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Some Move to Suburbia Out of Fear of those Unlike them
Sarah L. Winchester stirred, rolling onto her side and clutching her pillow. She had been caught in a strange netherworld between sleep and wakefulness, her uneasy rest punctured by nightmares of loss connections with her daughter and husband, but a noise downstairs had brought her back to reality. Every criminal offense is comprised of a set of behavioural (actus reus) and mental (mens reus) prerequisites. These statutory provisions are clearly sated in the criminal code and establish what an individual must do and think to be in violation of the law. Criminal events transpire when offenders, victims, and audience members intersect in a given setting. These participants engage in a dynamic set of actions and counteractions to produce the criminal outcome. The term “criminal transaction” is used to describe this exchange process. A full discussion of the criminal transaction must consider broad-based issues such as the demographics of the actors, the environment in which the crimes occur, and the way that these events tend to play themselves out. In the case of the offender-victim relationship, it is noted the violent crimes tend to take on a one-on-one offender-victim dynamic. Conversely, property offenders, public order offenders, and many organizational criminals are prone to work in small groups. What is more, robbery, burglary and common property offense are described as stranger crimes while other crimes tend to involve a victim and perpetrator(s) who know one another. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20
Faith motivated individuals, faith-based organizations, and the transformative power of faith itself are proven keys in reducing crime and improving the effectiveness of our criminal justice system. We now know that intentional partnerships between congregations and law enforcement can lead to dramatic improvement in police-community relations and reductions in crime, youth violence, and gang activity. We also known that faith-based programs can provide an antidote to the harmful culture that permeates so many of our correctional facilities. In this way, religion can help change prisons from an environment for learning even more deviant behaviour to places where rehabilitation is a realistic possibility. Additionally, faith-motivated mentors and faith-based groups can provide both the support and supervision necessary to help not only prisoners but also those former prisoners stay crime-free by learning moral and productive lives. The American suburbs are part of what is called a “global project.” Across the planet, after World War II, America’s image as a democracy and as World economic leaders also became a cultural model for consumerism and community-building. American images and ideas central to the lifestyle of its new suburbs—supermarkets, automobiles, super-highways, and motels—were exported to other nations. The American post-war dream was concretized in the form of the single-family suburban home, the cul-de-ac community, the local shopping center, and the family car, as opposed to the crowded, high crime, industrial cities. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20
To middle class families the suburbs give a safe, sanitary environment, new houses in styles somewhat in keeping with the conception of family life, and permanent neighbourhoods of people with similar outlook. In an atmosphere of rapid change, the income-graded neighbourhoods render two important service to their residents. Relative evenness of wealth meant neighbours who would reinforce an individual family’s efforts to pass on its values to its children. The surrounding evenness of wealth also gave adults a sense of a community of shared experience, and thereby gave some measure of relief from the uncertainties inherent in a World of highly competitive capitalism. Even those excluded from them, the suburbs offered a physical demonstration that the rewards of competitive capitalism might be within the reach of all. The suburban life is also a spiritual quest. These suburbs are the latest version of the promise of the American frontier—blank slates on which new residents can write their stories. The pioneers who move to these suburbs have made a startling leap into the unknow. The places have no past, no precedent, no settled conventions. The residents have no family connections here. However, people move here with the hope that there soon will be communities and relationships developed among people in the same yacht as themselves. Fellow pilgrims on the journey, as it were. Many people are struck by the significance of suburban living as a spiritual quest or pilgrimage. They are all looking for something. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20
People live in the suburbia for any number of reasons. They may have come here because of a job change or for a relationship. They come in search of affordable housing, good school, or safe communities. Or they may have grown up in suburbia by default; indeed, over half of the American population now lives in suburbia, and many of them have been suburbanites for two or three generations. Whatever the case, those who live in suburbia have aspirations for a certain kind of life. For some it is an optimistic vision, while others may be more cynical about ever seeing such a life to come. However, it is still a spiritual longing in either case. Even those who come to suburbia for less than noble reasons do so out of a particular vision of their ideal life. Some move to suburbia out of fear of those unlike them, fleeing from racial diversity and searching for a place “safer” and more comfortable to their preexisting prejudices. Others care little for their neighbours and fashion suburban lives of self-centered materialism, acquisition of possessions and status climbing. These too point to spiritual needs, however misguided or impure the motivations might be. Whenever people describe suburbia, invariably they use phrases like “a good place to raise kids,” or “where people settle down and start a family.” Inherent in these comments is an aspiration of hope for their future and a dream of a good life for their children. Suburbia is the context and the setting for the fulfillment of people’s hopes and dreams. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20
The suburbs had always promised prosperity, upward mobility, a healthy life in an unpolluted environment, safety and tranquility, and above all, the best place to bring up kids. Although this promise still fuels many dreams and infuses a nostalgic political rhetoric, the future is hopeful. It is a place many people can hear the voice of God. The suburban Christian ought not uncritically absorb all the characteristics of the suburban World but rather should thoughtfully asses and discern how Christians ought to live in this environment, without either capitulating to the culture or abandoning it by fleeing the suburbs and relocating to the country. Given suburbia’s new centrality, Christians, especially suburban Christians, must take the suburbs seriously. In order to detect the “voice of God,” we need to understand that the Holy Spirit alone is charged to communicate the will of God to the believer, and that He works from within the spirit of the disciple, enlightening the understanding so as to bring one into intelligent co-working with the mind of God. No matter where you live, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, briefly, the entire renewal of the redeemed one, in spirit, soul and body. God therefore directs all His working to the liberation of every faculty, and never in any way seeks to direct a human as a passive machine, even into good. God work in one to enable one to choose the good, and strengthens one to act, but never—even for “good”—dulls one or renders one incapable of free action. One would nullify the very purpose of Christ’s redemption on Calvary, and the purpose of His own coming. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20
When the self-actualized understands these principles, the “voice of psychopathological offenders” is recognizable: when it comes from outside the human, or within the sphere of one’s perception, and not from the central depth of one’s spirit where the Holy Spirit abides; when it is imperative and persistent, urging sudden action without time to reason or intelligently weigh the issues; when it is confusing and clamorous, so that humans are hindered from thinking. For the Holy Spirit desires the believer to be intelligent, as a responsible being with a choice, and will not confuse one so as to make one incapable of coming to a decision. The speaking of psychopathological offenders can also be a counterfeit of the apparent inner speaking of the human oneself, as if one were oneself “thinking,” and yet with no concentrated action of the mind; exempli gratia, a persistent and ceaseless “commentary” going on somewhere within, apart from volition or mind action, commenting on the human’s own actions or the actions of others, such as “You are wrong,” “You are never right,” “God has cast you off,” “You must not do that,” et cetera, et cetera. Humans do not grasp God through symbols, but in the experience of faith one is grasped by an ultimate concern expressed in symbols. Every symbol descriptive of ultimate reality originates in an experience of ultimate concern and continues to live only insofar as it can introduce someone into the revelatory constellation by arousing a similar experience. Religious symbols participate in the power of being not merely ontologically, but experientially. They concretely convey the experience of ultimacy, of seizure by an ultimate concern. And lest this affirmation of the symbol open the door to the demonic, we insist upon the negation of the symbol by the ultimate to which it points. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20
Analogia is more negative-protesting than positive-affirming. Religious symbols participate in that which they symbolize, being-itself; they participate by sharing in the ground of being, as do all finite beings; and they participate by expressing the experience of ultimacy. This last element is decisive. One expresses the experience of the ground being through the religious symbols which are formed in the crucible of the experience itself. God is being-itself is the only nonsymbolic statement about God. The religious experience of God is had through finite beings which participate in being-itself. The principle of analogy justifies this. The expression of this experience is through religious symbols which participate in the experience itself. Theology elaborates the meaning of religious symbols by using ontology. Analogy permits and even demands this procedure. We use the principle of analogy for two purposes: to permit a religious encounter with God through finite beings and to justify the theological use of ontology. Theology speaks ontologically about religious symbols which express the encounter with God, our ultimate concern. The word “creation” is one of the great symbol-words describing the relation of God to the Universe. The doctrine of creation depicts a state; it does not relate an event that happened “once upon a time.” Humans ask the question of their finitude and of finitude in general, and creation answers it by pointing to the situation of creatureliness and to its correlate, the divine life; it is beyond potentiality and actuality. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20
