It was after I had said goodbye to him, and he had gone back into the mansion, where all was dark and quiet. I sat in the parlour thinking of him, and it seemed as if a voice was saying in my ear that I, nor anyone that care for hum, would ever seen Ludwig Leichhardt again. There wasn’t any such voice of course, you know, Henry, but it seemed like that in my mind; and whenever I’ve thought of poor Ludwig Leichhardt since that time, it has seemed to me like thinking of the dead. Often and often I’ve said to myself, ‘Why, Sarah, you silly thing, you ought to know that he’s safe enough in San Francisco. Ill news travels fast; and if there’d be anything wrong, we should have heard of it somehow.’ But, reason with myself as I would, I have never been able to feel comfortable about him; and thank God for your good news, Henry, and thank you for bring it to me. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
It has been very unkind of Ludwig not to write. She could not forgive him for his neglect, glad as she was to know he was safe. Then Mrs. Winchester paused for a moment, and confessed, the quick pant of fear seemed to come from her lips. There were sounds about her—the deep breathing of an imprisoned man. She returned to the locked door, and hurriedly flung it open. An acrid whiff of dust assailed her nostrils as she stepped back a pace and stood expectant of anything—or nothing. What did she wish, or dread, or foresee? The room was rather a large one; an old-fashioned room, with a low ceiling crossed by heavy means; half parlour, half kitchen, with a wide-open fireplace at one end, on which the logs had burnt to a dullish red. There was the old chintz-covered armchair. Mrs. Winchester had been sitting with her face towards the open window, looking absently out at the garden, where daffodils and early primroses glimmered through the dusk. She stood to pick up her blueprints, which had fallen to the ground. She was standing folding this in a leisurely way, when she looked towards the fireplace, and gave a little start at seeing that the armchair was no longer empty. “Why, Henry,” she cried, “how quietly you must have come into the place! I never heard you.” There was no answer, and her voice sounded strange to her in the empty room. “Henry!” she repeated, a little louder; but the figure in the chair neither answered nor stirred. Then a sudden fright seized her, and she knew that it was not her butler. The room was almost dark; it was quite impossible that she could see the face of that dark figure seated in the armchair, with the shoulders bent a little over. Yet she knew, as well as ever she had known anything in her life, that it was not the butler Henry. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
She went slowly towards the fireplace, and stood within a few paces of that strange figure. A little flash of light shot up from the candle, and shone for an instant on the face. It was Ludwig Leichhardt! Mrs. Winchester tried to speak to him; but the words would not come. And yet it was hardly so appalling a thing to see him there that she need have felt what she did. San Francisco was not too far from San Jose that a man may not cross the Bay and drop in upon his friend unexpectedly. The candle’s flame got bigger, lighting up the entire room. The chair was empty. Mrs. Winchester uttered a loud cry, and Henry entered the room. “Why, Mrs. Winchester! What’s amiss?” he said. She ran to him, sobbing hysterically, and then calming herself with an effort, told him how she had seen Ludwig’s ghost. “Why Mrs. Winchester,” Henry replied. “Ludwig Leichhardt is safe in San Francisco. It was a shadow that took the shape of your old friend, to your fancy. It’s easy enough to fancy such a thing when your mind’s full of anyone.” Ill and shaken, yet fearing death as she had never dreaded it before, Mrs. Winchester said, “It was no fancy. Ludwig Leichhardt is dead, and I have seen his ghost. I’ve a feeling that he never got to San Francisco alive, Henry,” she said. “I can’t explain how it is, but I’ve a feeling that it was so.” Mrs. Winchester spent the rest of that horrible night huddled between her crumpled sheets, fearing to look forth, fearing to think. She knew the letters had been forgeries, and could not forget the madness and the terror in learning to walk the unvext paths of placid souls. She was left with nothing but an aimless scurrying terror and the black swarm of thoughts, so that she verily fancied her reason would give under the strain. Yet she had more to endure and to triumph over. Near morning she fell into a troubled sleep, throughout which the drawn twitch of muscle seemed an accent on every word of ill-omen she had ever spelt out of the alphabet of fear. If her body rested, her brain was an open chamber for any toad of ugliness that listed to “sit at squat” in. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Mrs. Winchester tried to convince herself that the thing she had seen was only a trick of her imagination. Another month went by, and again in the twilight the same figure appeared to her. It was standing this time, with one arm leaning on the high mantlepiece; standing facing her as she came back to the room, after having quitted it for a few minutes for some slight household duty. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. The logs were burning with a steady blaze that lit up the well-known figure and unforgotten face. Ludwig Leichardt was looking at her with an expression that seemed half reproachful, half beseeching. He was very pale, much paler than she had ever seen him in life; and as he looked, she standing just within the threshold of the door, she saw him lift his hand slowly and point to his forehead. The firelight showed her a dark red stain upon the left temple, like the mark of a contused wound. She covered her face with her hands, shuddering and uttering a little cry of terror, and then dropped half fainting upon a chair. When she uncovered her face the room was empty, there was a pool of blood on the floor, and the firelight shining cheerily upon the walls, no trace of that ghostly visitant. This time Mrs. Winchester brooded over the thoughts of the thing she had seen, firmly believing that she had looked upon the shadow of the dead, and that there was some purpose to be fulfilled by that awful vision. In the day, she had the room boarded up. The thought of this was almost always in her mind; in the dead silence of the night, she would often lie awake for hours thinking of Ludwig Leichhardt. Mrs. Winchester knew he had been waylaid and murdered. He had a good deal of money about him. Suddenly Mrs. Winchester woke to the fact that there was a knocking at her door—that there had been for some little time. She cried, “Come in!” finding a weak restorative in the mere sound of her own human voice; then remember the keys was turned, bade the visitor wait until she could come to him. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
Scrambling, feeling dazed and white-livered, out of bed, Mrs. Winchester opened the door, and met one of the gentlemen on the threshold. The man looked scared, and his lips, she noticed, were set in a somewhat boding fashion. “Come you come at once, Mrs. Winchester?” he said, “There’s summat wrong with Ludwig Leichhardt. She had now a settled conviction that some untimely fate had befallen her old friend, and that the letters from San Francisco were forgeries. Gilbert from the Bank of Italy compared the signature cards and determined that the drafts and letters were forgeries. There was one thing noticeable in the San Francisco letters—they were all exactly alike, line for line, curve for curve. This rather discomposed Gilbert; for it is a notorious fact that a man rarely signs his name twice in exactly the same manner. There is almost always some difference. Before the month was out, Ludwig Leichhardt’s ghost appeared for the third time to Mrs. Winchester. In the Tender June twilight. She was thinking of her old friend as she walked along the shadowy winding path of the deer park on her estate. It was just such a still, peaceful evening as that upon which he had stood on the edge of the common looking back at her, and waving his hand, upon that last well remembered night. He was so much in her thoughts, and the conviction that he had come from among the dead to visit her was so rooted in her mind, that she was scarcely surprised when she looked up presently, and saw a tall familiar figure moving slowly among the trees a little way before her. There seemed to be an awful stillness in the wood all at once, but there was nothing awful in that well-known figure. She tried to overtake it; but it kept always in advance of her, and at a sudden turn in the path she lost it altogether. The trees grew thicker, and there was a solemn darkness at the spot where the path took this sharp turn, and on one side of the narrow footpath there was a steep declivity and a great hollow, made by a disused gravel pit. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
She went to her mansion quickly enough, with a subdued sadness upon her, and told Henry what had happened to her. Nor did she rest until there had been a search made on the extensive grounds for the body of Ludwig Leichhardt. They searched and found him lying at the bottom of the gravel pit, half buried in loose sand and gravel, and quite hidden by a mass of furze and bramble that grew over the spot. There was an inquest, of course. The tailor who had made the clothes found upon the body identified them, and swore to them as those he had made for Ludwig Leichhardt. The pocket were all empty and turned inside out. There could be little doubt the Ludwig Leichhardt had been waylaid and murdered for the sake of the money he carried upon him that night. His skull had been shattered by a blow from a jagged stick on the left temple. The stick was found laying at the bottom of the pit a little way from the body, with human hair and stains of blood upon it. Ludwig Leichhardt had never left San Jose. It was later determined that Adam Worth had killed Ludwig Leichhardt and took his money. The Bank of Italy refunded the withdraws. Adam Worth was ultimately apprehended, with some of Ludwig Leichhardt’s property still in his possession, and he was deeply in debt. The final examination resulted in a verdict of willful murder, tried, found guilty and hung. Ludwig Leichhardt had executed a few days before his intended departure, bequeathing all he possessed to Sarah Winchester—the interest for her sole use and benefit, the principal to revert to her estate after her death. Mrs. Winchester often sits beside that quiet resting place in the spring twilight; but she had never seen Ludwig Leichhardt’s ghost since that evening in the deer park, and she knew she never would see it again. She shook with an awful thankfulness at sight of the pitfalls she had skirted and escaped—of the demon she witlessly had baffled. The joy of life was in her heart again, but chastened and made pitiful by experience. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
You are aware that evil spirit beings operating through humans in positions of authority and influence are the real motivators in human society? Yes, this is exactly what the Christian Bible teaches! Perhaps this concept seems strange to you, almost like an outmoded superstition, but the Bible definitely states that Satan in the “god of this age,” reports 2 Corinthians 4.4, and that he is the leader of a well-organized army of beings invisible to humans but very active among them. Paul tells us in Ephesians, “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. These words indicate that evil spirits are organized into a military-like structure. The “principalities” are the highest ranking officers under Satan, the “powers” are officials of somewhat lower standing, and the “rulers of the darkness of this World” seem to be a special band of evil spirits whose sphere of influence includes the leaders of human government. The phrase “spiritual wickedness is high places” is better translated “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the Heavenly places,” and makes reference to the myriads of demonic hordes. They are all under the direction of Satan, who is not only named the “god of this age,” but also is called “the prince of the power of the air,” reports Ephesians 2.2. The Scriptures often speak of a close relationship between these evil spiritual and the “World.” In the Ephesians passage quoted above, you will remember that these spirit beings are called “the rulers of the darkness of this World.” The apostle John also refers to the World, and it is significant that he considers it to be the Christian’s enemy. “Love not the World, neither the things that are in the World. If any human love the World, the love of the Father is not in one. For all that is in the World, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Farther, but is of the World. And the World passeth away, and the lust of it; but one that doeth the will of God abideth forever,” reports 1 John 2.15-17. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
In addition, the same apostle declared that one who is “born of God overcometh the World,” reports 1 John 5.4, and also that “the whole World lieth in wickedness,” reports 1 John 5.19. James, the brother of Jesus, declared in his epistle, “Whosoever therefore, will be a friend of the World, is the enemy of God,” reports James 4.4. Before we can gain a full understanding of what this means, we must answer the following questions: What is this World, which if loved causes us to lose God’s friendship? What does the Bible mean when it says that the whole World “lieth in wickedness”? Certainly the Bible is not saying that Christians should not love the World of nature, nor is it implying that every person who is not a Christian is an enemy to be overcome. In fact, the Scriptures often state that the glory of God is revealed in the natural World, and it specifically instructs believers not to antagonize other people, but to love them. No, the material Universe in which we live is not opposed to us, and we are not to consider the people who inhabit the Earth as our enemies. The “World” referred to by John and James is the moral and spiritual system we call human society. Humankind, which has rejected God’s revelation, has devised explanations of life, moral standards, and principles of conduct based upon human knowledge only. Humans, on the whole, operate on erroneous principles, selfish desires, improper motives, and unworthy standards of value. The sciences, the arts, politics, and entertainment are all dominated by a humanistic approach to life which draws humans away from God and makes humans the “measure of all things.” If the period of treated of in the essay from the commencement of the seventeenth century to the Restoration of Charles II, be barren of witchcraft proper, it must at least be admitted that it is prodigal in regard to the marvellous under various shapes and forms, from which the hysterical state of the public mind can be fairly accurately gauged. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
The rebellion of 1641, and the Cromwellian confiscations, that troubled periods when the county was torn by dissention, and ravaged by fire, sword, and pestilence, was aptly ushered in by a series of supernatural events which occurred in the country Limerick. A letter dated the 13th August 1640, states that “for news we have the strangest that ever was heard of, there inchantments in the Lord of Castleconnell’s Castle four miles from Lymerick, several sorts of noyse, sometymes of drums and trumpets, sometimes of other curious musique with Heavenly vouces, then fearful screeches, and such outcries that the neighbours near cannot sleepe. Priests have adventured to be there, but have been cruelly beaten for their paynes, and carryed away they knew not how, some two miles and some four miles. Moreover were seen in the like manner, after they appear to the view of the neighbours, infinite number of armed men on foote as well as on horseback. One thing more [id est something supernatural] by Mrs. Mary Burke with tweleve servants lyes in the hose, and never one hurt, onley they must dance with them every night; they say, Mrs. Mary come away, telling her she must be wife to the inchanted Earl of Desmond. Uppon a Mannour of my Lord Bishoppe of Lymerick, Loughill, hath been seen upon the hill by most of the inhabitants aboundance of armed men marching, and these seene many tymes—and when they come up to them they do not appear. These things are very strange, if the cleargie and gentrie say true.” During the rebellion an appalling massacre of Protestants took place at Portadown, when about a hundred persons, men, women, and children, were forced over the bridge into the river, and so drowned; the few that could swim, and so managed to reach the shore, were either knocked on the head by the insurgents when they landed, or else were shit. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
It is not a matter of surprise that this terrible incident gave rise to legends and stories in which anything strange or out of the common was magnified out of all proportion. Accord to one deponent there appeared one evening in the river “a vision or spirit assuming the shape of a woman, waist high, upright in the water, naked with [illegible] in her hand, her hair dishevelled, her eyes seeming to twinkle in her head, and her skin as white as snow; which spirit seeming to stand upright in the water often repeated the word Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! Also, Robert Maxwell, Archdeacon of Down, swore that the rebels declared to him, (and some deponents made similar statements) “that most of those that were thrown from the bridge were daily and nightly seen to walk upon the River, sometimes singing Psalms, sometimes brandishing of Swords, sometimes screeching in a most hideous and fearful manner.” Both these occurrences are capable of a rational explanation. The supposed spectre was probably a poor, bereaved woman, demented by grief and terror, who stile out of her hiding-place at night to bewail the murder of her friends, while the weird cries arose from the half-starved dogs of the country-side, together with the wolves which abounded in Ireland at that period, quarrelling and fighting over the corpses. Granting the above, and bearing in mind the credulity of all classes of Society, it is not difficult to see how the tales originated; but to say that, because such obviously impossible statements occur in certain despsitions, the latter are therefore worthless as a whole, is to willfully misunderstand the popular mind of the seventeenth century. We have the following on the testimony of the Rev. George Creighton, minister of Virginia, Co. Cavan. He tells us that “drivers women brought to his House a young woman, almost naked, to whom a Rogue came upon the way, these women being present, and required her to give him her mony, or else he would kill her, and so drew his sword; her answer was, You cannot kill me unless God gives you leave, and His will be done. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
“Thereupon the Rogue thrust three times at her naked body with his drawn sword, and never pierced her skin; whereat he being, as it seems, much confounded, went away and left her.” A like story comes from the other side: “At the taking of the Newry a revel being appointed to be shot upon the bridge, and stripped stark-naked, nothing withstanding the musketeer stood within two yards of him, and shot him in the middle of the back, yet the bullet entered not, nor did him any more hurt than leave a little black spot behind it. This many hundreds were eye-witnesses of. Divers of the like have I confidently been assured of, who have been provided of diabolical charms.” Similar tales of persons bearing charmed lives could not doubt be culled from the records of every way that has been fought on this planet of ours since History began. The ease with which the accidental or unusual was transformed into the miraculous at this period is shown by the following. A Dr. Tate and his wife and children were flying to Dublin from the insurgents. On their way they were wandering over commons covered with snow, without any food. The wife was carrying a sucking child, John, and having no milk to give it she was about to lay it down in despair, when suddenly “on the Brow of a Bank she found a Suck-bottle with sweet milk in it, no Footsteps appearing in the snow of any that should bring it thither, and far from any Habitation; which preserved the child’s life, who after became a Blessing to the Church.” The Dr. Tate mentioned above was evidently the Rev. Faithful Tate, D.D., father of Nahum Tate of “Tate and Brady” fame. Much of what has passed current in the New World as White (id est, permissible) Magic is only a disguised goeticism, and may of the resplendent angels invoke with the 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 popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres, which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences, but the willful viciousness of the communicants is substantially untouched thereby. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Happy Early Turkey Day! 🦃
The Winchester Mystery House will be closed on Thursday, Nov. 25 in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday and will reopen on Friday, Nov. 26! winchestermysteryhouse.com
When Asked His Name He Said “Legion” Because Many Demons Were Entered into Him!
It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. However, if you have $20,000,000 (2021 inflation adjusted $347,910,691.82), and all the time in the World to help you cope, what would you do? Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her child and husband left a bizarre and impressive architectural reflection of her soul. After a series of violent confrontations, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company hires a private investigator to follow her. Mrs. Winchester ascends into mystery and it is soon clear that she is hiding a much bigger secret—one that is both inexplicable and shocking. A “possessed” person may have symptoms much like those that are apparent in the mentally ill. One may be deeply melancholic or depressed, appear to be withdrawn from reality, or may manifest emotions that range from ecstatic joy to violent screaming or wild ferocity. These various states may present themselves from time to time during “attacks.” Demon possession may be distinguished from insanity, however, by observing the manner in which the afflicted person speaks. An insane individual may have a mistaken concept of one’s own identity, wear clothing by which one attempts to look like the person one thinks oneself to be, but speak in one’s own voice, and in such a manner that one can tell one is doing only a superficial impersonation of the individual one thinks oneself to be. A demon-possessed person, on the other hand, is obviously controlled by the indwelling evil spirit. The wicked being may use a language or dialect the individual never knew, and sometimes will name oneself. Therefore, one should carefully note the symptoms of a disturbed person, never making the diagnosis of demon possession on the basis of a superficial judgment. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
If a believer should meet a demon-possessed individual, one would be unwise to make a frontal attack upon the powers of darkness by immediately issuing a command in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dr. Kurt Koch, an evangelical Christian who has made a lifetime study of Satan and occultic activities, declares that whenever Christians lightly engage in an effort to cast out demons, they run the risk of being attacked by evil spirits. Such people often suffer deep spiritual depression and find themselves in an attitude of complete hopelessness. Since this is true, a believer should band together with others in a time of prayer, and no efforts should be made to expel the evil spirits until the Holy Spirit prompts someone to issue the command. Unbelievers and adherents of the non-Christian religions apparently can command evil spirits without suffering bad consequences. Archeologists have found manuscripts containing incantations and magical formulas for the expulsion of demons; and today in the Philippines and other countries of the far East, as well as in some areas of South America and Africa, pagan religious leaders seriously perform rituals to ward off or cast out evil spirits. Sometimes they beat the person who is demon-possessed, prick one with needles, or even burn portions of one’s body, thinking that this pain will drive out the evil spirits. The Jewish people in Christ’s day also used spells, magical phrases, and religious rituals to expel demons. That they sometimes appeared to be successful is clear, for Jesus said, “if I, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore, they shall be your judges,” reports Matthew 12.27. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
In this statement the Lord Jesus Christ acknowledged that evil spirits sometimes left the bodies of their victims when incantations, spells, or magical rites were used by Jewish religious leaders. However, Christ did not say these men accomplished their goal by the power of God, nor did He imply that they were actually doing damage to the cause of Satan. He was answering the charge that He was casting out demons in the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. He declared that is such were the case, the kingdom of Satan would be divided against itself. Actually, the exorcists, whether Jewish or pagan, did not really possess authority over the invisible World, but the evil spirits merely cooperated with them, leaving the bodies of some of their victims to give the appearance that they had been forced out. By working with these unbelieving sorcerers, the devil aided his own cause. The demons either temporarily left the person, only to return a short time later, or entered the body of some other victim. No one should attempt to deal with the forces of evil by using the name of Jesus unless one is a child of God. Luke, in Acts 19, graphically portrays the seriousness of hypocritically dealing with the powers of darkness. Seven sons of Sceva, a professional exorcist who had no personal faith in Christ, tried to combine the words “in the name of Jesus” with their magical formula. The evil spirits, recognizing that these impostors had no right to use Jesus’s name, reacted in a violent manner. The demon-possessed individual attacked these men with superhuman strengths, so that with torn clothing and bleeding bodies they fled from the Winchester mansion. The frequency of demon possession—the record of history establishes without a doubt that demon possession was known before the Lord Jesus Christ came to Earth, and the testimony of missionaries indicates that it has continued down through the centuries. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The public ministry of Christ, however, was accompanied by an outburst of demon possession unparalleled in history. It seems that Satan threw all his power into his battle with Jesus Christ. True, the devil is not omniscient, but he knew that Christ had come to earth to atone for sin, conquer death, and bring about the defeat of evil. John tells us that “the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,” reports 1 John 3.8. Satan used every device at his disposal to frustrate the purpose of God in Christ. Subtle temptations, the wrath and wickedness of men, and a rash of demonic activity were part of his vain effort to prevent Jesus from performing the work He had come to accomplish. Demon possession gradually subsided during the first century A.D., and usually is not conspicuous in areas where a fairly large percentage of people have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. It appears that demons are hesitant to enter the bodies of people when informed believers are likely to cast them out in the name of Christ. Luke is the same one that is translated “bottomless pit” seven times in the book of the Revelation. We read, “And Jesus asked him, saying, ‘What is thy name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; because many demons were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there and herd of many swine, feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would allow them to enter into them. And he permitted them,” reports Luke 8.30-32. Revelation 9 tells us that at some future time the “bottomless pit” will be opened, and a great army of evil spirits will be set free to plague humankind. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
It is at least a possibility that whenever demons are cast out of a human being in the name of Jesus Christ, they are sent to the bottomless pit, and will not be released until shortly before Christ returns to establish His kingdom. The realization that they will lose their freedom as members of the army of the “prince of the power of the air,” and be confined in the pit for an indefinite period of time, makes them hesitant to take possession of human beings. The risk is too great in an area where Christians exercise their authority in the name of Christ. People who live in civilized countries where the Gospel has been known for centuries should not rule out the possibility of demon possession, however, just because it has not been a common occurrence in these areas. Satan and his cohorts may conclude that most people, even professing Christians, will not recognize this phenomenon when they meet it. Therefore, as this age draws to a close, Satan may once again become very active in entering human bodies and controlling personalities. He will hope that the majority of humankind will either be deceived into following him or find a naturalistic explanation for the activities of the demons. This supernatural manifestation of the power of Satan and evil spirits is clearly predicted by the apostle Paul. In his second letter to the Thessalonian believers, he declares that just before Christ returns in glory, the devil will have his righthand mand upon the earth performing miracles which make him appear to be a god. Referring to the Antichrists, the apostle says, “Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” reports 2 Thessalonian 2.9, 10. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Inasmuch as we can expect an increase of open opposition to God on the part of the Satanic hordes, we know Christ should humbly maintain fellowship with Him through full submission and ready obedience so that we may receive from Him the strength we need to overcome. James writes, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” reports James 4.6-7. Peter declares, “Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, like a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour; whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the World,” reports 1 Peter 5.8-9. No, Satan is not dead. He is like a wounded animal and still has great power to harm those who care careless or proud. Therefore, keep awake, be on alert, read the Christian Bible and the Book of Mormon, and pray! If you do not, he may destroy your effectiveness as a Christian. For the next instance of witchcraft and the supernatural in connection with Ireland, we are compelled to go beyond the confines of our own country. Though in this connection with the Green Isle is slight, yet it is of interest as affording an example of that blending of fairy lore with sorcery which is not an uncommon feature of Scottish witchcraft-trials. In the year 1613 a woman named Margaret Barclay, of Irvine in Scotland, was accused of having her brother-in-law’s ship to be cast away by magical spell. A certain strolling vagabond and juggler, John Stewart, was apprehended as her accomplice; he admitted (probably under torture) that Margaret had applied to him to teach her some magic arts in others that “she might get gear, kye’s milk, love of man, her heart’s desire on such persons as had done her wrong.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Through John Stewart does not appear to have granted Margaret’s request, yet he gave detailed information as to the manner in which he had gained the supernatural power and knowledge with which he was credited. “It being demanded of him by what means he profession himself to have knowledge of things to come, the said John confessed that the space of twenty-six years ago, he being travelling on All-Hallow Even night between the towns of Monygoif and Clary, in Galway, he met with the King of the Fairies and his company, and that the King gave him a stroke with a white rod over the forehead, which took from him the power of speech and the use of one eye, which he wanted for the space of three years. He declared that the use of speech and eyesight was restored to him by the King of Fairies and his company on a Hallowe’en night at the town of Dublin.” At his subsequent meeting with the fairy band, he was taught all his knowledge. The spot on which he was struck remained impervious to pain although a pin was thrust into it. The unfortunate wretch was cast into prison, and there committed suicide by hanging himself from the “cruik” of the door with his garter or bonnet-string, and so “ended his life miserably with the help of the devil his master.” A tale slightly resembling portion of the above comes from the north of Ireland a few years later. “It is storied, and the story is true,” says Robert Law in his Memorialls, “of a godly man in Ireland, who lying one day in the fields sleeping, he was struck with dumbness and deafness. The same man, during this condition he was in, could tell things, and had the knowledge of things in a strange way, which he had not before; and did, indeed, by signs make things known to others which they knew not. Afterwards he at length, prayer being made from him by others, came to the use of his tongue and ears; but when that knowledge of things he had in his deaf and dumb condition ceased, and when he was asked how he had the knowledge of these things he made signs of, he answered he had that knowledge when dumb, but how and after what manner he knew not, only he had the impression thereof in his spirit. This story was related by a godly minister, Mr. Robert Blair, to Mr. John Baird, who knew the truth of it.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
The Rev. Robert Blair, M.A., was a celebrated man, if for no other reason than on account of his disputes with Dr. Echlin, Bishop of Down, or for his description of Oliver Cromwell as a greeting (id est, weeping) devil. On the invitation of Lord Claneboy he arrived in Ireland in 1623, and in the same year was settled as (Presbyterian) parish minister at Bangor in Co. Down, with the consent of patron and people’ he remained there until 1631, when he was suspended by Dr. Echlin, and was deposed and excommunicated in November, 1634. He has left a few writings behind him, and was grandfather of the poet Robert Blair, author of The Grave. During the years of his ministry at Bangor the following incident occurred to him, which he of course attributes to demonic possession, through homicidal mania resulting from intemperate habits would be nearer the truth. One day a rich man, the constable of the perish, called upon him in company with one of his tenants concerning the baptizing of the latter’s child. “When I had spoken what I thought necessary, and was ready to turn into my house, the constable dismissing the other told me he had something to say to me in private. I looking upon him saw his eyes like the eyes of a cat in the night, did presently conceive that he had a mischief in his heart, yet I resolved not to refuse what he desired, but I keeped a watchful eye upon him, and stayed at some distance; and being near to the door of the church I went in, and invited him to follow me. As soon as he entered within the doors he fell atrembling, and I awondering. His trembling continuing and growing without any speech, I approached to him, and invited him to a seat, wherein he could hardly sit. The great trembling was like to throw him out of the seat. I laid my arm about him, and asked him what ailed him? But for a time, he could speak none. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