Hence the question whether creation is a necessary or contingent act of God is meaningless. For nothing higher than God necessitates His creativity; neither does it happen to one as an accidental act. The divine life and the divine creativity are one. All three modes of time must be used to symbolize the infinite scope of the divine dynamism. Therefore creativity originates (the past) sustaining creativity (the present), and directing creativity (the future). The classical phrase to express the Christian doctrine of creation is creatio ex nihilo. We see in it the exclusion of the pagan idea of me on, of the “given” which resists the divine creativity. Though ouk on, absolute nothingness, suffices to explain nihilo, the ex demands something more positive to describe the origin of the creature. The solution lies in the dialectic of being and non-being. Ex nihilo indicates the “heritage of nonbeing” which is the lot of every creature. Yet the creature is; it participates in the power of being which holds nonbeing in check. Being a creature include both the heritage of nonbeing (anxiety) and the heritage of being (courage). Creation is essentially good, for it is not the offspring of me on, of some semi-divine power that opposes being-itself. The way to incarnation lies open, for finitude essentially is not in conflict with God. Secondly, the element of nonbeing in creatureliness provides the potentiality for tragic disruption within finitude itself. Eschatology is forbidden to do violence to the finite by eliminating the possibility of conflict, by locating salvation in an unreal World above or finite, tragic World. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20
The simple theoretical analysis of the evolution of family agencies into three phases appears to be corroborated by the growth in all six types of agencies of what may indeed be called quasi-families—that is, small groups of persons similarly affected by some distinctive problem, condition or interest, who come together voluntarily to solve, correct, or pursue it by concerted actions, meanwhile providing each other with a degree of understanding, encouragement, and support which they have not found elsewhere in the community. Most of these have only arisen within the past five or six decades. While they are predominately found in urban areas, since only in such centers are there enough persons of any one type of category, exempla gratia, the Townsend Clubs, which considerably outlived the depression. While some of these quasi-families have been the products of invention and experiment by therapists, so many have sprung up apparently quite spontaneously (exempla gratia, child study groups attached to cooperative nursery schools) as to suggest that they are a particularly fitting response to current situations confronted by members of the community. Their fraternal rather than patriarchal structure does not negate the value of construing them as quasi-families; indeed, to recognize their correspondence with the more fraternal character of contemporary families improves the analogy. The desire of many public and private agencies to foster participation “at the grass roots” is most successful when the grass roots consist of strong, intimate, small groups, not collections of strangers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20
Under urban conditions, such groups do not as a rule get constituted on a neighbourhood basis, but out of common interests; they may primarily focus on these interests, yet they frequently have corrective and therapeutic effects on their members. While the characteristic quasi-family has a fairly homogenous membership, draw from some limited segment of a community, this does not mean that one had to regard them as simply the result of an ever more refined division of labour or fragmentation of interests. An urban quasi-family often recruits only one member of a family, which makes it quite different from those farm organizations whose local units aim to provide some engrossing activity for every member of a family. Yet every quasi-family so rapidly takes on an elaborates other functions, that few persons would ever need or want to belong to more than two or three quasi-families at most. Every member can remain as convinced of one’s own individuality within a quasi-family as within one’s actual family. In fact, scrutiny reveals a number of respects in which membership in quasi-families offers certain advantages which real families cannot. Involvement in these groups, however highly committed and intense it may be, is more like becoming a member of a club or a team in a game. Family commitments, by contrast, have still an inescapable character posing the gravest consequences for the unwilling participant. It is unlikely that individual counseling can or should be dispenses with. Yet, the theoretical shift to recognition of the family origin and interpersonal nature of personality difficulties, justifies the support counseling activity gives to voluntary group procedures. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20
Sociologists long ago recognized the threat to individual psychological existence in the breakdown of ancient primary group supports. Though the rural village, like Humpty Dumpty, cannot be put back together again, the incessant reorganizing of the various institutions of the urban community can well take account of the means whereby citizens continually reintegrate their selves. If it is granted that small, intimate groups of significant others play a vital part in supporting every self, it is probable that groups formed solely for the sake of such mutual support will be less durable and successful than those which accomplish this in the process of pursuing other ends. It is improbable, therefore, that individual counseling agencies could produce a full solution ever under ideal conditions, since the problem involves the whole structure of the community as this bears upon personality. What the best solutions will be is known to on one, and will only be approached through imaginative experiments of many kinds. However, no matter what, people believe that the United States of America will continue to be a great manufacturing power. There just will not be as high a percentage of people working in factories. Explaining the difference between traditional manufacturing methods and the way Macintosh computers were then being produced, she pointed out that the United States of America was surely one of the great good producers of the World with fewer than two percent of the work force engaged in agriculture. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20
However, many people would like America to returned to its agricultural roots, while we still have farmland, and to increase the amount of meat, poultry, and produce that is created in America so we will stop importing it, feed our own people, and export our products to other nations. This will help reduce the national deficit and be a step in the right way to help America return to being a creditor nation. Also, the American population will expand, and the labour force is also likely to expand, so more people will be willing to work on farms. While the United States of America is likely to generate 10,000 new jobs a day for the next decade, it is important to regain a presence in the manufacturing business. We do not want to leave the economy hollowed out. Nonetheless, the shift away from Second Wave manual labour toward Third Wave service work and super-symbolic activity has become widespread, dramatic and irreversible. In the United States of America today, these activities account for fully three-quarters of the work force. The great transition is reflected globally in the surprising fact that World exports of services and “intellectual property” are now equal to those of electronics and automobiles combined, or of the combined exports in foods and fuels. Futurists foreshadowed this massive shift as early as the 1960s. However, because the early warnings were ignored, the transition has been unnecessarily rocky. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20
Mass layoffs, bankruptcies and other upheavals swept through the economy as old rust-belt industries, late to install computers, robots and electronic information systems and slow to restructure, found themselves gutted by more fleet-footed competition. Many blamed their troubles on foreign competition, high or low interest rates, overregulation and a thousand other factors. Some of these no doubt played a role. However, equally to blame was the arrogance of the most powerful smokestack companies—auto makers, steel mills, shipyards, textile firms—that had for so long dominated the economy. Their managerial myopia punished those in the society least responsible for industrial backwardness and least able to protect themselves—their worker. The fact that aggregate manufacturing employment in 1988 was at the same level as 1968 does not mean that the workers laid off in between simply returned to their old jobs. On the contrary, with mote Third Wave technologies in place, companies needed a radically different kind of work force as well. The Old Second Wave factories needed essentially interchangeable workers. By contrast, Third Wave operations require diverse and continually evolving skills—which means that workers become less and less interchangeable. And this turns the entire problem of unemployment upside down. In Second Wave or smokestack societies an injection of capital spending or consumer purchasing power could stimulate the economy and jobs. Given one million jobless, one could, in principle, prime the economy and create one million jobs. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20
Once consumers have the money, they will rush out and buy things. This in turn leads to manufacturers to expand their plants and hire more workers. Good-bye, unemployment. Monetarists urge manipulation of interest rates or money supply instead, to increase or decrease purchasing power as needed. In today’s global economy, pumping money into the consumer’s pocket may simply send it flowing overseas without doing anything to help the domestic economy. An American buying a new TV set or compact disc player merely sends dollars to Japan, Korea, Malaysia, or elsewhere. The purchase does not add jobs at home. However, there is a far more basic flaw in the old strategies: they still focus on the circulation of money rather than knowledge. Yet it is no longer possible to reduce joblessness simply by increasing the number of jobs because the problem is no longer merely numbers. Unemployment has gone from quantitative to qualitative. The jobless desperately need money if they and their families are to survive, and it is both necessary and morally right to provide them with decent levels of public assistance. However, any effective strategy for reducing joblessness in a super-symbolic economy must depend less on the allocation of wealth and more on the allocation of knowledge. Furthermore, as these new jobs are not likely to be found in what we think of as manufacture, we will need to prepare people through schooling, apprenticeships and on-the-job learning for work in such fields as the human services—helping to care, for example, for our fast-growing population of the elderly, providing child care, health services, personal security, training services, leisure and recreation services, tourism and the like. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20