“At last his shaking ceased, and he began to speak, telling me, that for a long time the Devil had appeared to him; first at Glasgow he bought a horse from him, receiving a sixpence in earnest, and that in the end he offered to him a great purse full of sylver to be his, making no mention of the horse; he said that he blessed himself, and so the buyer with the sylver and gold that was poured out upon the table vanished. But some days thereafter he appeared to him at his own house, naming him by his name, and said to him, Ye are mine, for I arled you with a sixpence, which yet ye have. Then said he, I asked his name, and he answered, they call me Nickel Downus (I suppose the he repeated evil, that he should have said Nihil Damus). Being thus molested with these and many other apparitions of the Devil, he left Scotland; but being come to Ireland he did often likewise appear to him, and now of late he still commands me to kill and slay; and oftentimes, says he, my whinger hath been drawn and kept under my cloak to obey his commands, but still something holds my hand that I cannot stroke. But then I asked him who he was bidden kill? He answered, any that comes in my way; but ‘The better they be the better service to me, or else I shall kill thee.’ When he uttered these words he fell again atrembling, and was stopped in his speaking, looking lamentably at me, designing me to be the person he aimed at; then he fell a crying and lamenting. I showed him the horribleness of his ignorance and drunkenness; he made many promises of reformation, which were not well keep’d; for within a fortnight he went to an alehouse to crave the price of his malt, and sitting there long at drink, as he was going homeward the Devil appeared to him, and challenged him for opening to me what had passed betwixt them secretly, and followed him to the house, pulling his cap off his head and his band from about his neck, saying to him, ‘On Hallow-night I shall have thee, soul and body, in despite of the minister and of all that he will do for thee.’” #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
In his choice of a date his Satanic Majesty showed his respect for popular superstitions. This attack of delirium tremens (though Mr. Blair would not have so explained it) had a most salutary effect; the constable was in such an abject state of terror lest the Devil should carry him off that he begged Mr. Blair to sit up with him all Hallow-night, which he did, spending the time very profitably in prayer and exhortation, which encouraged the man to defy Satan and all his works. The upshot of the matter was, that he became very charitable to the poor, and seems to have entirely renounced his intemperate habits. Rejecting the supernatural elements in the above as being merely the fruits of a diseased mind, there is no reason to doubt the truth of the story. Mr. Blair also met with some strange cases of religious hysteria, which became manifest in outbursts of weeping and bodily convulsions, but which he attributed to the Devil’s “playing the ape, and counterfeiting the works of the Lord.” He states that one Sunday, in the midst of public worship, “one of my charge, being a dull and ignorant person, made a noise and stretching of her body. Incontinent I was assisted to rebuke that lying spirit that disturbed the worship of God, charging the same not to disturb the congregation; and through God’s mercy we met with no more of that work.” Thus modestly our writer sets down what happened in his Autobiography; but the account of the incident spread far and wide, and at length came to the ears of Archbishop Usher, who, on his next meeting with Mr. Blair, warmly congratulated him on the successful exorcism he had practised.” Spirits of a diabolical and infernal nature, are not only ready upon all occasions to become subservient to exorcists and magicians, but are ever watching opportunities of exciting evil affections in the mind, and of stirring up the wickedly inclined to the commission of every species of iniquity and vice. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
Thus by the instigation of infernal spirits, and their own promptitude, they often terrify humans with nocturnal visions; provoke melancholy people to suicide; tempt drunkards and incendiaries to set houses on fire, to burn those who are in them, and allure careless servants and others to sound and incautious sleep; that such unlucky accidents might happen besides innumerable other ways they have of executing the devices of iniquitous spirits through malicious instigations, or secret stratagems, projected for the overthrow and destruction of mortal men; especially when the work to be effected by the devil is too hard for his subtle and spiritual nature to effect, because the same belongs to the outward source or principle to which these dubious spirits more immediately belong. A few nights into Christmas, there was a festival for which the Winchester mansion was making extensive preparations. The narrow streets which had been thronged with people were now almost deserted. In the comfortable coffee-room of the Winchester mansion, Mrs. Winchester had half a dozen guests, principally commercial travellers, sat talking by light of the fire. The talk had drifted from trade to politics, from politics to religion, and so by easy stages to the supernatural. In the flicker of the light of the fire, as it shone on the glasses and danced with shadows on the walls, the conversation proved so enthralling that Henry, the waiter, whose presence had been forgotten, created a very disagreeable sensation by suddenly starting up from a dark corner and gliding silently from the room. Mrs. Winchester then said, “Of course, it is an old idea that spirits like to get into the company of human beings. A man told me once that he travelled down the Great Western with a ghost and had not the slightest suspicion of it until the inspector came for tickets. My friend said they way that ghost tried to keep up appearances by feeling for it in all its pockets and looking on the floor was quite touching. Ultimately it gave it up and with a faint groan vanished through the ventilator.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
“That’ll do, Mrs. Winchester,” said Ludwig Leichhardt. “It is not a subject for jesting,” said Adam Worth,” who had been an attentive listener. “I’ve never seen an apparition myself, but I know people who have, and I consider that they form a very interesting link between us and the after-life. There’s a ghost story connected with this mansion, you know.” “Never heard of it,” said Edward Agar, “and I have visiting this estate for some years now.” “It dates back a long time,” said Ludwig. “You’ve heard about John V. Creely also know as Jesus Procopio?” “Well, I’ve just ‘eard odds and ends, sir” said the Edward, “but I never put much count to ‘em. There was one chap ‘ere what said ‘e saw it, and the gov’ner sacked ‘im prompt.” “My father was a native of this town,” said Ludwig, “and knew the story well. He was a truthful man and a steady churchgoer, but I’ve heard him declare that once in his life he saw the appearance of Jesus Procopio in this mansion.” “And who was this Jesus?” enquired a voice. “His real name was Tomaso Rodendo, one of the most fearless and daring desperadoes that has ever figures in the criminal annals of our state. Anything he could turn his dishonest hand to,” replied Ludwig; “and he was run to Earth in this mansion one Christmas week some five years ago. He took his last supper in this very room, and after he had gone up to bed a couple of thief takers, who had followed him from San Francisco but lost the scent a bit, went upstairs with Mrs. Winchester and tried the door. It was stout oak, and fast, so one went into the yard, and by means of a short ladder got on the window-sill, while the other stayed outside the door. Those below in the yard saw the man crouching on the sill, and then there was a sudden smash of glass, and with a cry he fell in a heap on the stones at their feet. Then in the moonlight they saw the white face of the pickpocket peeping over the sill, and while some stayed in the yard, others ran into the mansion and helped the other man to break the door in. It was difficult to obtain an entrance even then, for it was barred with heavy furniture, but they got in at last, and the first thing that met their eyes was the body of Jesus dangling from the top of the bed by his own handkerchief.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
“Which bedroom was it?” asked two or three voices together. Ludwig shook his head. “That I can’t tell you; but the story goes that Jesus still haunts this mansion, and my father used to declare that the last time he had slept here that the ghost of Jesus Procopio lowered itself from the top of his bed and tried to strangle him.” “That will do” said John Creely. “I wish you’d thought to ask your father which bedroom it was.” “I believe it was my Blue Séance room said,” Mrs. Winchester. “Well, I should take care not to sleep in it, that’s all, said John shortly. “There’s nothing to fear,” said Ludwig. “I don’t believe for a moment that ghosts could really hurt one. In fact my father used to confess that it was only the unpleasantness of the thing that upset him, and that for all practical purposes Jesus’s figures might have been made of cotton-wool for all the hard they could do.” “That’s all very fine,” said John; “a ghost story is a ghost story, sir; but when a gentleman tells a tale of a ghost in the house in which one is going to sleep, I call it most ungentlemanly!” “Pooh! Nonsense!” said Ludwig, rising, “ghosts can’t hurt you. For my own part; I should rather like to see one. Good night.” “Good night,” said Mrs. Winchester and the others. “And I hope that Jesus will pay you a visit,” added John as the door closed.” “Shall I light the gas, Adam?” said Henry. “No; the fires very comfortable,” he said. “Now gentlemen, any of you know any more?” “I think we’ve had enough,” said John; “we shall be thinking we see spirits next, and we’re not all like Ludwig who’s just gone.” Old humbug!” said John. “I should like to put him to the test. Suppose I dress up as Jesus Procopio and go to give him a chance of displaying his courage?” “Bravo!” said Adam huskily, drowning one or two faint “Noes.” “No, drop it, John” said Edward. “Only for the joke,” said John, somewhat eagerly. “I’ve got some things upstairs in which I am going to play in the ‘Rivals’—knee-breeches, buckles, and all that sort of thing. It’s a rare chance. If you’ll wait a bit I’ll give you a full-dress rehearsal, entitled, ‘Jesus Procopio; or, The Nocturnal Strangler.’” #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
“You won’t frighten us,” said Adam, with a husky laugh. “I don’t know that,” said John sharply; “it’s a question of acting that’s all. I’m pretty good, ain’t I, Edward?” “Oh, you’re all right—for an amateur,” said Edward, with a laugh. “I’ll bet you level sov. You don’t frighten me,” said Adam. “Done! said John. I’ll take the bet to frighten you first and Ludwig afterwards. These gentlemen shall be the judges.” “You won’t frighten us, sir,” said Edward “because we’re prepared for you; but you’d better leave Ludwig alone. It’s dangerous play.” “Well, I’ try you first,” said John, springing up. “No gas, mind.” He ran lightly upstairs to his room, leaving the others, most of whom had been drinking somewhat freely, to wrangle about his proceedings. It ended with them going to bed. “He’s crazy on acting,” said Adam, lighting his pipe. “Thinks he’s the equal of anybody almost. It doesn’t matter with us, but I won’t let him go to Ludwig. And he won’t mind so long as he gets an opportunity of acting to us.” “Well, I hope he’ll hurry up,” said Edward, yawning; it’s after twelve now.” Nearly half an hour passed. Edward drew his watch from his pocket and was busy winding it, when Henry, the waiter, who had been sent on an errand, burst suddenly into the room and rushed towards them. “E’s comin’, gentlemen,” he said breathlessly. “Why, you’re frightened, Edward,” said Adam with a chuckle. “It was the suddenness of it,” said Edward sheepishly; “and besides, I didn’t look for seenin’ ‘im in the bar. There’s only a glimmer of light there, and ‘e was sitting on the floor behind the bar. I nearly trod on ‘im.” “He’s taking too long, I’ll go and fetch him,” said Adam. “You don’t know what this mansion is like at night, sir,” said Henry, catching him by the sleeve. “It ain’t fit to look at by yourself, it ain’t, indeed. It’s got the—what’s that?” #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
They all started at the sound of a smothered cry from the staircase and the sound of somebody running hurriedly along the passage. Before anybody could speak, the door flew open and a figure bursting into the room flung itself gasping and shivering upon them. “What is it? What’s the matter?” demanded Edward. “Why, it’s Mr. Creely.” He shook him roughly and then held some spirit to his lips. John Creely drank it greedily with a sharp intake of his breath gripped him by the arm. “Light the gas, Adam,” said Edward. Adam obeyed hastily, John Creely, a ludicrous but pitiable figure in knee-breeches and coat, a large wig all awry, and his face a mess of grease paint, clung to him, trembling. “Now what’s the matter?” asked Edward. “I’ve seen it,” said John, with a hysterical sob. “O Lord, I’ll never play the fool again, never!” “Seen what?” said the others. “Him—it—the ghost—anything!” said John wildly. “Rot!” said Adam uneasily. All distinctly heard a step in the passage outside. It stopped at the door, and as they watched with bated breath, the door creaked and slowly opened. Adam fell back opened-mouthed, as a white, leering face, with sunken eyeballs ad close-cropped bullet head, appeared at the opening. For a few second the creature stood regarding them, blinking in a strange fashion at the candle. Then with a sidling movement, it came a little way into the room and stood there as if bewildered. Not a man spoke or moved, but all watched with a horrible fascination as the creature removed its dirty neckcloth and its head rolled on its shoulder. For a minute it paused, and then holding the rag before it, moved towards Edward. The candle went out suddenly with a flash and a bang. These was a smell of powder, and something writhing in the darkness on the floor. A faint, choking cough, and then silence. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
Edward was the first to speak. “Matches,” he said in a strange voice. Adam struck one. Then he leapt at the gas and a burner flamed from the match. Edward touched the thing on the floor with his foot and found it soft. He looked at his companions. They mouthed enquiries at him, but he shook his head. He lit the candle, and, kneeling down, examined the silent thing on the floor. Then he rose swiftly, and dipping his handkerchief in the water jug, bent down again and grimly wiped the white face. Then he sprang back with a cry of incredulous horror, pointing at it. Adam’s pistol fell to the floor and he shut out the sight with his hands, but the others, crowding forward, gazed spell-bound at the dead face of John V. Creely. Before a word was spoken the door opened and Ludwig hastily entered the room. His eyes fell on the floor. “Good God!” he cried. “You didn’t—” Nobody spoke. “I told him not to,” he said in a suffocating voice. “I told him not to. I told him—” He leaned against the wall, deathly sick, put his arms out feebly, and fell fainting into Ludwig’s arms. Many mysteries have taken place in the Winchester mansion over the years. It is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guide must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost forever! Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion—such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built that descends seven steps and then rises eleven? The Winchester Repeating Arms Company concluding their investigation by saying, “The mystery of the Winchester mansion is unquestionably great and infinite; perhaps spirits can take human shape, and disclose secrets and treasures guarded by this estate, but we must also be aware of skilled deceivers who will talk of Heaven and Hell and the Fall.” (WRA 1888.) After Mrs. Winchester’s death, crimes resulting in the theft of cash, jewels, historical European glass, furniture, and works of art worth over $10 million by Victorian standards (2021 inflation adjusted $291,146,315.79) went missing from the estate. Is the Winchester mansion haunted? Visits and find out for yourself. Their investigation sounds inconclusive. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~ William Shakespeare
Did you know Sarah Winchester only stood at 4’10”? Much of the house was built to her specific height measurement including a shower, some doors, and hallways. winchestermysteryhouse.com
There Was Terror in His Eyes as Not Often Seen in a Human Being!