We will also have to begin according human-service jobs the same respect preciously reserved for manufacture rather than snidely denigrating the entire service sector. The service industry cannot stand as the sole symbol for range of activities that includes everything from teaching to working at a pet groomer or in a hospital radiology center. What is more, if, as is often charged, wages can be below what people need to survive on their own in the service sector, then the solution is to increase service productivity and to invent new forms of work-force organization and collective bargaining. Unions, primarily designed for the crafts or for mass manufacturing, need to be totally transformed or else replaced by new-style organizations more appropriate to the super-symbolic economy. To survive they will have to support rather than resist such things as work-at-home programs, flextime and job-sharing. The rise of the super-symbolic economy compels us to reconceptualize the entire problem of unemployment from the ground up. To challenge outworn assumptions, however, is also to challenge those who benefit from them. The Third Wave system of wealth creation thus threatens long-entrenched power relationships in corporations, unions and governments. China, already a major importer of fuels and many minerals, is getting equipped for such a competition especially fast: With its rapidly growing, highly energy- and resources-intensive economy, the consequences of resource supply irregularities may be fatal. In the days of the Iraq war Beijing already resorted to eventually a panic buying of petroleum, overstanding the global market. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20
In today’s World, if you cannot obtain your own resources domestically, to avoid supply troubles, it is considered preferable to establish long-term relationships with particular resource-rich countries, getting a stake in their resource development and extraction. Perhaps more than any other country, China is making big steps to obtain direct access to fuel and mineral resource in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The United States of America and European countries are supplied a significant portion of the natural resources they consume by major multinational companies such as Exxon-Mobil, Royal-Dutch Shell, Rio-Tinto, or BHP Billiton. In Japan and South Korea, a key role is played by the resource supply channels of leading trading houses like Mitsubishi Corporation, Itochu, SK Corporation, or Hanwha Trading. State-owned resource companies play their part, too. In most other countries, China included, supplies are provided first of all by state-owned oil and mining corporations. Currently, with strong support from the state, China’s natural resources heavyweights—PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, Chinalco, China Metallurgical Group and the like—are establishing themselves among the leading global players, not at all inferior to Western majors or Japanese and Korean trading houses. On its part, the Chinese government is coming out with an innovative model of tapping natural resources in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In broader terms, this model helps China to strengthen its overall presence and influence in the World. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20
Economic and legal scholars who study business disputes (and other events such as accidents where some economic consequences are at issue) recognize that the initial allocation of legal entitlements, the expectation and uncertainty about a court’s decision in the matter, and the costs of using the legal system all affect the parties’ choice between going to the law and settling the dispute by private negotiation. Rolling back one more step along a game tree, the same considerations also affect individuals’ decisions about engaging in activities that can lead to accidents or disputes. Consider two parties involved in an economic dispute. One of them (plaintiff) could sue the other (defendant) in a court of law. Their expectation for the time being assumed to be commonly held and known, is that the court will aware AP to the plaintiff and AD to the defendant. (If the defendant is ordered to make restitution or pay a fine, his payoff Ad can be negative.) In addition, each side has to bear some cost for using the court; this can be monetary in the form of court costs and lawyers’ fees, or non-monetary in various forms, such as time, mental strain, or damage to reputation. The costs can depend on the legal system; for example, in the American system each side bears its own court and lawyer costs, whereas in the British system the loser bears both sides’ cost. Denote the overall monetary equivalent costs by CP for the plaintiff and Cd for the defendant. Thus the expected net payoffs from recourse to the court are (AP-CP) for the plaintiff and (AD-CD) for the defendant. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20
The two parties could negotiate a settlement, either before a suit is filled at all, or after a suit is filed but before trial. Doing so enables them to avoid some or all of the costs of using the law. If the court is expected to levy a fine in addition to mandating some transfer between the parties, and the proceeds of the fine go to the government, then the negotiation avoids the fine and leaves a larger sum of money available for dividing between them. Suppose S is the total available for them to bargain over, and S> (AP – CP) + (AD – CD). The excess of the left-hand side of this inequality over the right-hand side constitute the “surplus” that is available for them to negotiate over. Denote the sums they can get through bargaining by XP and XD, respectively, then XP + XD= S is the bargaining frontier. The bargaining frontier is a straight line of slope -1. If the negotiation fails and the plaintiff has to sue, their payoffs in the court will be (AP – CP, AD – CD). This point is therefore the threat point that lies behind their bargaining. The generalized Nash bargaining solution then says that each party will get its threat-point payoff, plus a share of the surplus equal to its bargaining power. This bargaining power can be explained in terms of the two parties’ relative impatience, but we will simply assume that the plaintiff’s bargaining powers is and that of the defendant (1 –
). Then the outcomes of the negotiation is (figure 2.1) XP = (AP – CP) +
[S – (AP – CP) – (AD – CD), (Figure 2.2) XD = (AD – CD) + (1 –
) [S – (SP – CP) – (AD – CD)] = (1 –
)(AP – CP) + (AD – CD). These expressions yield several simple implications. For example, they tell us how different rules about the allocation of legal costs affect the outcome of pretrial negotiation. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20
Supposed the expectation is the plaintiff will win. Under the American system, each side would pay its own monetary legal costs. Under the British system, the monetary part of the plaintiff’s legal costs would be shifted to the defendant. Denote this by M. Then the British system, as compared with the American, CP is lower and CD higher by M. Therefore (2.1) shows that XP is higher by M, and (2.2) shows that XD is lower by M, in the British system than in the American. In turn, we can calculate how the expectation of this outcome affects the incentive of the parties to engage in activities that may lead to such disputes. This argument assumes that the expected payoffs AP and AD when the parties go to the court are the same in the two systems. If the courts adjusted the payoffs to offset the stipulated allocation of costs, then the threat points of the two systems would be the same, and therefore so would the Nash solution of the negotiation. However, this simple model has some flaws. Most obviously, in the model the negotiation succeed and the threat of going to court is never invoked. This is less egregious than it may appear at first sight, because only 10 percent of disputes go to trial. Simple extensions of the model explain why and which disputes are likely to go to trial. The main cause is the parties’ inconsistent expectations about the outcome in court. If the plaintiff expects AP to be high, and the defendant simultaneously expects AD to be high, then each may think that there is no surplus to bargain over. The simple figure and algebra I have developed here promising foundations for formal models of such extensions, but I will leave developments along these lines for future work. The model can readily be extended to apply another situation. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20
My discussion of the court that generates the threat-point payoff in this model treated it as a well-meaning but costly system. However, it could easier be a corrupt system, or a predatory or kleptocratic government. Economic activities and transactions in such a country would try to proceed in secrecy. However, the threat of disclosure, and the consequent exposure to extortion by the state’s agents, would underlie all negotiations. By interpreting CP and CD as the expected amounts the state would extort from the two parties, the model can cover this situation. Now, let us focus on how a Christian suburb is to be. Better is a dry morsel and quietness therewith, than a house feasting amidst strife. Yea, better to ear herbs where love is, than the choicest food and hatred therewith. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding is it established. By knowledge is the home filled with all that is pleasant and precious. Make your house a meeting place for the learned, and give heed to their words. If three people have eaten at one table and have spoken the word of the Christian Bible or Book of Mormon, it is as though they had eaten at God’s table. Blessed is that home where the woman regards the ways of her household. Blessed is the man who has a good wife, for the number of his days shall be doubled. Blessed is he who loves his wife and honours her, and direct his children into paths of righteousness. When husband and wife are worthy of each other, the divine spirit rests upon them. A home where a man loves his wife as himself, and honours her beyond his own person, shall be blessed everlastingly. A home where children honour their parents is a home in which God dwells, and He Himself is honoured. How goodly are your homes, and your dwellings, O America. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20
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The Feeling of Being Watched and Impending Danger Gradually Increased
Shortly before nine o’ clock, a butler, dressed in an azure tailcoat and navy-blue breeches, escorted Me to my estate. A coldly sumptuous hall, it was the first point of entry to the 600-room mansion. Rows of muskets, taller than a man, and hundreds of swords, their blades sharp-edged and glinting lined its walls. From the vaulted ceiling hung several beautiful chandeliers. Directly in front of them, a magnificent staircase swept to the state rooms on the upper floors; and yet, as the butler led me across the hall, he veered to the right, heading for its farther corner. There, he ushered me through a discreet swing door. We had stepped into the “invisible World.” Behind the secret door, the entire ground floor was devoted to privacy. A magnificent hinterland of fifty rooms, some cavernous, some no larger than a closet, it was where many of the servant lived and worked. From here, a network of passages coursed through the mansion: hidden routes, which spiraled up the narrow turrets and towers to the splendid rooms above, enabling the servants to carry out their duties unobserved. One might ask, why was I touring the part of my home? It was through this labyrinth of passages, deep in the servants quarters, where the rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by servants’ fears that someone had come back from the dead. It seems a few of the servants had been thinking of ways to make money. One of the servants, Olov told Stellan about a plan to end their money troubles. The scheme was simple. Each of the men would take a life insurance policy out of another one of the servants, twenty-year-old Leif Titus. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
They would say that they had helped raise and support Leif in his life and were looking for reimbursement for their help upon his death. There was nothing illegal about that. Then they would wait awhile before killing Leif, collect on the policies, and all of their money troubles would be over. Stellan asked who would kill Leif. “That’s the beauty of it,” Olov told his friend. “We each kick in a percentage of the policy money to pay an assassin so none of us has to do the killing.” Stellan was quiet for a moment, and then he nodded. They could get someone at the tavern to do it. Olov arranged for a meeting with Duke. They worked it all out the details of the murder plot and agreed to execute the plan. The other men paid Duke $400 to arrange and carry out the murder. This was a lot of money, so Duke agree to do the deed. June 6, 1890, was just another day to Leif Titus as he went about his work on the estate. He was not surprised when Olov told them that their friend Duke had come by to see if he might want to go for a drink later that evening. The two men had hung out at the tavern from time to time, so he readily accepted the invitation. The two men set off after work. It was after dark and Leif and Duke rode horse back to the tavern. However, before getting their Duke fired his rifle, Leif horse was scared, threw him from the saddle. He fell off the horse, hitting his head on the cobble stones and his life had been snuffed out for $9,000 in life insurance policies. It was the perfect crime, or so it seemed to the men. They said that Leif fell off his horse and died on the way back from the tavern. And they seemed to have gotten away with it. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Saturday night, Olov arrived back to my estate, and went to his room to lie down on his bed. He had not been there long when he heard noises. As he was just involved in a plot that robbed another man of his life, he became quite nervous. That night, there were doors opening and closing, footsteps of unseen guests. As he got up to go investigate, Olov felt a strange touch at his back; then a tug; then he felt the back of his sweater pulled several inches away from his back. He turned to look over his shoulder and wondered how, without moving, he could have hooked his sweater on something. However, there was nothing upon which his sweater could have been stuck. Just then he saw Stellan, eyes wide with astonishment. He blurted out to Olov, “I just saw the back of your sweater pull out all by itself!” Later the following evening Olov was closing up the mansion for the night, at about 9.00 P.M. Like all Victorian homes, “The House Built by Spirits” has its share of creaks and groans. Creaks and groans are one thing—but witnessing something supernatural is another thing entirely. He was turning out the lights. The house, as the light are slowly being extinguished, does have a certain “feeling” to it: as it grows dark, one gets the inkling that one need to hurry, that someone—or something—cannot wait for you to leave so that they may get on with their existence—if that is what one could call it—in peace. Moving from the parlor to the morning room, he casually looked into the darkened stairwell. His eye was caught by the manifestation of a spectral being. A strange man with long hair appeared in the morning room. Olov mistake this spectral man for a servant. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
When he realized his mistake, Olov hurried forward to see who the person was. As he watched the figure, the long-haired man moved out of the morning room, he followed him. Just as the icy fingers of fear had begun to trace a slow, deliberate path up the length of his spine, the figure floated the through the mahogany wall and disappeared. Stellan arrived to find Olov in a near state of panic. While in the servants’ quarters, he had been sitting in a chair with his back to the door. He heard the door open and close and the sound of footsteps enter the house and approach the spot directly behind his chair. Imagine the horror when he turned around and saw a misty figure take the form of a tall man all in gray. The ghost, wearing a tattered Revolutionary War uniform, looked unkempt with long hair and a grizzled appearance. Olov screamed, but it was only second before the specter faded away. When Stellan reached him, his was quivering and inconsolable. Stellan then figure it would be a good idea for the two men to quit their jobs and move north. After all, they now had the money to do so, they were rich. On that evening, Olov wandered into a dark and deserted section of the mansion. This was the most active area of the mansion and too dangerous to inhabit. The stairway to the attic was narrow and winding. Suddenly a shrill scream came from the attic. Stellan ran to the fourth floor where Olov was discovered lying on the floor, stabbed through the heart. He was dead. Stellan figured the men had been hexed, and he would be the next one to die. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Stellan went into a secret room under one of the kitchens through a trap door—a secret room that house Mrs. Winchester’s magic. He was looking for her book of spells in the secret room. However, there was someone in that room, perhaps waiting for a century or more, for someone to open the trap door. Walking through the small, arched doorway, the room was furnished and there were antique carpets near the alter. He heard music and instruments. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure of a small woman, seemingly cloaked in a long, dark, flowing dress with a wide-brimmed, black hat, standing in the corner. He stood for a brief moment, seeing her out of the side vision, afraid to look directly at her, since he realized that entities can sometimes only be seen through peripheral vision. Indeed, when he turned to confront the dark lady, he was struck on the head with a piece of stove wood, killing him. The story of a mysterious man in the servants quarters had spread throughout the estate, as we were touring the room that belonged to Leif, we herd the sounds of horses hooves and whips. Then sudden sound heralded the appearance of a bright figure we immediately recognized of Leif. He told us how he had died and how his poor mother was near a breakdown; after someone had dug up bushes in her yard, she took it as a sign that Leif’s body would also be dug up. He had him exhumed and reburied in the flower bed outside her house. Here she piled a huge mound of stones over his grave. Vowing to get revenge, she would sit up nights watching for grave robbers and crying for her lost son, until she died from a broken heart. And from beyond the grave, she had discovered who took the life of her son and returned the favor. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Through the years the servants on occasion have hear Olov’s shrill last crimes repeated over and over again. The antique carpets in the secret alter room were cleaned, but the bloodstain frequently reappears. One of the servants mentioned that he saw an injured man, blood, and a woman in a dark dress in the alter room, leaning up against the walls, exhausted, dirty, bloody, smelling like sweat and fear. After hearing the specter’s story, I was trembling. I said nothing for a second or two, trying to find the words. Nothing ever came to mind. It is when things are busiest in their dwelling-places that the spirits are most active. Already disposed once out of their bodies, they react when they are again dispossessed of their homes. There was a great deal of strong, negative energy coming from this particular corner of the room. From the moment on, I closed off this section of the house and had Mr. Hansen build Victorian cottages for the servants to live in and increased their pay three times more than the going rate. The servants were good and faithful people. Perhaps these ghosts and restless spirits return to remind mortals of the evil that can be done in the name of good. Many people whisper that no one can make it through this area of the mansion. It is said that strange fear grips people as they approach the servant’s wing. As they pass through the threshold, they feel that they should turn back. A feeling of being watched and of impending danger gradually rises as they wander deeper and deeper into this wing. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
O thou great and powerful King AMAYMON, who rulest by the power of the Supreme God El, over all Spirits, superior and inferior, but especially over the Infernal Order in the Dominion of the East, I invoke and command thee by the particular and true Name of God, and by the God whom thou dost worship, by the Seal of thy creation, by the most mighty and powerful Name of God TETRAGRAMMATION, who cast thee out of Heaven with the rest of the Infernal Spirits, by all the other potent and great names of God, Creator of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, of all contained therein, by their powers and virtues, and by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whole host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit ADONAI, king of Kings here before this circle, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to myself or to any creature, that he may tide and time receive our wish, and grant us new beginnings so that we may accomplish our desires, whatsoever the be, provided that it is proper to his office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. ASTRACHIOS, ASACH, ASARCA, ABEDUMABAL, SLLAT, ANABOTAS, JESUBLIN, SCIOIN, DOMOL, Lord God, who dwellest above the Heavens, whose glance searchest the abyss; grant us, we pray Thee, the power to conceieve in our minds and to execute that which we desire to do, the end of which we would attain by Thy help, O God Almighty, who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Our technology tells us that fluorescent lamps do not continuously provide light, but are actually flickering on and off at a rate that is just too fast for us to discern…reality at large is really a frequency domain, and our brain is a kind of lens that converts these frequencies into the objective World of appearances…there may be all kinds of things out there in the frequency domain that we are not seeing, things our brains have learned to edit out regularly of our visual reality. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Dabbling in its Dark, Cruel Possibilities
It was one of the brisk winter mornings that begins in a fog, promising the cold to come. A mist was rising from the fruit orchards as I dropped down the hill into Llanada Villa in the valley below the mansion. It was a fair-tale mansion, all turrets and towers, stained glass and plush Victorian gardens, sitting majestical on the most valuable plot of land. As I entered my home, I heard the music playing softly from the morning room. I sat sipping coffee at nine thirty, glad it was Saturday. I knew that life was going to be vastly more complicated now. Well, it was going to be more dangerous, too. Overhead, the morning sky had turned a vivid blue, intersected by fading vapor trails. It was bright enough blue, the sky. However, it had a depth and stillness suggestive of the steady retreat of sunlight and a slight warmth. I have seen real ghouls in my home, and I knew that magic was something that could be harnessed and exploited and there were people in the World with hunger for power and influence enough to risk dabbling in its dark, cruel possibilities. The whisper of water dropping on to leaves as the rain began to fall could be heard. The lights flicked on and off. I looked around, half-waiting for the sound to stir again. The rain strength. I heard drops begin to fall on the roof. For many years the staff reported hearing a little girl crying. She has been seen on occasion, and is described as about seven years old. She has been seen in the house at the main stairwell, on the lawn, and on the third floor. I passed on through the passages of crystal and rooms of silver—spacious chambers, empty and silent. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