Twenty-first century humans, in spite of all their scientific and technological advances, are baffled by unexplained forces existent in the Universe. The naturalistic philosophy of the previous generations has been unable to account for all of the mysterious phenomena which have been observed. Many scientists believe that living beings may inhabit other galaxies, and highly educated humans are seriously studying reports of those who insist they have received communications from the dead. Humans of science no longer scoff at the accounts of strange occurrences associated with witchcraft and occultic practices. Although they do not necessarily accept them as proof of the supernatural, many will admit they are manifestations of some kind of power they do not yet understand. Christian theologians and scientists are not perplexed by such reports. They know that both God and Satan are very much alive. Though readily conceding that they cannot explain fully all the mysteries of life, they affirm with confidence the existence of God and an invisible host of intelligent supernatural beings. They are convinced that when one accepts the teachings of the Bible, one begins to understand many of the puzzling facts of existence. For example, the Bible tells of holy angels who dwell in Heaven (Matthew 18.10). It also mentions “angels that sinned” (2 Peter 2.4), rebellious spirit begins who have been cast out of Heaven and now dwell in the atmosphere that surrounds the Earth. We know this because Paul declared that Satan is “the prince of the power of the air,” reports Ephesians 2.2, and the Greek word translated “air” was used to speak of the gaseous envelop that encircles our planet. These wicked beings apparently have unlimited access to Earther, and actively influence every area of human endeavour. #RandolphHarris 1 of 19
Because they do not possess physical bodies, we cannot typically detect them through our senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell. We do have evidence of their presence, however, for the Word of God gives us information regarding their identification, their nature and their function. Various terms are used in the Christian Bible to denote the evil spirit beings who followed Satan in this initial act of rebellion against God. It refers to “angels that sinned” 2 Peter 2.4 and “angels who kept not their first estate” Jude 6, and many times mentions “spirits” and “demons.” Some scholars believe that these demons must be distinguished from the “angels that sinned” and the “angels who kept not their first estate.” They contend that the Heavenly beings who joined Satan in his revolt against God are fallen angels, but that demons are disembodies spirits of physical and moral creatures who once lived upon the Earth. However, these Bible students disagree regarding an exact identification of the demons. Some say they are the spirits of pre-Adamic beings similar to man, while others identify them as the spirits of the “giants” who were destroyed in the great flood of Noah’s day. If one thinks that demons are the spirits of man-like beings who lived before Adam, then one will no doubt interpret Genesis 1.2 as a declaration that the original Earth, inhabited by the creatures, was cataclysmically destroyed. Genesis 1.2 is then translated as follows: “And the Earth became without form and void…” This theory, while attractive in that it permits a literal interpretation of the days in Genesis 1, must be acknowledged as only a hypothesis. Most Hebrew scholars reject this interpretation because Genesis 1.2 begins with a grammatical construction which makes it highly unlikely that Genesis 1.1 and 1.2 are separated by millions of years. Then, too, the verb translated “became” almost always has the meaning “was.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 19
However, even if we accept this theory, and believe that a race of man-like beings inhabited the prehistoric Earth, we would have no basis for thinking that their spirits are now free to roam about as the enemies of humankind. Other Bible scholars maintain that demons are the spirits of the “giants” who lived upon the Earth in the days of Noah. They refer to Genesis 6, contending that these “giants” were produced when fallen angels, called the “sons of God,” married the “daughters of men.” “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all whom they chose. There were giants in the Earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men who were of old, men of renown,” reports Genesis 6.1, 2, 4. It is necessary for proponents of this theory to believe that fallen angels became male human beings who married women, produced a mongrel offspring, and took over the role of father in the family. They theorize that Satan hoped thereby to frustrate God’s redemptive plan. The Lord had promised salvation through Christ to human beings only—not for angels or mixed half-human and half-angelic race. Christ could not have been born to offspring of these corrupted creates or provide redemptions for them. Thus God’s plan of redemption would have been thwarted. In addition, both Jude and Peter in their epistles refer to a sin committed by angels, and their words can be blended very nicely into this concept. Jude writes, “And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire,” reports Jude 6, 7. #RandolphHarris 3 of 19
The words “in like manner” (verse 7) are taken to mean that the sin of the angels in having pleasures of the flesh with women was an unnatural act, comparable to sodomy. Peter tells of angels assigned to Tartaros, the nether World of the Greeks considered to be lower than Hades. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [GK Tartaros], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,” reports 2 Peter 2.4. Again, it does not take a great deal of imagination to see how these words of Peter may be applied to the wicked angels who committed the monstrous sin of attempting to make mongrels of the human race. Many Bible students, however, reject this interpretation of Genesis 6. Since angels are non-material beings, it would be necessary for them to create physical bodies for themselves capable of impregnating a female member of the human race. This would require nothing less than a creative miracle, and the Bible indicates that this power belongs only to God. In addition, it is not necessary to interpret the statements in Jude and 2 Peter as a reference to sin involving pleasures of the flesh on the part of the fallen angels. Jude’s use of the expression “going after strange flesh” may be figurative language representing spiritual fornication. The prophets often depicted Israel’s unfaithfulness to God in this manner. Peter’s statement that the angels who sinned have been assigned to Tartaros may be a simple declaration that all sinning angels have been designated to this place, and that they are even now under chains of moral and spiritual darkness. The Bible gives little information regarding the origin of demons. We can state with absolute certainty only that they are fallen spirit beings who have committed themselves to Satan and that they hate God and seek to harm His people. No clear distinction can be made between fallen angels and demons, for they are all evil spirits. Some of our questions must remain unanswered, but the Lord has given ample revelation to warn us that these invisible enemies are far too great and powerful for us to defeat in our own strength, and that we can successfully wage war against them only as we live in continual dependence upon the Lord. #RandolphHarris 4 of 19
In one respect the case of Dame Alice Kyteler stands alone in the history of magical dealings in Ireland prior to the seventeenth century. We have of the entire proceedings an invaluable and contemporary account, or at latest one compiled within a very few years after the death of Petronilla of Meath; while the excitement produced by the affair is shown by the more or less lengthy allusions to it in early writings, such as The Book of Howth (Carew MSS.), the Annals by Fariar Clyn, the Chartularies of S. Mary’s Abbey (vol. ii), &c. It is also rendered more valuable by the fact that those who are best qualified to give their opinion on the matter have assured the writer that to the best of their belief no entries with respect to trials for sorcery or witchcraft can be found in the various old Rolls preserved in the Dublin Record Office. However, when the story is considered with reference to the following facts it takes on a different signification. On the 29th of September 1317 (Wright says 1320), Bishop de Ledrede held his first Synod, at which several canons were passed, one of which seems in some degree introductory to the events detailed in last week’s report. In it he speaks of “a certain new and pestilential sect in our parts, differing from all the faith in the World, filled with a devilish spirit, more inhuman than heathens…who pursue the priests and bishops of the Most High God equally in life and death, by spoiling and rending the patrimony of Christ in the diocese of Ossory, and who utter grievous threats against the bishops and their ministers exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and (by various means) attempt to hinder the correction of sins and the salvation of souls, in contempt of God and the Church.” From this it would seem that heresy and unorthodoxy had already made its appearance in the diocese. In 1324 the Kyteler case occurred, one of the participants being burnt at the stake while other incriminate persons were subsequently followed up, some of whom shared the fate of Petronilla of Meath. In 1327 Adam Dubh, of the Leinster tribe of O’Toole, was burnt alive on College Green for denying the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity, as well as for rejecting the authority of the Holy See. #RandolphHarris 5 of 19
In 1335 Pope Benedict XII wrote a letter to King Edward III, in which occurs the following passage: “It has come to our knowledge that while our venerable brother, Richard, Bishop of Ossory, was visiting his diocese, there appeared in the midst of his catholic people men who were heretics together with their abettors, some of whom asserted that Jesus Christ was a mere man and a sinner, and was justly crucified for His own sins; others after having done homage and offered sacrifice to demons, thought otherwise of the sacrament of the Body of Christ than the Catholic Church teaches, saying that the same venerable sacrament is by no means to be worshipped; and also asserting that they are not bound to obey or believe the decrees, decretals, and apostolic mandates; in the meantime, consulting demons according to the rites of those sects among the Gentiles and Pagans, they despise the sacraments of the Catholic Church, and draw the faithful of Christ after them by their superstitions.” Unlike apocryphal and rabbinical literature, the Biblical description of evil spirits avoids the unusual and grotesque. The Bible does, however, present us with a clear picture of their activity and tells us how to resist them effectively. In the first place, it declares that demons or fallen angels are non-material beings. They do not possess bodies like humans, and therefore are repeatedly called “spirits.” Matthew, for example, says, “When the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick,” reports Matthew 8.16. Jesus started that the Creator is not made up of physical substance when He said, “God is a Spirit,” reports John 4.24. Later, when His frightened disciples thought He was a ghost, He told them their fears were groundless, for “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have,” reports Luke 24.39. Paul had in mind the non-physical nature of Satan and his army of evil spirits when he said that our warfare is “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. Satan’s demonic hordes are spirit beings, and therefore more dangerous than the “flesh and blood” enemies we may encounter in our daily lives. #RandolphHarris 6 of 19
Second, the Bible portrays demons as highly intelligent creatures. They recognize Christ when He was here upon the Earth, and knew they could not have fellowship with Him. Luke tells us about an evil spirit who is an example of this. “When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God, most high? I beseech thee, torment me not,” reports Luke 8.28. The fallen spirits are also aware of their ultimate defeat, for James declared, “Them demons also believe, and tremble,” reports James 2.19. They are, of course, finite creatures, even Satan is limited in knowledge. He has myriads of evil spirit followers, however, and they are able to give him information on almost any person and circumstance in which he is interested. In this manner he can find out much what he wants to know. Truly, believers in Christ can never successfully cope with Satan and his hosts without special help from the Lord. Therefore, we must humbly look to God for wisdom and strength to resist the attacks of our invisible enemies. Third, the World of evil spirits is cruel. These creatures hate God and all who have placed their trust in Him. They seem to find delight in causing human grief and pain. For example, Matthew tells us that a man who was both blind and dumb suffered these afflictions because a demon had entered his body. “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a demon, blind, and dumb; and He healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spoke and saw,” reports Matthew 12.22. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of two demented men who lived in the country of the Gerasenes, and indicate that their insanity was the result of demonic invasion of their personalities. Luke, the beloved physicians, writes of a woman who was bent over with some crippling disease, saying that she had “a spirit of infirmity.” He adds that Jesus said she had been bound by Satan. “And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no way lift herself up. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. #RandolphHarris 7 of 19
“And he laid his hands on her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which humans ought to work; in them, therefore, come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or her ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, who Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bound on the sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed; and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him,” reports Luke 13.10-17. While the gospel writers make it clear that not all illness is the work of Satan and demons, they do point out that much human suffering is the result of demonic activity. Finally, the Bible tells us that all fallen angels or evil spirits are confirmed in their wickedness. Though they “believe and tremble,” they will never repent, never seek forgiveness, and never pray for holiness or purity. Though they know that Jesus is the Christ, they never really worship Him. They must acknowledge that He is stronger than they, and may occasionally render Him token submission, but inwardly they hate Him and keenly resent His authority over them. In fact, their nature is so totally evil that the term “unclean” often is applied to them. (See Matthew 10.1; Mark 1.27; 3.11; Luke 4.36; Acts 8.7; Revelations 16.13.) They apparently delight in sin, find great pleasure in leading humans to commit evil deeds, and possess no feelings of guilt nor desire for deliverance. Michael Scot, reputed a wizard of such potency that—when in Salamanca’s cave he listed his magic want to wave and the bells would ring in Notre Dame. Scot has studied successively at Oxford and Paris (where he acquired the title of “mathematicus”); he then passed to Bologna, thence to Palermo, and subsequently continued his studies in Toledo. His refusal of the See of Cashel was an intellectual loss to the Irish Church, for he was so widely renowned for his varied and extensive learning that he was credited with supernatural powers; a number of legends grew up around his name which hid his real merit, and transformed the man of science into a magician. #RandolphHarris 8 of 19
In the Border country traditions of his magical power are common. Boccaccio alludes to “a great master in necromancy, called Michael Scot,” while Dante places him in the eighteen circle of Hell. The next, who is so slender in the flanks, was Michael Scot, who of a verity of magical illusion knew the game. Another man to whom magical powers were attributed solely on account of his learning was Gerald, the fourth Earl of Desmond, styled the Poet, who died rather mysteriously in 1398. The Four Masters in their Annals describe him as “a nobleman of wonderful bounty, mirth, cheerfulness of conversation, charitable in his deeds, easy of access, a witty and ingenious composer of Irish poetry, a learned and profound chronicler.” No legends are extant of his magical deeds. King James I of Scotland, whose severities against his nobles had around their bitter resentment, was barbarously assassinated at Perth in 1437 by some of their supports, who were aided and abetted by the ages Duke of Atholl. From a contemporary account of this we learn that the monarch’s fate was predicted to him by an Irish prophetess or witch; has he given ear to her message he might have escaped with his life. We modernize the somewhat difficult spelling, but retain the quaint language of the original. “The king, suddenly advised, made a solemn feast of the Christmas at Perth, which is clept Saint John’s Town, which is from Edinburg on the other side of the Scottish sea, the which is vulgarly celpt the water of Lethe. In the midst of the way there arose a woman of Ireland, the clept herself as a soothsayer. The which anon as she saw the king she cried with a loud voice, saying thus: ‘My lord king, and you pass this water you shall never turn again alive.’ The king hearing this was astonied of her words; for but a little before he had read in a prophecy that in the self same year the king of Scots should be slain; and therewithal the king, as he rode, cleped to him one of his knights, and gave him in commandment to turn again to speak with that woman, and ask of her what she would, and what thing she meant with her loud crying. #RandolphHarris 9 of 19
“And she began, and told him as ye have heard of the King of Scots if he passed that water. As now the king asked her, how she knew that. And she said, that Huthart told her so. ‘Sire,’ quoth he, ‘men may “calant” yet take to heed of yon woman’s words, for she is but a drunken fool, and wot not what she saith’; and so with his folk passed the water celpt the Scottish sea, towards Saint John’s town.” The narrator states some dreams ominous of James’s murder, and afterwards proceeds thus: Both afore supper, and long after into quarter of the night, in the which the Earl of Atholl (Athetelles) and Robert Steward were about the king, where they were occupied at the playing of chess, at the tables, in reading of romances, in singing and piping, in harping, and in other honest solaces of great pleasance and disport. Therewith came the said woman of Ireland, that celpt herself a divineress, and entered the king’s court, till that she came straight to the king’s chamber-door, where she stood, till at the last the usher opened the door, marvelling of that woman’s being there that time of night, and asking her what she would. ‘Let me in, sir’ quoth she, ‘for I have somewhat to say, and to tell unto the king; for I am the same woman that not long ago desired to have spoken with him at the Leith, when he should pass the Scottish sea.’ The usher went in and told him of this woman. ‘Yea,’ quoth the king, ‘let her come tomorrow’; because the he was occupied with such disports at that time he let not to hear her as then. The usher came again to the chamber-door to the said woman, and there he told her that the king was busy in playing, and bid her come soon again upon the morrow. ‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘it shall repent you all that ye will not let me speak now with the king.’ Thereat the usher laughed, and held her but a fool, charging her to go her way, and therewithal she went thence. Her informant “Huthart” was evidently a familiar spirit who was in attendance on her. #RandolphHarris 10 of 19