This house felt older than the memory of man. It was an accursed mansion. There were strange noises in the mansion. Every night the wailing of a woman could be heard above the moaning of the wind. If ghost must walk the Earth, they could find no spot on the globe where their appearance would be more natural, or better understood. The staff tells tales of disembodies footsteps, lights that switch themselves off and on at will, and objects moving. The Daisy Bedroom has lights that switch themselves on and off after dark and phantom footsteps are often heard in the hallway near the room. One day a housemaid was speaking to a guest as she served dinner downstairs. To everyone’s surprise, the serving tray sitting on the table picked itself up and tipped itself upside down. The tray was filled with plates of hot foot that went everywhere. The sacrificial stones of the Druid priests, oriented after the fashion of the ruin of ruins of Stonehenge, the blood-vats, imperishable adjuncts to human sacrifice, have stood through the ages, grim guardians of the mysteries of the haunted fruit orchards. If someone were to tell me that the fruit orchards at Llanada Villa echoed nightly with the shrieks of sacrifice and that the ghost fires of forgotten priestcraft still glowed in the morning, I would find it hard to disbelieve. That ghastly curse remained on my family and fortune. The mansion has picked up a few permanent guests. One evening, from the observation tower, I saw a huge black figure gliding along the grounds. It could not be human because of the rate of speed it was going. I felt not just fear, but absolute dread. I experienced a bone-chilling could throughout my body. I ran down nine flights of stairs, while crying uncontrollable and my heart was pounding. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Only in the understanding of the stock from which the Victorian mansion’s ghosts are sprung can one appreciate the immortality with which long-accepted tradition has endowed them. Ghostly itself is the history of the Winchester Mansion. While the carpenters were painting on the fourth floor, one of them was startled to see the word MURDER appear in the freshly rolled paint, as if written with someone’s finger—only the words were backwards, as though being written from the other side of the wall. One of the painters explained: “We were quite surprised when a shadow started moving towards us.” As they realized that the “shadow” was approaching them, they also realized that area of the mansion was a very lonely place, especially at night. Not many people ventured up there. And although in their haste to leave, they could only give brief glances at the dark figure, they were sure of one thing: “The only outstanding feature was the outline of a wide brim hate.” Another evening while the carpenters were painting, they heard a quiet creaking emanating from the wood floors. They steeled their nerves before investigating. That is when they saw a young woman sitting in a chair directly behind them. The woman was there for just a moment before disappearing. Later the evening as the farmers were picking fruit in the fields, the dark figure “floated” diagonally across the field. It drifted rapidly to a clump of trees with two flat rocks near by and disappeared over a slight drop-off beyond. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
One of the farmers screwed up his courage and, in spite of the bizarre, dark figure’s mysterious and even menacing appearance, volunteered to walk down to the spot where the apparition disappeared. After five minutes of observation, he returned, like an efficient scout, with his report, unsettling as it might be. He said when he reached the far side of the hill there were two “soldiers-dressed” figures stilling on the two flat rocks near the clump of trees. Neither one spoke to the other; nor did they acknowledge the other’s presence. Instead they just sat, seemingly rigidly fixated, staring down into the field. Other ghost haunting the mansion include those of two little boys, who have been heard running on the second floor. One night, while I was preparing for company, I found two sets of muddy boot prints coming from the door to nowhere and crossing the room. When I told Daisy about the boot prints. She said they must be made by the same boys who keep coming in the door the opens to the wall, and we had locked them out. Looking toward the door she said, “It’s OK, if you prefer this door, go ahead and use it.” Immediately the door swung open. Needless to say cold chills ran through both of us. We never worried about the door that opens to the wall again. My idea for the mansion was not only to create a place for the spirits, but also to build an estate that would inspire awe. The gorgeous series of fields gardens, forests, and grassy acres are as fascinating as they are beautiful. However, when the sun goes down, the shadows creep and spread, giving the Victorian Mansion an entirely different look and feel. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
With grounds lit by a full moon hanging low in the sky, just to the side of the columns of the mansion, one begins to ponder the many mysteries surrounding the Winchester Mansion. One night I was putting out a candle when I heard the sound of a singing voice. At first I thought: “Oh, that sounds nice.” However, then I wondered what it was and where I could be hearing singing from. After all, the staff was asleep and there was no one around, and the sound definitely was not coming from outside. It was frightening, but it was not explainable. It was just a couple of phrases of singing and it took me by surprise. I could faintly see the hazy shape of a woman moving down what the hallway. One night, a group of farmers were packing up for the evening. A they looked around with a lantern for their tools, they were shocked to see what appeared to be the black form of a man moving toward them. The figure was larger than human and had no features—it was a black mass that seemed to sway toward them in the bright light. The man wielding the lantern quickly put it out and they all ran away. For weeks the men thought about what they had seen; they just could not forget it. They spoke to other servants about the vision or sighting. They were quite disturbed and unable to let the subject drop. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of your king, and by the seven crowns and chain of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this circle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my order, to fulfil that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and al which is under Heaven. I conjure thee, Lucifer, by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, who spake and all was made, who commanded and all things were created and made! I conjure thee by the ineffable name of God, ON, ALPHA, and OMEGA, ELOYM, YA, SADAY, LUX, MUGENS, REX, SALUS, ADONAY, EMMANUEL, MESSIAS; and I adjure, conjure. I command you, O all ye demons dwelling in these parts, or in what part of the World soever ye may be, by whatsoever power may have been given you by God and our holy Angels over this place, and by the power Principality of the fernal abysses, as also by all your brethren, both general and special demons, whether dwelling in the East, West, South, or North, or in any side of the Earth, and, in like manner, by the power of God the Father, by the wisdom of God and the Son, by the virtue of the Holy Ghost, and by the authority I derive from our Savior Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The idea that we survive physical death, that some part of our being is immortal, profoundly affects the loves of those who harbor such a belief. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Ruin is the Destination Toward Which All Men Rush
With equality and gender-based studies becoming more important, it is a goo idea that we take a look at a gender-based analysis of residential burglary. The study is based on interviews with 105 active residential burglars, 87 of whom were males and 18 were females. The project employed a snowball sampling strategy in which an ex-offender recruited known burglars who were presently operating in a city. The gender-based compassion suggests that, in many way, female burglars resemble their male counterparts. For example, both group display long criminal histories that span a variety of property, violent, and public order offenses categories. Both groups accumulate long, diverse substance abuse histories that overlap with and contribute to their involvements in burglary. At the time, the gender-based comparison reveal several differences. Female burglars begin offending at a later age, are more likely to co-offend, and have less contact with authorities. The typology of female burglars describes offenders as either accomplices or partners. Factor of motivation, levels of target selection and planning, and patterned work roles serve to differentiate these two conceptual categories. Despite growing interest in female criminality, little is known about the nature of women’s participation in crimes statistically dominated by males. Certainly that is the case for residential burglary, an offense labeled as an overwhelmingly male enterprise. For example, we hardly know how female become involved in such offenses or what roles they play. Are they tempted into these crimes, for instance, by the influence of delinquent peers or by the use of drugs? #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Because we lack detailed knowledge, we cannot assess the extent to which the processes underly burglaries committed by females differ from those underlying burglaries by males. This lack also restricts our capacity to detect important differences among female burglars. An assessment of these difference, however, is crucial in formulating effective policy responses to female criminality and to developing theories of lawbreaking by women. Short of observing burglaries, perhaps the best way to acquire this information is to go to the offenders themselves. The most pressing need today, in researching the agenda for feminist criminology, is observation and interviewing so we can plunge more deeply into the social Worlds of girls and women. Such a strategy will allow researchers to comprehend women’s crime on its own terms. Often it is claimed that offenders are versatile and commit a wide range of offense. This observation, however, is derived largely from studies of males conducted in criminal justice settings rather than on the street. During our interviews we asked the subjects whether they ever had committed other sorts of crimes beside residential burglary. We did so because we were concerned primarily with prevalence—that is, whether the subject ever had engaged in other kinds of offenses. Stealing (which includes shoplifting and corresponds to the legal definition of this activity), auto theft, and assault were the offenses most commonly reported by males. Stealing and assault were mentioned most frequently by the females; these offenses were comparable in rank of frequency to those reported by the males. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Beyond these two offenses, however, little other criminality was reported by the females. The only meaningful differences between the men and the women for this measure was found in regard to auto theft. This crime was fairly common among the males, but unknown among the females. The explanation for this difference might reside in a strong cultural tradition linking masculinity to driving and car ownership. Alternatively, males may have “cornered the market” in auto theft; to be profitable, such a crime requires sophisiticated coneections with garage owners, automotive recycle yard employees, and car dealerships. One important aspect of offending style concerns the degree of crime specialization—that is, the extent to which offenders concentrate on one particular type of offense. When we asked offenders whether they had been involved in crimes other than residential burglary during their most recent period of offending, thirty-four percent of the males and 42 percent of the females claimed that they had committed only residential burglaries during this period (roughly the last six months). This finding is consistent with a substantial body of previous research showing that offenders display considerable diversity over the course of their criminal careers, but may specialize in a particular “line” for short periods. This phenomenon is labeled as “short-term specialization.” Another element of offending style concerns the inclinations to work with others in carrying out cries. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Previous research demonstrated that more often than not, [burglary] is committed by two or more persons acting in concert. The results of our study bear this out: 79 percent of the males and all of the females reported that they had worked with others in the past. The males showed considerable variation in frequency of working with others: 39 percent said they “seldom” worked with others, while another 39 percent reported that they “always” did so. For the women, however, the picture was much clearer: an overwhelming 83 percent reported that they “always” worked with others, and the remaining 17 percent states that they “usually” did so. The final aspect of offending style that we examined here relates to drug and alcohol use among our respondents, as well as to their perceptions of the role played by intoxicants in leading them to commit such crimes. Our research reveals that there is little difference between the males and the females in self-report drug use. When the drug users were asked whether addiction had anything to do with their burglaries, 71 percent of the males and 82 percent of the females answered affirmatively. A majority of those in both groups said they committed burglaries to obtain the money they needed to buy more drugs. In addition, slightly more than three-quarters of the users in each group—76 percent of the males and 79 percent of the females—claimed that they used drugs before committing their burglaries. A higher percentage of females than of males started that they “always” or “usually” used drugs beforehand. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
One explanation seems to be that many female burglaries arise from crack “runs.” This point, however, is difficult to determine conclusively because use of the drug is heavily stigmatized. We explore male-female differences on three dimensions designed to measure burglary offending histories: age at first burglary, total number of lifetime burglaries, and lambda, the mean number of annual burglaries. The ages at which males and females committed their first residential burglary differed significantly: the males generally started much earlier in life. None of the female burglars had committed their first offense before age 12, but 22 percent of the males had done so. The modal category for males was the 13-16 age bracket, which accounted for 53 percent of the cases. Sixty-one percent of the females, on the other hand, were over 16 years old when they carried out their first burglary. Given that the females started to commit burglaries later, on average, than their male counterparts, we are not surprised that a greater proportion of females had been involved in fewer than 20 residential burglaries in their lifetime. Perhaps more interesting, 39 percent of the females had committed more than 70 lifetime residential burglaries, a proportion roughly comparable to the males’ figure of 41 percent. The bimodal distribution of the females’ responses suggests that women are likely to engage in burglary at two very distinct levels, and perhaps to employ two different styles. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The males were more likely than the females to have had contact with the system for offenses of all types. This difference was most notable at the stage of the criminal justice process that resulted in incarceration. Over ninety percent of the respondents in each group had been arrested previously, but only one woman (6 percent) had been convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. In contrast, 26 percent of the males had served time in the past. This difference may exist in part because the females began offending later and consequently had fewer “years at risk.” Other factors, however, are probably at work as well including an assumption by the police that most burglars are male, which allow females to remain above suspicion and a tendency for those females who are arrested to receive preferential treatment in the courtroom. Certainly the women in our sample believe that their gender conferred a degree of protection from the law. Several expressed the belief that authorities would not take action against them simply because they were female. Is it not becoming clear, in light of the existence of deceiving offenders and their methods of deception, that close examination is needed of modern theories, conceptions, and expressions regarding things in connection with the ultimate concern and its way of working in man? For only the certainty of ultimate concern, apart from “views” of truth, will avail for protection or for successful warfare in the conflict with wicked offenders in the self-actualized hierarchy. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
When we reach self-actualization, we are at the highest hierarchy of the pyramid, and this is denoted by morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and acceptance of facts. There are five levels in the pyramid. At the very bottom, people are interested in physiological functions only which include: breathing, food, water, pleasures of flesh, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion. At the second level of the pyramid, individuals are concerned with safety and this entails security of: body, employment, resources, mortality, the family, healthy and property. At the third hierarchy most are concerned with love and belonging. This includes friendship, family, sexual intimacy. At the fourth hierarchy, this realm focuses on esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others. All that is in any degree the outcome of the mind of the “natural man” will prove to be but the weapons of straw in this great battle, and if we rely upon others’ “views of truth,” or upon our own human conceptions of truth, offenders will use these very things to deceive us—even building us up in these theories and views so that under cover of them he or she may accomplish one’s purpose. We cannot, therefore, at this time, overestimate the importance of believers having ready minds to “examine all things” they have thought, and perhaps taught, in connection with the things of ultimate concern and the self-actualized realm—all the “truths” they have held, all the phrases and expressions they have used in “virtue teachings,” and all the ideas they have absorbed through others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
For any wrong interpretations of truth, any theories and phrases which are man-conceived and which we may build upon wrongly, will have perilous consequences to ourselves and others in the conflict with truth and individual self-actualized people passing through. Because in the present offenders will comes to them with deceptions in DOCTRINAL form, self-actualized individual must examine carefully what they accept as “doctrine,” least it should be from the emissaries of the deceiver. Some people are tired of struggling and want only to know a quiet silence. This can be a shock to one’s own awareness of who he or she is. One may have always considered struggle essential in growth, and in many crises and conflicts it has provided the turning point in one’s life. Not wanting to be burdened and overwhelmed by heavy feelings and thoughts or by complicated searching and painful of what is wrong with oneself, people, and life, this can create the desire to turn away from the struggle. And this is what causes the requirement to be alone in simple and ordinary ways. Once one goes through this process of healing in solitude, and by only engaging in simple routine, gradually, with each day, an individua is able to listen a little more to what others are saying. (This is why during a break up, space, instead of forcing the issues is important. Of course, there are times when you need to know what the reason it so it may be a good idea to press for answers to start a dialogue and not necessarily to just focus on getting back together.) #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
Slowly it becomes each to be interested in and comfortable with other people’s problems. Although there may be some drawbacks. Some individual may be able to be with others while you struggle to make decisions, but one may not be opened to questions or personal comments and responses directed to one. This may cause one to offer nothing of oneself and comment only on what one is hearing and understanding from others. During this period, some find work a truly rewarding activity; it is a place that feels like home. It does not matter whether the work takes the form of writing—reports, references, and letters—or reading. Or, if it involved physical activities, one may become totally absorbed in what one is doing, get lost in the activity and experience a full sense of relief. Active mental and physical involvement in solitary projects can be a sense of salvation. By surrendering to powers within to powers within and sources of light in the universe, in some mysterious way, a miracle happens. It is the loss of the old man and the discovery of the new man. When the light reveals itself, the individual is ready to accept it. This reduces the need to force or push or beseech. One simply waits with firm faith that one is meant to be whole again and that one will live more in a full and complete way. It becomes clear that people one loves and those who love one cannot reach the individual going through changes. And so, life has to come from another source, and that new direction will emerge in solitude. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
The problem of the truth of faith presents itself from both the subjective and objective sides. Subjectively, faith is true if it adequately expresses an ultimate concern, that is, if the symbols of faith are alive and speak to the heart with an urgency of concern that impels to action and replay. This criterion is more a rule of thumb that works best for obviously dead symbols and is not so useful in judging contemporary ones. However, it is the objective truth of faith that interests us here. The content of faith is true if it is really and not just apparently ultimate. The great danger is demonization, elevation of the symbol to ultimacy, which results in idolatrous faith. Therefore, the criterion of faith is self-negation. The true symbol not only conveys the ultimate, but proclaims its own non-ultimacy. It pronounces a Yes and a No. For the Christian the Cross of the Christ is such a symbol. Name for this criterion—the No that follows immediately on the heels of the Yes—is the Protestant principle. The Protestant principle pervades in this whole theology, both systematically and chronologically. Chameleon-like, it changes its formula of expression against the background of diverse theological problems. Hence, a rapid rundown of its various formulations is useful for identifying it. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