Considering the barrenness of Irish records on the subject of sorcery and witchcraft it affords us no small satisfaction to find the following statement in the Statute Rolls of the Parliament for the year 1447. It consists of a most indignantly-worded remonstrance from the Lords and Commons, which was drawn forth by the fact that some high-placed personage had been accused of practising sorcery with the intent to do grievous harm to one’s enemy. When making it the remonstrants appear to have forgotten, or perhaps, like Members of Parliament in other ages, found it convenient to forget the nonce the Kyteler incident of the pervious century. There was an Act of Parliament which was intended to put a stop to a certain lucrative form of witchcraft. It is gravely stated by the writer of a little book entitled Beware the Cat (and by Giraldus Camrensis before him), that Irish witches could turn wisps of hay, straw &c. into red-coloured pigs, which they dishonestly sold in the market, but which resumed their proper shape when crossing running water. To prevent this it is stated that the Irish Parliament passed an Act forbidding the purchase of red swine. We regret to say, however, that no such interesting Act is to be found in the Statues books. The belief in the power of witches to inflict harm on others was also a powerful belief in Victorian times. When reflecting on history, one can see that consulting someone with supernatural powers was no different than talking to a friend about one’s life. It was very common. Also, many of these accounts turned out to have some truth to them or evidence of supernatural power. Perhaps this is because people were more in tune with their inner spirit and the planet back then. Many people thought Sarah Winchester was mentally ill or deranged for consulting a medium about how she should deal with the evil spirits that were haunting her, they thought she was even more insane for building the World’s most beautiful and unique mansion. However, what better way could there be to spend your money than by creating something you and the World can enjoy for many centuries and creating a living memorial for your family? #RandolphHarris 11 of 19
Perhaps what Mrs. Winchester did was very rational and sane. In contrast, most others express their pain and suffering by becoming destructive and hurting others, and people usually idolize them for that. Mrs. Winchester gradually developed her skill in building, just as she had done with music and language in her youth. She often used the most current innovations in her home. Some historical sources say that Mrs. Winchester was the first to use wool for insulation. Carbide gas lights in the house were fed by the estate’s own gas manufacturing plant, which used a new process. The gas lights were operated by pushing an electric button. A specially designed window catch was patterned after a Winchester rifle trigger and trip hammer, amongst other state of the art designs. I met a man in the Winchester Mansion one day that I knew very well, as I thought, though I had not seen him for years. Without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle questions, we walked together to the Blue Séance Room, and there we shook hands. Just then there came a vague vibration in the Earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush caused me to start back, as though it had force to draw me down. Next morning, I spoke of this meeting to a mutual friend, and then I learnt, for the first time, that the man had died six months before. The natural inference was that I had mistaken one man for another, an error that, not having a good memory for faces, I frequently fall into. What was remarkable about the matter, however, was that throughout our walk I had conversed with the man under the impression that he was that other dead man, and, whether by coincidence or not, his replies had never once suggested to me my mistake. As soon as I finished speaking to Jared, who had been listening very thoughtfully, asked me if I believed in spiritualism “to its fullest extent.” “That is a rather large question,” I answered. “What do you mean by ‘spiritualism to its fullest extent’?” “Well, do you believe that the spirits of the dead have not only the power of revisiting this Earth at their will, but that, when here, they have the power of action, or rather, of exciting to action. Let me put a definite case. A spiritualist friend of mine, a sensible and by no means imaginative man, once told me that a table, through the medium of which the spirit of a friend had been in the habit of communicating with him, came slowly across the room towards him, of its own accord, one night as he sat alone in the Winchester Mansion, and pinioned him against the wall. Now can any of you believe that, or can you not?” #RandolphHarris 13 of 19
I could believe it. It seems that the difference between what we call the natural and supernatural is merely the difference between frequency and rarity of occurrence. Suppose a person died with the dearest wish of one’s heart unfulfilled, do you believe that one’s spirit might have power to return to Earth and complete the interrupted work? The Winchester Mansion is supposed to be enchanted. According to the legend, William Winchester was a very potent magician, and usually resided in a castle. To this he brought his bride, a beautiful young lady, Sarah Lockwood Pardee, who he loved, and he prevailed upon her her every desire, but with fatal results. One day she presented herself in the chamber in which her husband exercised his forbidden art, and begged him to show her the wonders of the evil science. With the greatest reluctance he consented, but warned her that she must prepare herself to witness a series of most frightful phenomena, which, once commenced, could neither be abridged nor mitigated, while if she spoke a single word during the proceedings the castle and all it contained would sink. Urged on by curiosity she gave the required promised, and he commenced. Muttering a spell as he stood before her, feathers sprouted thickly over him, his face became contracted and hooked, a corpse-like smell filled the air, and winnowing the air with beats of its heavy wings a gigantic vulture rose in his stead, and swept round and round the room as if on the point of pouncing upon her. The lady controlled herself though this trial, and another began. The bird alighted near the door, and in less than a minute changed, she saw not how, into a horribly deformed and dwarfish hag, who, with yellow skin hanging about her face, and cavernous eyes, swung herself on crutches towards the lady, her mouth foaming with fury, and her grimaces and contortions becoming more and more hideous every moment, till she rolled with a fearful yell on the floor in a horrible convulsion at the lady’s feet, and then changed into a huge serpent, which came sweeping and arching towards her with crest erect and quivering tongue. #RandolphHarris 14 of 19
Suddenly, as it seemed on the point of darting at her, she saw her husband in its stead, standing pale before her, and with his finger on his lips enforcing the continued necessity of silence. He then placed himself at the full length on the floor and began to stretch himself at full length on the floor and began to stretch himself out, longer and longer, until his head nearly reached to one end of the vast room and his feet to the other. This utterly unnerved her. She gave a wild scream of horror, whereupon the castle shook and the nine-story tower of what is now known as the Winchester Mansion came tumbling down. Mr. Winchester is said to have been dead and never lived in the Winchester Mansion, but perhaps his spirit did? Once every seven years, the great William Wirt Winchester would rise, and rides by on his white horse round Llanada Villa. The steed is shod with gold shoes, and when these are worn out the spell that holds Mr. Winchester will be broken, and he will regain possession of his vast estates and semi-regal power. In the closing years of the nineteenth-century there was a living man named Gilbert Plutchik who claimed to have seen Mr. Winchester. Gilbert was a blacksmith, and his forge stood on back of the estate, near a lonely part of the road. One night when there was a bright moon, he was working very late and quite alone. In one of the pauses of his work he heard the ring of many hoofs ascending the steep road that passed his forge, and, standing in his doorway, he saw a gentleman on a white horse, who was dressed in a fashion the like of which he had never seen before. This man was accompanied by a mounted retinue, in similar dress. They seemed to be riding up to the mansion, but the pace slackened as they drew near, and the rider of the white horse, who seemed from his haughty air to be a man of rank, drew bridle, and came to a halt before the smith’s door. He did not speak, and all his train were silent, but he beckoned to the smith, and pointed down at one of the horse’s hoofs. Gilbert stopped and raised it, and held it just long enough to see that it was shod with a gold shoe, which in one place was worn as thing as a shilling. Instantly his situation was made apparent to him by this sign, and he recoiled with a terrified prayer. #RandolphHarris 15 of 19
The lordly rider, with a look of pain and fury, struck him suddenly with something that whistled in the air like a whip; an icy streak seemed to traverse his body, and at the same time he saw the whole cavalcade break into a gallop, and disappear down the hill. It is generally supposed that for the purpose of putting an end to his period of enchantment Mr. Winchester endeavours to lead someone on to first break the silence and speak to him; but what, in the event of his succeeding, would be the result, or would befall the person thus ensnared, no one knows. If one admits the possibility of spirits retaining any interest in the affairs of this World at all, it is certainly more reasonable to imagine them engaged upon a task such as this, than to believe that they occupy themselves with the performance of mere drawing-room tricks. There was once a great wrong done to the Winchester Mansion. A man stole something priceless from the estate. After that, he felt like he was being followed. However, the course was the whole World, and the stakes his life. It was sixteen hours before he was going to abscond. Passing the estate once more, he asks, “How long since the carriage passed this way, with a tall, fair man inside?” “Such a one passed this morning, Monsieur. The man was ridden by Fear as he looked, and saw before him the door to the Winchester Manion opened, and passing in, knelt down and prayed. He prayed long and fervently, for men, when they are in sore straits, clutch eagerly at the straws of faith. He prayed that he might be forgiven his sin, and, more important still, that he might be pardoned the consequences of his sin, and be delivered from his adversary; and a few chairs from him, facing him, knelt Mr. Winchester praying also. However, Mr. Winchester’s prayer, being a thanksgiving merely, was short, so that when the thief raised his eyes, he saw the face of Mr. Winchester gazing at him across the chair tops, with a mocking smile upon it. He made no attempt to rise, but remained kneeling, fascinated by the look of joy that shone out of Mr. Winchester’s eyes. And Mr. Winchester moved the high-back chairs one by one, and came toward him softly. Then, just as Mr. Winchester stood beside the thief who had wronged him, full of gladness that his opportunity had come, there burst from the bell town a sudden clash of bells, and Mr. Winchester vanished. #RandolphHarris 16 of 19
Then the thief who had done the wrong rose up and passed out praising God. What became of the body of Mr. Winchester is not known. There was none to identify. Years passed away, and the survivour in the tragedy became a worthy and useful citizen, and a noted man of science. He was employed by Mrs. Winchester and even had a laboratory on the estate were many objects necessary to him in his researches, and prominent among them, stood in a certain corner, a human skeleton. It was a very old and much-mended skeleton, and one day the long-expected end arrived, and it tumbled to pieces. Thus it became necessary to purchase another. The man of science visited a dealer he well knew, and the dealer said he would send a well-proportioned “study” to his laboratory that very afternoon. The dealer was as good as his word. When Monsieur entered his laboratory that evening, the thing was in its place. Monsieur seated himself in his high-backed chair, and tried to collect his thoughts. However, his thoughts were unruly, and inclined to wander, and to wander always in one direction. He opened a large volume and commenced to read. He read of a man who had wronged another and feld from him, the other man following. Finding himself reading this, he closed the book angrily, and went and stood by the window and looked out. He saw before him the sun-pierced nave of East wing of the Winchester Mansion, and on the stones lay a dead man with a mocking smile upon his face. Cursing himself for a fool, he turned away with a laugh. However, his laugh was short-lived, for it seemed to him that something else in the room was laughing also. Struck suddenly still, with his feet glued to the ground, he stood listening for awhile: then sought with starting eyes at the corner from where the sound had seemed to come. However, the white thing standing there was only grinning. Monsieur wiped the damp sweat from his head and hands, and stole out. For a couple of days he did not enter the room again. One the third, telling himself that his fears were those of a hysterical girl, he opened the door and went in. #RandolphHarris 17 of 19
To shame himself, he took his lamp in his hand, and crossing over to the far corner where the skeleton stood, examined it. A set of bones bought for a thousand dollars. Was he a child, to be scared by such a bogey! He held his lamp up in front of the thing’s grinning head. The flame of the lamp flickered as though a faint breath had passed over it. The man explained this to himself by saying that the walls of the house were old and cracked, and that the wind might creep in anywhere. He repeated this explanation to himself as he recrossed the room, walking backwards, with his eyes fixed on the thing. When he reached his desk, he sat down and gripped the arms of his chair till his fingers turned white. He tried to work, but the empty sockets in that grinning head seemed to be drawing him towards them. He rose and battled with his inclination to fly screaming from the room. Glancing fearfully about him, his eyes fell upon a high screen, standing before the door. He dragged it forward, and placed it between himself and the thing, so that he could not see it—nor it see him. Then he sat down again to his work. For a while he forced himself to look at the book in front of him, but at last, unable to control himself any longer, he suffered his eyes to follow their own beat. It may have been an hallucination. He may have accidentally placed the screen so as to favour such an illusion. However, what he saw was a bony hand coming round the corner of the screen, and, with a cry, he fell to the floor in a swoon. John Hansen and other people of the house came running in, and lifting him up, carried him out, and laid him upon his bed. As soon as he recovered, his first question was, where had they found the thing—where was it when they entered the room? And when they told him they had seen it standing where is always stood, and had gone down into the room to look again, because of his frenzied entreaties, and returned trying to hide their smiles, he listened to their talk about overwork, and the necessity for change and rest, and said they might do with him as they would. So for many months the laboratory door remined locked, and many of the innovative technologies produced by the Winchester Estate came to a halt. Then there cam a chill winter evening when the man of science opened it again, closed the door behind him. #RandolphHarris 18 of 19
He lighted his lamp, and gathered his instruments and books around him, and sat down by the fire before them in his high-backed chair. And the old terror returned to him. He was sitting there when he heard a cry. He held his lamp above his head, and saw figures in the distance, and wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the arch. He listened for a moment to the wind in the valley, it sounded unnatural. Standing at the door was a specter. The man of science sat down partly to collect his thoughts again, partly because it had turned him faint. He heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in the parlor. This time the man of science wished to conquer himself. His nerves were stronger now, and his brain clearer; he would fight his unreasoning fear. He crossed the door and locked himself in, and flung the key to the other end of the room, where it fell among beakers and Bunsen Burners with an echoing clatter. Later on, the housekeeper, Angus, going her final round tapped at the door and wished him good night, as was her custom. She received no response, at first, and growing nervous, tapped louder and called again; and at length an answering “good night” came back to her. She thought little about it at the time, but afterwards she remembered that the voice that had replied to her had been strangely grating and mechanical. Trying to describe it, she likened it to such a voice as she would imagine coming from a statue. Next morning the door to the laboratory remained still locked. It was no unusual thing for him to work all night, and far into the next day, so no one thought surprised. When, however, evening came, and yet he did not appear, the servants gathered outside the room and whispered, remembering what had happened before. They listened, but could hear no sound. They shook the door and called to him, then beat with their fists upon the mahogany panels. However, there was still no sound. Becoming alarmed, they decided to burst open the door, and, after many blows, it gave way and flew back, and they crowded in. He sat bolt upright in his high-backed chair. They thought at first he had died in his sleep. However, when they drew nearer and the light fell upon him, they saw the livid marks of bony fingers round his throat; and in his eyers there was such a terror as is not often seen in human eyes. Next evening was a lovely evening, and Mrs. Winchester walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when she traversed the field-path near where the nine-story tower once stood. #RandolphHarris 19 of 19
Winchester Mystery House
Saturdays are for the boilers 😉 Do you know where this is in the house?