In addition to being the objective criterion of faith, the Protestant principle expresses man’s infinite distance from God and his dependence upon the divine initiative. The Protestant principle is the prophetic protest against every form of self-absolutizing—for example, the demonic elevation of the churches, of the Christian Bile, and the priesthood to absolute validity. The Protestant principle is “resistance to idolatry,” that is, it stands for non-conformity in family, school, state, and church. The Protestant principle protests the objectifying of grace (die Vergegenstandlichung der Gnade) and so smashes the barriers between the holy and the secular. For, by the Protestant principle, God is as near to the lowest as he is to the highest, as close to the material as to the spiritual. These manifold expressions of the Protestant principle can be summarized in and derived from the basic doctrine that the Protestant principle is justification by grace through faith. We reject the traditional Protestant formula of “justification by faith” on the grounds that is has been misunderstood to mean that the human act of faith sets in motion God’s justifying act. Faith itself is a gift of grace, all justifying actions is entirely on the part of God, and, consequently, the more accurate formula is “justification by grace through faith.” The Protestant principle ultimately rests upon an experience of God’s majesty that attributes absoluteness and holiness to him alone and denies such dignity to all else. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
Untrammeled choices of individuals could lead to disaster for society. Picture a paster open to all. It is to expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on this commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels one to increase one’s heard without limit, in a World that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing one’s own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. Overpopulation, pollution, excessive fishing, and depletion of exhaustible resources are all part of the problem. People Worldwide must recognize the necessity of restricting individual freedom in these choices, and accept some mutual coercion mutually agreed upon. Depending upon the circumstances, the tragedy of the commons could be a many-person prisoner’s dilemma (each person grazes too many cows) or a spillover problem (too many people choose to become herdsmen). The economist’s favorite solution would be the establishment of property rights. This is what actually happened in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in England: the common land was enclosed and claimed by the local aristocrats or landlords. When land is private property, the invisible hand will shut the gate to just the right extent. The owner will charge grazing fees to maximize one’s rental income; the grazing fees will make the owner richer, and the herdsmen poorer. This approach is not feasible in some instances. Property rights over the high seas are hard to define and enforce in the absence of an international government, as is control over air that move from one country to another carrying pollutants. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
For this reason, whaling and acid rain must be handled by more direct controls, but securing the necessary international agreements is no easy matter either. Population is an even harder problem. The right of decision about one’s family, including its size, is enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many countries bills of rights. Countries like China and India that have at times used some coercion in their population-control efforts have evoked widespread disapproval. Sometimes, when the group is small enough, voluntary cooperation solves the problem. When two oil or gas producers have wells that tap into the same underground deposit, each has the incentive to speed up one’s uptake, to get more of the resource before the other does. When both of them follow this policy, the excessive speed of depletion can actually lower the total amount that can be recovered from the deposit. In practice, drillers recognize the problem and seem able to reach production-sharing arrangements that keep at the proper level that total flow from all wells tapping one deposit. All’s well that ends well? For the less developed countries (LDCs), as for the rest of the World, power stems from the holster, the wallet, and the book—or, nowadays, the computer. Unless we want an anarchic World, with billions of poverty-stricken people, unstable governments led by unstable leaders, each with a finger on the missile launcher or chemical or bacteriological trigger, we now need global strategies for preventing the de-coupling that looms before us. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
In the years immediately ahead the LDCs will acquire sophisticated new arms—enormous firepower will be added to their already formidable arsenals. Why? As LDC economic power diminishes, their rulers face political opposition and instability. Under the circumstances, they are likely to do what rulers have done since the origins of the state: They reach for the most primitive form of power—military force. However, the most acute shortage facing LDCs is that of economically relevant power is no longer through the exploitation of raw materials and human muscle but, as we have seen, through application of the human mind. Development strategies make no sense, therefore, unless they take full account of the new role of knowledge in wealth creation, and of the accelerative imperative that goes hand in hand with it. With knowledge (which in our definition includes such things as imagination, values, images, and motivation, along with formal technical skills) increasingly central to the economy, the Brazils and Nigerians, the Bangladeshes and Haitis must consider how they might best acquire or generate this resource. It is clear that every wretched child in Northeast Brazil or anywhere else in the World who remains ignorant or intellectually underdeveloped because of malnutrition represents a permanent drain on the future. Revolutionary new forms of education will be needed that are not based on the old factory model. Acquiring knowledge from elsewhere will also be necessary. This may take unconventional—and sometimes even illicit—forms. Stealing technological secrets is already a booming business around the World. We must expect shrewd LDCs to join the hunt. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
Another way of obtaining wealth-making know-how is to organize a brain drain. This can be done on a small scale by bribing or attacking teams of researchers. However, some clever countries will figure out that, around the World, there are certain dynamic minorities—often persecuted groups—that can energize a host economy if given the chance. The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, Indians in East Africa, Syrians in West Africa, Palestinians in parts of the Mideast, Jews in America, and Japanese in Brazil have played this role at one time or another. Transplanted into a different culture, each has brought not merely energy, drive, and commercial or technical acumen, but a pro-knowledge attitude—a ravenous hunger for the latest information, new ideas, skills. These groups have provided a kind of hybrid economic vigor. They work hard, they innovate, they educate their children, and even if they get rich in the process, they stimulate and accelerate the reflexes of the host economy. We will no doubt see various LDCs searching out such groups and inviting them to settle within their borders, in the hopes of injecting a needed adrenaline into the economy. During World War II the Japanese military actually drafted a plan to bring large numbers of persecuted European Jews to Manchuria, then called Manchukuo, for this purpose. However, the “Fugu Plan,” as it was known, was never implemented. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
Smart governments will also encourage the spread of nongovernmental associations and organization, since such groups accelerate the spread of economically useful information through newsletters, meetings, conferences, and foreign travel. Associations of merchants, plastics engineers, employers, programmers, trade unions, bankers, journalists, etcetera, serve as channels for rapid exchange of information about what does and does not work in their respective fields. They are an important, often neglected communications medium. Governments serious about economic development will also have to recognize the new economic significance of free expression. Failure to permit the circulation of the new ideas—including economic and political ideas, even if unflattering to the state—is almost always prima facie proof that the state is weak at its core, and that those in power regard staying there as more important than economic improvement in the live of the people. Governments committed to becoming part of the new World will systematically open the valves of public discussion. Other governments will join knowledge consortia—partnerships with other countries or with global companies—to explore the far reaches of technology and science and, especially, the possibility of creating new materials. Instead of pandering to obsolete nationalist notions, they will purse the national interest passionately—but intelligently. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Rather than refusing to pay royalties to foreign pharmaceutical companies on the lofty ground that health is above such grubby concerns, as Brazil has done, they will gladly pay the royalties—provided these funds stay inside the country for a fixed number of years, and are used to finance research projects carried out jointly with a local pharmaceutical firm’s own experts. Profits from products that originate in this joint research can then be divided between the host country and the multinational. In this way the royalties pay for technology transfer—and for themselves. Effective nationalism thus replaces obsolete, self-destructive nationalism. Similarly, intelligent governments will welcome the latest computers, regardless of who built them, rather than trying to build a local computer industry behind tariff walls that keep out not merely products but advanced knowledge. The computer industry is changing so fast on a World scale that no nation, not even the United States of America or Japan, can keep up without help from the rest of the World. By barring certain outside computers and software, Brazil managed to build its own computer industry—but is products are backward compared with those available outside. This means that Brazilian banks, manufacturers, and other businesses have had to use technology that is inefficient compared with that of their foreign competitors. They compete with one hand tied behind them. Rather than gaining, the country loses. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Brazil violated the first rule of the new system of wealth creation. So what you will with the slowly changing industries, but get out of the way of a fast-advancing industry. Especially one that processes the most important resource of all—knowledge. Other LDCs will avoid these errors. Some, we may speculate, will actually invest modestly in existing venture capital funds in the United States of America, Europe, and Japan—on condition that their own technicians, scientists, and students accompany the capita and share in the know-how developed by the resulting start-up firms. In this way, Brazilians or Indonesians or Nigerians or Egyptians might find themselves at the front edge of tomorrow’s industries. Astutely managed, the program could well pay for itself—or even make a profit. Above all, the LDCs will take a completely fresh look at the role of agriculture, regarding it not necessarily as a “backward” sector but as a sector that potentially, with the help of computers, genetics, satellites, and other new technologies, could someday be more advanced, more progressive than all the smokestacks, steel mills, and mines in the World. Knowledge-based agriculture may be the cutting edge of economic advantage of tomorrow. Moreover, agriculture will not limit itself to growing food, but will increasingly grow energy crops and feed stocks for new materials. These are but a few of the ideas likely to be tested in the years to come. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