🎟 Link in bio. winchestermysteryhouse.com
Haunted by a Counteracting Spell—My Whole Soul Withering!
God created man He committed 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. This angelic creature of surpassing beauty and intelligence, however, initiated a rebellion against God. This explains the entrance of sin, suffering, and death into a universe which had been “good” as it came from God’s creative hand. The Scriptures do not attempt to tell us why God permitted sin to invade His World, for His reasons are among the “secret things” which “belong unto the Lord our God,” reports Deuteronomy 29.29. We cannot fully understand how or why an infinitely holy God brought about the possibility of evil, nor can we explain the origin of pride and rebellion against Him. However, by faith we are assured that God is holy, wise, and loving. Our confidence in Him enables us to believe that behind His permission of sin, suffering, and death lies infinite holiness, wisdom, and goodness. The Bible simply affirms that the angel Lucifer, now called Satan, became proud and rebelled against his Maker. Lucifer, the daystar, succumbed to pride and revolted against God. Apparently many angels joined in the rebellion, for the Bible speaks of “angels that sinned,” reports 2 Peter 2.4, “angels who kept not their first estate,” reports Jude 6, and Revelation 12.4 in figurative language describes the red dragon (Satan) as pulling down a third of the stars (angels) from Heaven with his tail. Satan and his followers have been cast out of Heaven to Earth. They hate God and His people, and have neither desire for nor hope of salvation. The terms “evil” and “foul” are sometimes used to describe the evil spirits who make up Satan’s army. Even the name “Satan” means adversary, and the word “devil” portrays him as one who accuses or criticizes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
The fall of Lucifer made him an implacable enemy of God, a false accuser, and a liar whose every activity is marked by deceitfulness. The devil today is the leader of a vast host of evil spirits who are organized into a military-like structure. However, remember that Satan, though intelligent and powerful, is not omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. He can be in only one place at a time, but his myriads of assistants can largely make up for his inherent finiteness. With their help he tries to lead people into sinful practices and introduces false doctrine into the professing church. Though fallen humanity possess an evil nature, many of the completely inhuman and unnatural evils of society are at least in part traceable to the devil and his evil spirits. The widespread confusion and strife within the realm of professing Christendom is also partly due to Satanic activity. Evil spirits seek to divide and corrupt the church. However, remember, Satan was originally sinless and the most glorious of all created beings. In 1324 A.D., Dame Alice Kyteler (such apparently being her maiden name), the facile princeps of Irish witches, was a member of a good Anglo-Norman family that had been settled in the city of Kilkenny for many years. The lady in question must have been far removed from the popular conception of a witch as an old woman of striking ugliness, or else her powers of attraction were very remarkable, for she had succeeded in leading four husbands to the alter. She had been married, first, to William Outlawe of Kilkenny, banker; secondly, to Adam le Blund of Callan; third, to Richard de Valle—all of whom she was supposed to have got rid of by poison; and fourthly, to Sir John le Poer, whom it was said she deprived of his natural senses by philtres and incantations. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
The Bishop of Ossory at this period was Richard de Ledrede, a Franciscan friar, and an Englishman by birth. He soon learnt that things were not as they should be, for when making a visitation of his diocese early in 1324 he found by an Inquisition, in which were five knights and numerous nobles, that there was in the city a band of heretical sorcerers, at the head whom was Dame Alice. The following charges were laid against them. They had denied the faith of Christ absolutely for a year or a month, according as the object they desired to gain through sorcery was of greater or less importance. During all that period they believed in none of the doctrines of the Church; they did not adore the Body of Christ, nor enter a sacred building to hear mass, not make sure of consecrated bread or holy water. They offered in sacrifice to demons living animals, which they dismembered, and then distributed at cross-roads to a certain evil spirit of low rank, named the Son of Art. They sought their sorcery advice and responses from demons. In their nightly meetings they blasphemously imitated the power of the Church by fulminating sentences of excommunication, with lighted candles, even against their own husbands, from the sole of their foot to the crown of their head, naming each part expressly, and then concluded by extinguishing the candles and by crying Fi! Fi! Fi! Amen. In order to arouse feelings of love or hatred, or to inflict death or disease on the bodies of the faithful, they made use of powders, unguents, ointments, and candles of fat, which were compounded as follows. They took the entrails of cocks sacrificed to demons, certain horrible worms, various unspecified herbs, dead men’s nails, the hair, brains, and shreds of the cerement of boys who were buried unbaptized, with other abominations, all of which they cooked, with various incantations, over a fire of oak-logs in a vessel made out of the skull of a decapitated thief. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
The children of Dame Alice’s four husbands accused her before the Bishop of having killed their fathers by sorcery, and of having brought on them such stolidity of their senses that they bequeathed all their wealth to her and her favourite son, William Outlawe, to the impoverishment of the other children. They also stated that her present husband, Sir John le Poer, had been reduced to such a condition by sorcery and the use of powders that he had become terribly emaciated, his nails had dropped off, and there was no hair left on his body. No doubt he would have died had he not been warned by a maid-servant of what was happening, in consequence of which he had forcibly possessed himself of his wife’s keys, and had opened some chests in which he found a sackful of horrible and detestable thing which he transmitted to the bishop by the hands of two priests. The said dame had a certain demon, an incubus, named Son or Art, or Robin son of Art, who had carnal knowledge of her, and from who she admitted that she had received all her wealth. This incubus made its appearance under various forms, sometimes as a cat, or as a hairy black dog, or in the likeness of an African, accompanied by two others who were larger and taller than he, and of whom one carried an iron rod. Dame Alice was declared to be a sorceress, magician, and heretic, and it was demanded that she should be handed over to the secular arm and have her goods confiscated as well. One of Dame Alice’s accomplices was Petronilla of Meath, she was made the scapegoat for her mistress. The Bishop had her flogged six times, and under the repeated application of this form of torture she made the required confession of magical practices. She admitted the denial of her faith and the sacrificing to Robert, son of Art, and as well that she had caused certain women of her acquaintance to appear as if they had goats’ horns. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
She also confessed that at the suggestion of Dame Alice she had frequently consulted demons and received responses from them, and that she had acted as a “medium” (mediatrix) between her and the said Robert. She declared that although she herself was a mistress of the Black Art, yet she was as nothing in comparison with the Dame from who she had learnt all her knowledge, and that there was no one in the World more skillful than she. Petronilla of Meath also stated that William Outlawe deserved death as much as she, for he was privy to their sorceries, and for a year and a day had worn the devil’s girdle round his body. When rifling Dame Alice’s house there was found “a wafer of sacramental bread, having the devil’s name stamped thereon instead of Jesus Christ, and a pipe of ointment wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin, when and in what manner she listed.” Petronilla was accordingly condemned to be burnt alive, and the execution of this sentence took place with all due solemnity in Kilkenny on 3rd November 1324. Dame Alice fled the country. “With regard to the other heretics and sorcerers who belonged to the pestilential society of Robin, son of Art, the order of law being preserved, some of them were publicly burnt to death; others, confessing their crimes in the presence of all the people, in an upper garment, are marked back and front with a cross after they had abjured their heresy, as is the custom; others were solemnly whipped through the town and the market-place; others were banished from the city and diocese; others who evaded the jurisdiction of the Church were excommunicated; while others again fled in fear and were never heard of after. And thus, by the authority of Holy Mother Church, and by the special grace of God, that most foul brood was scattered and destroyed.” Possibly Dame Alice and her associated actually practiced magical arts, and if so, considering the period at which it occurred, some can see why the Bishop took the steps he did. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
However, others suspect such baser motives as greed of gain and desire for revenge. John XXII was elevated to the Papacy. The attitude of that Pope towards magical arts was no uncertain one. He believed himself to be surrounded by enemies who were ever making attempts on his life by modelling images of him in wax, to be subsequently thrust through with pins and melted, no doubt; or by sending him a devil enclosed in a ring, or in various other ways. Consequently in several Bulls he anathematized sorcerers, denounced their ill-deeds, excited the inquisitors against them, and so gave ecclesiastical authorization to the reality of the belief in magical forces. Indeed, the general expression used in the Bull Super illius specula might be applied to the actions of Dame Alice and her party. He says of certain persons that “they sacrificed to demons and adore them, making or causing to be made images, rings, and so forth, with which they draw the evil spirits by their magical art, obtain responses from them, and demand their help in performing their evil designs.” Heresy and sorcery were now identified, and the punishment for the former was the same as that for the latter, burning at the stake and confiscation of property. The attitude of this Pontiff evidently found a sympathizer in Bishop de Ledrede, who deemed in necessary to follow the example set by Head of the Church, with what results we have already shown: thus we find In Ireland a ripple of the wave that swept over Europe at this period. It is very probable, too, that there were many underlying local causes of which we can know little or nothing; the discontent and anger of the disinherited children at the loss of the wealth of which Dame Alice had bereft them by her exercise of “undue influence” over her husbands, family quarrels, private hatreds, and possibly national jealousy helped to bring about one of the strangest series of events in the chequered history of Ireland. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
Mrs. Sarah Winchester’s arrival was a sensational event. The Santa Clara Valley was thrilled by this dramatic entrance of a millionairess; they those freight cars sidetracked in Santa Clara, unloading rich imported furnishings; by building activity that mushroomed an eight-room farm house into a 26-room mansion, the first six months. Here was game for all! They talked about Mrs. Winchester! Gossiped would be a more fitting word, gossip no one claimed to like-but everyone enjoyed. Talk begat rumors and as the years passed and new towers and gables rose behind the six-foot hedge of Llanada Villa, the rumors grew to established legend. There had been a thunderstorm in the valley. Every door was shut, every dog in its kennel, every rut and gutter a flowing river after the deluge of rain that had fallen. Up at the Winchester mansion, which seemed to be supernaturally growing, the fawns on the estate were venturing their timid heads from behind the trunk of trees, and Mrs. Winchester has risen from her knees, and was putting back her prayer-book on the self. In the garden, April roses, unwieldy with their full-blown richness, and saturated with rain, hung their heads heavily to the Earth; others, already fallen, lay flat upon their blooming faces on the path, where Agnus, Mrs. Winchester’s maid, would fund them, when going on her morning quest of rose-leaves for her lady’s pot-pourri. Ranks of white lilies, just brought to perfection by today’s sun, lay dabbled in the mire of flooded mould. Tears ran down the amber cheeks of the plums on the south wall, and not a bee had ventured out of the hives, though the scent of the air was sweet enough to tempt the laziest drone. The sky was still lurid behind the boles of the upland oaks, but the birds had begun to dive in and out of ivy that wrapped up the mansion. This thunderstorm took place more than a century ago, and must remember that Mrs. Winchester was dressed in the fashion of that time as she walked out from behind the squire’s chair, now that the lightning was over, and, with many nervous glances towards the window, sat down before the tea-urn, and the muffins. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
We can picture her fine lace cap, with its peachy ribbons, the frill on the hem of her cambric gown just touching her ankles, her embroidered stockings, the rosettes on her shoes, but not so easily the lilac shade of her mild eyes, the satin skin, which still kept its delicate bloom, though wrinkled with advancing age, and the pale, sweet, puckered mouth, that time and sorrow had made angelic while trying vainly to deface its beauty. The room in which she sat was a pleasant old-fashioned drawing-room, with a spider-glass window, carpet, tawny wreath on the pale blue; blue flutings on the walls, and faint gilding on the furniture. A huge urn, crammed with roses, in the open bay-window, through which came delicious airs from the garden, the twittering of birds settling to sleep in the ivy close by, and occasionally the pattering of a flight of rain drops, swept to the ground as a bough bent in the breeze. The urn on the table was ancient silver, and the china rare. There was nothing in the room for luxurious ease of the body, but everything of delicate refinement for the eye. At this moment a rolling sound struck upon the ears. The lady rose from her seat trembling, and folded her hands together, while the tea-urn flooded the tray. Presently pretty Agnus of the rose-leaves appeared at the door in flutter of blue ribbons. “Please, madam, a lady has arrived, and says she is expected. She asked for her apartment, and I put her into the room that was got ready of Miss Marriot. And she sends her respects to you, madam, and she will be down with you presently.” Hardly had she spoken when the door again opened, and the stranger appeared—a small creature, whether a girl or a woman it would be hard to say—dressed in a scanty black silk dress, her narrow shoulders covered with a white muslin pelerine. Her hair was swept up to the crown of her heard, all but a little fringe hanging over her low forehead with an inch of brows. Her face was brown and thin, eyes black and long, with blacker settings, mouth large, sweet, and melancholy. She was all head, mouth, and eyes; her nose and chin were nothing. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
This visitor crossed the floor hastily, dropped a courtesy in the middle of the room, and approached the table, saying abruptly, with a soft Italian accent: “Madam, I am here. I am come to play your organ.” “The organ!” gasped Mrs. Winchester. “Yes, the organ,” said the little stranger lady, playing on the back of a chair with her finger, as if she felt notes under them. “It was but last week that the handsome signor, your son, came to my little house, where I have lived teaching music since my English father and my Italian mother and brothers and sisters died and left me so lonely.” Here the fingers left off drumming, and two great tears were brushed off, one from each eye with each hand, child’s fashion. However, the next moment the fingers were at work again, as if only whilst they were moving the tongue could speak. “Your son,” said the little woman, looking trustfully at Mrs. Winchester, while a bright blush shone through her brown skin, “he often came to see me before that, always in the evening, when the sun was warm and yellow all through my little studio, and the music was swelling my heart, and I could play out grand with all my soul; then he used to come and say, ‘Hurry, little Bianca, and play better, better still. I have work for you to do by-and-by.’ Sometimes he said, ‘Brava!’ and sometimes he said ‘Eccellentissima!’ but one night last week he came to me and said, ‘It is enough. Will you swear to do my bidding, whatever it may be?’ Here the black eyes fell. And I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Now you are my betrothed.’ And he said, ‘Pack up your music, little Bianca, and go off to San Jose to my American mother, who has an organ in her house which must be played upon. If she refuses to let you play, tell her I sent you, and she will give you leave. The spirits are always high and about. You must play all day, and you must get up in the night and play. You must never tire. You are my betrothed, and you have sworn to do my work.’ I said, ‘Shall I see you there, signor?’ And he said, ‘Yes, you shall see me there.’ I said, ‘I will keep my vow, signor.’ And so, madam, I am come.’” #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The soft foreign voice left off talking, the finger left off thrumming on the chair, and the little stranger gaze in dismay at her auditor, pale with agitation. “You are deceived. You make a mistake,” said Mrs. Winchester. “My son—” began Mrs. Winchester, but her mouth twitched, her voice broke, and she looked piteously. “Yes, yes, said the little foreigner. “If you have though him dead have good cheer, dear madam. He is alive; he is well, and strong, and handsome. But one, two, three, four, five’ (on the fingers) “days ago he stood by my side.” “It is some strange mistake, some wonderful coincidence!” said Mrs. Winchester. “Let me take you to the gallery,” murmured the mother of this son who was thus dead and alive. “There is yet light to see the pictures. She will not know his portrait.” The bewildered wife led her strange visitor away to the long gloomy room at the west side of the mansion, where the faint gleams from the darkening sky still lingered on the portraits of the Winchester family. “Doubtless he is like this,” said the madam, pointing to a fair-haired young man with a mild face, a cousin of Mr. Winchester, who had been lost at sea. But Bianca shook her head and went softly on tiptoe from one picture to another, peering into the canvas, and still turning away troubled. However, at last a shriek of delight stated the shadowy chamber. “Ah, here he is! See, here he is, the noble signor, the beautiful signor, not half so handsome as he looked five days ago, when talking to poor little Bianca! Dear sir and madam, you are now content. Now take me to the organ, that I may commence to do his bidding at once.” Mrs. Winchester said faintly, “How old are you, girl?” “Eighteen,” said the visitor impatiently, moving towards the door. “And my son has been dead for fifty-four years. That is his father. We tried to have another child after the tragic death of our daughter, but I miscarried,” said Mrs. Winchester. Up the grand staircase the little woman followed Mrs. Winchester. The mansion was fitted with much great luxury and richness. The appointments of the mysterious Grand Ballroom was built almost entirely without nails. It cost over $9,000 (2021 inflation adjusted $242,038.24) to complete at the time when an entire house could be built for less than $1000 (2021 inflation adjusted $26,893.14)! #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The silver chandelier from Germany illuminated the room quite well, the was a robust fire blazing in the fireplace, and the walls, floors, and ceiling were made of six hardwoods—mahogany, teak, maple, rosewood, oak, and white ash. The most curious elements of the Grand Ballroom are the two leaded stained-glass windows, each inscribed with a quote from Shakespeare. Ironically, the ballroom was never used to hold a ball. Mrs. Winchester had invited a celebrated orchestra from San Francisco to perform at her home, but scheduling conflicts prevented the visit. The spirit must have known Mrs. Winchester wanted to hear live music. The appointments of this room announced it the sanctum of a woman who depended for the interest of her life upon resources of intellect and tastes. However, with all the luxury in the Grand Ballroom, what stood out most to Bianca was nothing but a morsel of biscuit that was laying on a plate. “May I have it?” said she eagerly. “It is so long since I have eaten. I am hungry.” Mrs. Winchester sat Bianca down and told her how she lost the baby. “There was a party of men, who named themselves the “Devil’s Club,” and they were in the habit of practising all kinds of unholy pranks in the country. They had midnight carousings on the tombstones in the Grove Street Cemetery; they carried away helpless old men and children, who they tortured by making believe to bury them alive; mock feast. On one occasion there was a very sad funeral from the village. The corpse was carried into the church, and prayers were read over the coffin, the chief mourner, the aged father of the dead man, standing weeping by. In the midst of this solemn scene the organ suddenly pleaded forth a profane tune, and a number of voices shouted a drinking chorus. A groan of execration burst from the crowd, the clergyman turned pale and closed his book, and the old mad, the father of the dead, climbed the altar steps, and, raising his arms above his head, uttered a terrible curse. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
“He said that if Mr. Winchester did not give him the ‘Colt,’ that his family would meet with tragedy. The Colt is a legendary gun that was created in 1835, during the appearance of Halley’s Comet, and the chamber could hold 13 bullets. It was made by a blacksmith who tinker with the occult. In German tradition, the blacksmith ends his work on Saturday by striking his anvil, chaining the Devil for another week. So anyway, he cursed Mr. Winchester to all eternity, he cursed the organ he played, that it might be dumb henceforth, except under the fingers that had now profaned it, which, he prayed, might be forced to labour upon it till they stiffened in death. And the curse seemed to work, for the organ stood dumb in the church from that day, except when I purchased it and put it in my Grand Ballroom as a reminder of my miscarried son. William used to hammer away at the organ so many laborious hours. He only stopped when our daughter was born, but shortly after birth she passed away. William went back to locking himself up in the ballroom with the organ, but one day I hid myself among the curtains, and saw him withering on his seat, and heard him groaning as he strove to wrench his hands from the keys, to which they flew back like a needle to a magnet. It was soon plainly to be seen that he was an involuntary slave to the organ; but whether through madness that had grown within himself, or by some supernatural doom, having its cause in the old man’s curse, we did not dare to day. By-and-by there came a time when I was wakened out of my sleep at nights by the rolling of the organ. He wrought now night and day. Food and rest were denied him. His face got haggard, his bread grew long, his eyes started from their sockets. His body became wasted, and his cramped fingers like the claws of a bird. He groaned piteously as he stooped over his cruel toil. I was afraid to go near him. I tried to put wine and food between his lips, while the tortured fingers crawled over the keys; but he only gnashed his teeth; I retreated from him. At last, one dreadful hour, we found him a ghastly corpse on the ground before the organ. The doctor said he died from tuberculosis.” #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
“From that hour the organ was dumb to the touch of all human fingers. I had it shipped here when I moved to the Santa Clara Valley and built this beautiful room for it. Many, unwilling to believe the story, made preserving endeavours to draw sound from it, in vain. However, when the darkened empty room was locked up and left, we heard as loud as ever the well-known sounds humming and rolling through the walls. Night and day the tones of the organ boomed on as before. It seemed that the doom of the wretched man was not yet fulfilled, although my family rests in the cemetery. As time went on, the curse of this perpetual music was not removed from the house. Servants refused to stay about the place. Visitors shunned it. I left this house for several years, and returned; left it, and returned again, to find my ears still tortured and my heart rung by the unceasing persecution of terrible sounds. At last, but a few months ago, a holy man was found, who locked himself up in the cursed and mysterious Grand Ballroom for many days, praying and wrestling with the demon. After he came forth and went away the sounds ceased, and the organ was heard no more. Since then there has been peace in the house. And now, Bianca, your strange appearance and your strange story convinces me that you are a victim of a ruse of the Evil One. Be warned in time, and place yourself under the protection of God, that you may be saved from the fearful influenced that are at work upon you.” Little Bianca went fast asleep, her hands spread before her as if she played an organ in her dreams. “We will save you from your horrible fate!” Mrs. Winchester whispered, and had the butler carry the girl to bed. In the morning, Bianca was gone. Mrs. Winchester found the girl’s chambers empty. “She is just a wild thing,” thought Mrs. Winchester, “as would rush out at sunrise to hear the larks!” and she went forth to look for her in the meadows, behind the fruit orchard in the estate’s deer park, and found nothing. She returned, her quest had been unsuccessful. The little international girl had vanished. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
A second search after breakfast proved also fruitless, and towards the evening there was panic and distress. Mrs. Winchester sat in the palour. The servants, with pale faces, were huddled together in whispering groups. The haunted organ was booming and roaring again through the mansion. Mrs. Winchester hastened to the fatal Grand Ballroom, and there, sure enough, was Bianca, perched upon the high seat before the organ, beating the keys with her small hands, her slight figure swaying, and the evening sunshine playing about her weird head. Sweet unearthly music she wrung from the groaning heart of the organ—wild melodies, mounting to rapturous heights and falling to mournful depths. She wandered from Mendelssohn to Mozart, and from Mozart to Beethoven. Mrs. Winchester stood fascinated awhile by the ravaging beauty of the sounds she heard, but, rousing herself quickly, put her arms around the musician and forced her away from the mysterious Grand Ballroom. Bianca returned the next day, however, and was not so easily coaxed from her post again. Day after day she laboured at the organ, growing paler, and thinner, and more weird-looking as time went on. “I worked so hard,” she said to Mrs. Winchester. “The signor, your son, is he pleased? Asked him to come and tell me himself if he is pleased.” Mrs. Winchester got ill and took to her bed. The butler swore at the young international star and roamed abroad. Agnus was the only one who stood by to watch the fate of the little organist. The curse of the organ was upon Bianca; it spoke under her hand, and her hand was its slave. At last she announced rapturously that she had a visit from the brave signor, who had commanded her industry, and urged her to work yet harder. After that she ceased to hold any communication with the living. Time after time Agnus wrapped her arms about the frail thing, and carried her away by force, locking the door of the fatal chamber. However, locking the chamber and burying the key were of no avail. The door stood opened again, and Bianca was labouring on her perch. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
One night, wakened from her sleep by the well-known humming and moaning of the organ, Mrs. Winchester dressed and hastened to the unholy room. Moonlight was pouring down the staircase and cascading on the stained-glass windows. It shone on the marble bust of the late Mr. Winchester, that stood in the niche above Mrs. Winchester’s sitting-room door. The Grand ballroom was full of it when Mrs. Winchester pushed open the door and entered—full of pale blue moonlight from the window, mingled with another light, a dull lurid glare which seemed to center round like a dark shadow, like the figure of a man standing by the organ, and throwing out in fantastic relief the slight form of Bianca writhing, rather than swaying, back and forward, as if in agony. The sounds that came from the organ were broken and meaningless, as if the hands of the player lagged and stumbled on the keys. Between the intermittent chords low moaning cries broke from Bianca, and the dark figure bent towars her with menacing gestures. Trembling with the sickness of supernatural fear, yet strong of will, Mrs. Winchester walked forward with the lurid light, and was drawn into its influence. It grew and intensified upon her, it dazzled and blinded her at first; but presently, by a daring effort of will, she raised her eyes, and beheld Bianca’s face convulsed with torture in the burning glare, and bending over her the figure and the features of William Winchester! Smitten with horror, Mrs. Winchester did not even lose her presence of mind. She wound her strong arms around the wretched girl and dragged her from her seat and out of the influence of the lurid light, which immediately paled away and vanished. She carried her to her own bed, where Lisa lay, a wasted wreck, raving about the cruelty of the pitiless signor who would not see that she was labouring her best. Her poor cramped hands kept beating the coverlet, as though she were still at her agonizing task. Mrs. Winchester prayed a way might be shown by which to put an end to this curse. She prayed for Bianca, and then, thinking that the girl rested somewhat, stole from the room. She thought that she had locked the door behind her. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
She went to the blue séance room with a pale, resolved face, and, without consulting anyone, sent to the village for a bricklayer. Afterwards she sat by the foreman, and explained to him what was to be done. Presently, Mrs. Winchester went to the door of Bianca’s room, and hearing no sound, thought the girl slept, and stole away. By-and-by she went downstairs, and found that the bricks had arrived and the foreman already begun his task of building up the Grand Ballroom door. He was a swift workman, and the mysterious ballroom was soon sealed safely with stone and mortar. A few hours went by and no one had seen Bianca. The house was searched, upstairs and downstairs, in the garden, in the grounds, in the fields and meadows. No Bianca. Mrs. Winchester made inquiries everywhere; she pondered and puzzled over the matter. In the weak, suffering state the girl was in, how far could she have crawled. Meanwhile, the mansion was still growing by leaps and bounds from 8 room, to 26 room, a nine-story tower, 156 more rooms, as if it was under construction by legions of ghosts. A few years went by, and still no one had seen Bianca. When one night, Angus decided to quit. “I love you dearly, and it breaks my heart to go away, but the organ…I am frightened out of my life, I cannot stay, Mrs. Winchester.” “Who has heard the organ, and when?” asked Mrs. Winchester, rising to her feet. “Please ma’am, I heard it years ago, the night you went away—the night after the door was built up. I heard it again this morning.” “No,” said Mrs. Winchester; “it is only the wind.” However, as pale as death she flew down the stairs and laid her ear to the yet mortar. All was silent. There was no sound but the monotonous sough of the wind in the trees outside. The Winchester mansion was shut up and deserted for many years. At night, passers-by heard ghostly music wafting from the dark mansion. The bell in the belfry high in the gables tolled regularly at midnight to summon incoming flights of spirits. Later it rolled again to warn these visitors to return to their sepulchers. However, once a week these departed one relaxed and faced in the Great Ballroom. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Winchester Mystery House
Any plans for the weekend? Come hang out at the Winchester Mystery House 😉 winchestermysteryhouse.com
A 160-room mansion built to appease the spirits who died at the hands of the Winchester Rifle .
The Winchester Mystery House would like to wish you a safe and Happy Halloween 🎃
Tickets are still available for our festive Jack O’ Lantern Trail. Treat stations are set along the path creating a safe and fun trick or treat experience for the whole family! Any plans for the weekend? Come hang out at the Winchester Mystery House 😉 winchestermysteryhouse.com
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
The Dead and the Living Can Never be One—God Has Forbidden it!
Life is richest when you realize that we are all snowflakes. Each of us is absolutely beautiful and unique. And we are here for a very short time. Mrs. Winchester was a pretty little brunette, rather pale, with dark hair, brilliant brown eyes, a resolute mouth and a bright, intelligent expression. She was orderly, trim and feverishly energetic, and seemed to live every moment of her life. The Winchester mansion was like a paradise on Earth; and in this light I still regarded it, until a great change came over the temperature, and the month of April introduced me to red-hot winds, sleepless nights, and the intolerable “brain fever” bird. The next morning, rested and invigorated, we set out on a tour of inspection; and it is almost worthwhile to undergo a certain amount of baking on the sweltering heat of the plains, in order to enjoy those deep first draughts of cool hill air, instead of a stifling, dust-laden atmosphere, and to appreciate the green valleys and blue hills by force of contrast to the far-stretching, eye-smarting, white glaring roads that intersect the burnt-up plains—roads and plains that even the pariah abandon, salamander though he be! No doubt the work of some extremely roughish-looking and grotesque imps and demons, who were inflicting various torments. However, to our delight and surprise, Mrs. Winchester had by no means overdraw the advantages of her new estate. The Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion was solidly built of wood, brick, and stone, nine storied, and ample in size. It stood on kind of a shelf cut out of the hill side, and was surrounded by a pretty flower garden, full of roses, fuchsias, carnations. There was also a fruit orchard, many exotic trees and plants, and an avenue of palm trees. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
There was a delightful, flagged verandah. The stairs were very steep. At the head of them, the passage and rooms were repeated. There were very small nooks, a switchback staircase, which has seven flights with forty-four steps, rising only about nine feet, since each step was just two inches. Miles of twisting hallways, secret passageways in the walls, a labyrinth of rooms, and dressing-rooms, 13 bathrooms, and plenty of good water. From the fourth-floor balcony, there was a glorious view, across a valley, far away, to the snowy range. As we looked around the drawing-room, here were carpets, curtains, solid, very solid chairs, and Berlin wool worked screens, a card-table, and any quantity of pictures. All the rooms were well, almost handsomely, furnished, in an old-fashioned style. There was no scarcity of wardrobes, looking-glasses, or even armchairs, in the bedrooms, and they pantry was fitted out—a most singular circumstance—with a large supply of handsome glass and china, lamps, old moderators, coffee and tea pots, plated side dishes, and candlesticks, cooking utensils and spoons and forks, wine coasters, and a cake-backet. The chins was Spoke, the plate old family heirlooms, with a crest—a winged horse—on everything, down to the very mustard spoons. There were gold- and silverplated chandeliers, imported Tiffany art glass windows, German silver and bronze inlaid doors, Swiss molded bathtubs, rare precious woods like mahogany and rosewood. Handsome Dresden china vases, nice boxes of firewood in every room, clocks, real hair mattresses—in short, it was a treasure trove. It was well built with some peculiar effects such as stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that go nowhere and that opened onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
It is estimated that there were some 500 to 600 rooms in the house. However, it is haunted! According to a Boston medium, Mrs. Winchester and her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits. Supposedly the untimely deaths of her daughter and husband were caused by these spirits, and it was implied that Mrs. Winchester would be the next victim. We soon forget about the dismal prophecy, being too gay and too busy to give her, or it a thought. We had so many engagements—tennis parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah, using the best Spode cups and saucers and the old silver cake-basket, and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in being guests in such a charming house and garden. Mrs. Winchester also had an African grey parrot—a rare bird indeed—and a cute little dog named Zip. Later that night, we had dinner in a handsome and somewhat antique-looking room. A cheerful wood-fire blazed in the capacious hearth; a little at one side an old-fashioned table, with richly-carved legs, was placed—destined, no doubt, to receive the supper, for which preparations were going forward; and ranged with exam regularity stood the tall-backed chairs whose ungracefulness was more than counterbalanced by their comfort. A stranger stopped at the door of the room, and displayed his form and face completely. He wore a dark coloured cloth cloak, which was short and full, not falling quite to the knees; his legs were cased in dark purple silk stockings, and his shoes were adorned with roses of the same colour. The opening of the cloak in front showed the undersuit to consist of some very dark, perhaps sable material, and his hands were enclosed in a pair of heavy leather gloves which ran up considerably above the wrist, in the manner of a gauntlet. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
In one hand he carried his walking-stick and his hat, which he had removed, and the other hung heavily by his side. A quantity of grizzled hair descended in long tresses from his head, and its fold rested upon plaits of a stiff ruff, which effectually concealed his neck. So far all was well; but the face!—all the flesh of the face was coloured with the bluish leaden hue which is sometimes produced by the operation of metallic medicines administered in excessive quantities; the eyes were enormous, and the white appeared both above and below the iris, which gave to them the impression of insanity, which was heightened by their glassy redness; the nose was well enough, but the mouth was writhed considerably to one side, where it opened in order to give egress to two long, discoloured fangs, which projected from the upper jaw, far blow the lower lip; the hue of the lips themselves bore the usual relation to that of the face, and was consequently nearly black. The character of the face was malignant, even satanic, to the last degree; and, indeed, such a combination of horror could hardly be accounted for, except by supposing the corpse of some atrocious malefactor, which had long hung blackening upon the gibbet, to have at length become the habitation of a demon—the frightful sport of satanic possession. It was remarkable that the worshipful stranger suffered as little as possible of his flesh to appear, and that during his visit he did not once remove his gloves. There was something indescribably odd, even horrible about all his motions, something undefinable, something unnatural, unhuman—it was as if the limbs were guided and directed by a spirit unused to the management of bodily machinery. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
The stranger said hardly anything during his visit, which did not exceed half an hour; and the host himself could scarcely muster courage enough to utter the few necessary salutations and courtesies; and, indeed, such was the nervous terror which the presence of Theophilus Dunn inspired, that very little would have made all his entertainers fly bellowing from the room. During his stay he did not once suffer his eyelids to close, nor even to move in the slightest degree; and further, there was a death-like stillness in his whole person, owing to the total absence of the heaving motion of the chest caused by the process of respiration. These two peculiarities, though when told they may appear trifling, produced a very striking and unpleasant effect when seen and observed. He saw a shadowy and ill-defined form gliding into the apartment. Sharp guests of wind and warning rumblings of thunder that seemed to shake the mountains, blew away the table cloth. As it was whirling into space, Dunn drew his sword, and raising the candle as o throw its light with increased distinctness upon the objects in the room, he entered the chamber into which the figure had glided. No figure was there—nothing but the furniture which had belonged to the room, and yet he could not be deceived as to the fact that something had moved before them into the chamber. A sickening dread came upon him, and the cold perspiration broke out in heavy drops upon his forehead; nor was he more composed when he heard the increased urgency, they agony of entreaty, which Mrs. Winchester implored him not to leave for a moment. “I saw him,” she said. “He is there! I cannot be deceived—I know him. He is by me—he is with me—he is in the room. Then, for God’s sake, as you would save me, do no stir from beside me!” #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Mrs. Winchester had it prevailed upon her to lie down upon the bed, where she continued to urger everyone to stay by her. She frequently uttered incoherent sentences, repeating again and again, “The dead and the living cannot be one—God has forbidden it!” and then again, “Rest to the wakeful—sleep to the sleep-walkers.” There was a Greek curse inscribed on a lead tablet in the drawing room from the city of Selinus in Sicily. Mrs. Winchester used it to communicate with gods and spirits. A spirit had been summoned and bound to the tablet to make sure the curse was effective. Souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want due burial or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carcasses in a troubled and moist spirit, being, as it were, allured by something that hath an affinity with them. Many spirits had been invoked that night, this one had been brought out and seated on a sixteen-sided stand (an improvement on the double pentacle called Solomon’s seat). Mrs. Winchester lay in the inner chamber, the door of which was open; and by the side of the bed, at her urgent desire, stood her niece Marion “Daisey” Marriam Marriott; a candle burned in the bedchamber, and three were lighted in the outer apartment. Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton arrived, and cleared his voice, as if about to commence a prayer; but before he had time to begin, a sudden gust of air blew out the candle which served to illuminate the room in which Mrs. Winchester lay, and she with hurried alarm, explained: “Sir Lancelot, bring in another candle; the darkness is unsafe.” Sir Lancelot stepped from the bedchamber into the other, in order to supply what she desired. “O God! do not go, Sir Lancelot!” shrieked the unhappy Mrs. Winchester; and at the same time she sprang from the bed and darted after him, in order, by her grasp, to detain him. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
However, the warning came too late, for scarcely had he passed the threshold, and hardly had Mrs. Winchester has time to utter the startling explanation, when the door which divided the two rooms closed violently after him, as if swung to by a strong blast of wind. Sir Lancelot and Dunn both rushed to the door, but their united and desperate efforts could not avail so much as to sake it. Shriek after shriek burst from the inner chamber, with all the piercing loudness of despairing terror. Sir Lancelot and Dunn applied every energy and strained every nerve to force open the door; but all in vain. There was no sound of struggling from within, but the screams seemed to increase in loudness, and at the same time they heard the bolts of the latticed window withdrawn, and the window itself grated upon the sill as if thrown open. One last shriek, so long and piercing and agonized as to be scarcely human, swelled from the room, and suddenly there followed a death-like silence. A light step was heard crossing the floor, as if from the bed to the window; and almost at the same instant the door gave way, and yielding to the pressure of the external applicants, they were nearly precipitated into the room. It was empty. The window was open, and Sir Lancelot sprang to the chair and gazed out upon the fruit orchard and the lake below. He saw no form, but he beheld, or thought he beheld, the waters of the broad lake beneath settling ring after ring in heavy circular ripples, as if a moment before disturbed by the immersion of some large and heavy mass. No trace of Mrs. Winchester was ever after discovered, nor was anything certain respecting her mysterious wooer detected or even suspected; no clue whereby to trace the intricacies of the labyrinth, and to arrive at a distinct conclusion was to be found. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
However, an incident occurred, which, though it will not be received by our rational readers as at all approaching to evidence upon the matter, nevertheless produced a strong and a lasting impression upon the mind of Sir Lancelot. Many years after the events at the Winchester Mansion, which we have detailed, Sir Lancelot, then remotely situated, received an intimation of his father’s death, and of his intended burial upon a fixed day in an independent chapel in Bath late in the day upon which the funeral was appointed to take place. The procession had not then arrived. Evening closed in, and still it did not appear. Sir Lancelot strolled down to the church—he found it open; notice of the arrival of the funeral had been given, and the vault in which the body was to be laid had been opened. The official who corresponds to our sexton, on seeing a well-dressed gentleman, whose object was to attend the expected funeral, pacing the aisle of the chapel, hospitably invited him to share with him the comforts of a blazing wood fire, which as was his custom in winter time upon such occasions, he had kindled on the hearth of a chamber which communicated by a flight of steps with the vault below. In this chamber Sir Lancelot and his entertainer seated themselves; and the sexton, after some fruitless attempts to engage his guest in conversation, was obliged to apply himself to his tobacco-pipe and can to solace his solitude. In spite of his grief and cares, the fatigues of a rapid journey of nearly forty hours gradually overcame the mind and body of Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, and he sank into a deep sleep, from which he was awakened by someone shaking him gently by the shoulder. He first thought that the old sexton had called him, but he was no longer in the room. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
There was a kind of ghostly twilight. The ghostly lights passed and disappeared in the gathering darkness. He roused himself, and as soon as he could clearly see what was around him, he perceived a female form, clothed in a kind of black robe of muslin, part of which was so disposed as to act as a veil, and in her hand she carried a lamp. She was moving rather away from him, and towards the flight of steps which conducted towards the vaults. Sir Lancelot felt a vague alarm at the sight of this figure, and at the same time an irresistible impulse to follow his guidance. He followed it towards the vaults, but when it reached the head of the stairs, he paused; the figure paused also, and turning gently round, displayed, by the light of the lamp it carried, the face and features of the beloved, Sarah Winchesters. There was nothing horrible, or even sad, in the countenance. On the contrary, it wore the same arch smile which used to enchant him long before in his happy days. A feeling of awe and interest, too intense to be resisted, prompted him to follow the specter, if specter it were. She descended the stairs—he followed; and, turning to the left through a narrow passage she led him, to his infinite surprise, through the door to nowhere, into what appeared to be an old-fashioned Victorian apartment. Abundance of costly antique furniture was disposed about the room, and in one corner stood a four-post bed, with heavy black cloth curtains, and by the light of the lamp which she held towards its contents, she disclosed to the horror stricken clergyman, sitting bolt upright in the bed, the livid and demoniac form of Theophilus Dunn. Sir Lancelottt had hardly seen him when he fell senseless upon the floor, where he lay until discovered, on the next morning, by persons employed in closing the passages into the vaults. He was laying in a cell of considerable size, which had not been disturbed for a long time, and had fallen beside a large coffin which was supported upon small stone pillars, a security against the attacks of vermin. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
To his dying day Sir Lancelot was satisfied of the reality of the vision which he had witnessed, and he has left behind him curious evidence of the impression which it wrought upon his fancy, in a painting executed shortly after the event we have narrated, and which is valuable as exhibiting not only the peculiarities which have made the Winchester Mansion sought after, but even more so as presenting occurrences in Mrs. Winchester’s interviews and journals that defy explanation. However, Mrs. Winchester’s mysterious fate must ever remain a matter of speculation. Yes; sometimes at night the most terrible weeping and sobbing can be heard coming from the “Daisy bedroom,” and a phantom horse can be heard plunging in the carriage house, and the wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. The scene of horrible dinner parities has even been seen in the dining room. A party of ghouls meets there a few times of year, after midnight, and are assembled with the spoils of the graves they have violated, and are feasting on the flesh of long-buried corpses. One of the servants even saw his own wife, who, by the way, never touched supper at home, playing no inconsiderable part in the hideous banquet. Hundreds of wild stories have appeared about this mysterious mansion. It seems odd that none of her relatives or former employees ever came forward to contradict these stories, despite the fact that many of them lived for forty years after the estate was opened for tours. For some reason, did they feel threatened by talking—or did they continue to guard Mrs. Winchesters privacy? At the Winchester Mystery House, we may never be able to separate fact from legend—so here are some stories that have been told since the late 1800s and early 1900s. We leave it to guests and readers to decide for themselves why Mrs. Winchester really built the house the way she did, or what is it really? A portal or just a museum? #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship—marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guides must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost for hours. Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion—such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built the descends seven steps and then rises eleven? By the way, Harry Houdini, an occultist, was attracted to the Winchester and tried to escape from the mansiin blindfolded; he also died Halloween 1926.
Winchester Mystery House
What it feels like walking through a microscopic spiderweb….🕷🕸
All Hallows’ Eve, Lost in the House tour tickets are still available for tonight. Hurry and purchase before they sell out!
🎟link: http://ow.ly/k5wM50GqWTb
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
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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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Randolph Harris II International 