However, none of these efforts will bear fruit if the country is cut off from participation in the fast-moving global economy and the telecommunications and computer networks that support it. The maldistribution of telecommunications in today’s World is even more dramatic than the maldistribution of food. There are 7.33 billion unique mobile phones users in the World today, which makes 91.40 percent of people in the World cell phone owners. The lopsided distribution of computers, data bases, technical publications, research expenditures, tells us more about the future potential of nations than all the gross-national-product figures ground out by economists. To plug into the new World economy, countries like China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, as well as the Soviet Union and the East European nations, must find the resources needed to install their own electronic infrastructures. These must go far beyond mere telephone services to include up-to-date, high-speed data systems capable of linking into the latest global networks. The good news is that today’s slow countries may be able to skip over an entire stage of infrastructure development, leapfrogging from First to Third Wave communications without investing the vast sums needed to build Second Wave networks and systems. The Iridium systems, for example, announced by Motorola, Inc., placed 77 tiny satellites into low orbit, which make it possible for millions in remote or sparsely populated regions like Soviet Arctic, the Chinese desert, or the interior of African to send and receive voice, data, and digitized images through handheld telephones. #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
It is not necessary to lay cooper or even fiber optic cable across thousands of miles of jungle, ice or sand. The portable phones communicate directly with the nearest overhead satellite, which will pass the message along. Other advances also similarly slashing the huge costs of telecommunications, brining them within reach of today’s impoverished counties. Large scale production and hyper-competition among American, European and Japanese suppliers will also drive down costs. The new key to economic development is clear. The “gap” that must be closed is informational and electronic. It is a not gap between the North and the South, but between the slow and the fast. However, China’s inadequacy in services is of a structural character. It has it historical and cultural roots, especially the legacy of several decades long epoch of Soviet-style socialism. The mentality of many Chinese service companies and workers may have exceeded those in America. When I was in China, I was impressed by their customer service. They were extremely polite, spent time talking to me, even offered me candy and gave me a soccer ball for shopping at one of their malls. They did treat me like a king. I did not want to come back to America because I loved China so much. Maybe people have different experiences? #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
The overall picture of the service economy in China is not gloomy. Even on the airplane they were polite and told me to stop being so “Western.” The hotels were awesome, as well as the recreation facilities and restaurants. As local consumers’ demand for a variety of good services is increasing, American, European and Japanese service providers have a good chance to exploit their competitive advantage in this area, establishing a stronger position at the Chinese market. Here, however, comes a surprise. You may expect that, in the wake of what was written earlier, America and Europe are enjoying substantial surpluses in their services trade with China, not incomparable to their huge deficits in merchandise trade. But the thing with the people in China, one cannot tell when they are just being nice. Things are so different. They try so hard to like people and make them happy that it seems like they really like you. And they try really hard to keep a neat appearance, are very careful with their work, and take pride in what they do. Because their image and reputation depends a lot on word of mouth, they are very careful not to hurt your feelings and to conceal negative topics, ideas, thoughts and behavior. And their houses are really clean, many of them have never heard of “racism” and the student work very hard in school. It is amazing how many hours a day they spend studying. They really went out of their way to impress us, like hosting us in a restaurant, but making it a private event, of course it meant getting up at 3 A.M. in the morning, but I was happy to. They are so polite and taught me if something is meant to be, you will meet that person again. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
Hallowed by the Life of Blood
The rain lashed with vindictive fury at the windows of my mansion. My skin was crawling with gooseflesh, listening to the mournful recording crackling with static under the needle of the gramophone as the song grew louder through the rain. There is an eerie undocumented history that simmers below the surface and appears periodically to frighten and confuse people. The last thing I wanted to do is see whatever sight might accompany it. The wind was strong up here on the fourth floor and I could hear rain spatter hard against the sitting-room window. I walked on into the room, past the beckoning Hall of Fires, looking out and down at the night. I could see the dome to the nine-story observation tower through the stir of trees surrounding it. A swath of rain bleared the glass in front of my face and made me blink and recoil slightly. “Hello, Aunt Sarah.” The voice of my niece Daisy. “What I have to say concerns this mansion.” A few items of lovely furniture occupied the room. Two of these were armchairs. Daisy sat in one of them. She had paused, perhaps for effect. “I’m sorry to intrude on you. But there really isn’t a choice. A visitor, strolling along the ground near the fruit orchard, heard wisps of strange tunes. Listening more closely through the dusky evening, he was lured inside of the mansion. And he is now dead.” I took my head into my hands. “Aunt Sarah, I need you. There is no time for prevarication on this.” “Daisy, I will meet you in the Venetian Dining Room this evening,” I replied. I rose from my chair thinking that God had very little to do with anything that ever occurred within the grounds of the walls of my mansion. From wars to executions, to suicides and untimely death from injury, plague, or disease, Victorian mansions are, for all their majesty and splendor, tragic places where death stalked the cold lonely corridors. These are the places of the bloodiest history, whether it be a place raided by the unlawful, or a battle for ownership. With such a history of violence and tragedy, it is little wonder that this mansion is regarded as haunted? #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I walked back to the window. It was a quarter to six. Strange noises and an occasional sighting of the larger-than-average soldiers with the oddly pointed hats have been seen roaming the grounds. Any attempt to speak with them or approach them, they simply vanish into the mansion. Odd doors and gated entrances punctuated the length of the mansion. There was a Gothic, deliberate atmosphere about my home, a sepulchral character to the mass of its wooden buttresses andre treats. Geometrical shapes snatched inexplicably at the eyes. And often one could hear laughter, high-pitched with contempt or teasing mockery that made one hurry on, even though it may be rationalized as the cold wind gusting through the elaborate masonry. The wind whistles in the trees and leaves and wisps of thick mist blow across the farmland. With the trotting of horses and constant sounds of construction, the heart is suddenly racing, and one thinks they hear something behind them. After all, this is an ancient land, a house built by spirits, occupied by ghosts, pixies, goblins and all sort of mythical creatures of the night. Anything is likely to happen. Looking around the interior of the estate, one can discern a deep, foreboding blackness that seems to be following one, as if it is alive and in pursuit. Stepping out into the fruit orchard, the wind suddenly drops and one’s senses are heightened. Indeed, one can hear one’s very heart beating in their chest as they continue to canter forward into the night. The mist becomes thicker, darker, and as one glances furtively from side to side, the darkness of shadows of the orchards hides their secrets, but perhaps you are not alone. Sometimes I tell myself that the scraping sounds at the window is simply a branch being blown in the breeze and the footsteps heard in the hallway are old timbers creaking and groaning with a change in the air or weather. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
If there was something serious going on, the housekeeper and the butler would try to keep it quiet. They might talk together, but they would be tight-lipped in front of me. The clock struck seven. I met Daisy in the dining room. “Aunt Sarah, we all talked. We weren’t meant to,” Daisy said. “We were all talking about it. We didn’t know what to make of it. The body was found on a cold stone passage, that was said to lead directly into the opulent state rooms where you normally conducted meetings.” Not a moment too soon, five housemaid trooped into the dining room. Taking off their white starched aprons, they formed up in a line. The room, echoing with their footsteps and voices, as in a church. The mahogany floor, almost three thousand square feet of it had to be hand polished. It was an onerous task, one of the housemaids least like doing. Bending down, they placed their tins of wax of the floor. “Daisy, it looks like we will have to continue this conversation later,” I said. “Goodnight, Aunt Sarah,” she replied. The maids stooped on their hands and knees, their long black dresses spread out around them. Working in union, they dabbed their clothes in wax; then they rubbed the floor vigorously in quick tight circle. The observation tower staircase was the place the servants feared most. The observation tower sits ominously over the mansion, along with sever distinctive turrets jutting proudly into the skies. Sweeping down to the Guard Room eight floors below, it was the main thoroughfare in the tower. Family portraits adored its walls. The steps, of bare stone—framed by a wrought-iron balustrade, topped by a mahogany rail—were wide and shallow. “We were all scared of the tower’s stairs,” said Elsa. “I was coming down them one evening, halfway down, I felt somebody push me. They were behind me, trying to push me down the stairs. I turned round, and of course there was no one there.” The Winchester Mansion is a land of appealing features seemingly embedded in the sense of a deep-rooted and permanent history that emanates from almost every corner of the land. It has rustic grounds and quaint gardens, a hulking mansion with many towering features, having been fostered over decades to create a comfortable and pleasing landscape that guests recall like their favorite arm chair. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
A number of the male servants, skeptical of ghost as they were, had experienced a similar sensation. “I used to keep an eye on the mansion,” Edvin recalled. “I would walk around the dark with the dogs, no lights on, no torches, or anything. One night, I was coming across the first floor of the tower—and I got up to the stairs and felt hot breath on the back of my neck. I turned round. There was nobody there. But the dogs wouldn’t go any further, their hackles went right up. It was ages before I could get them to move.” I often examined the possibility of evil. I had a notion that evil was communicable. Something that can, as it were, contaminate. However, one must not confuse evil with manifestations. My secret rooms, by their very nature, held the servants in thrall. It was an area that they never entered, never saw or ever knew what went on. It was a place of mystery. The rooms were subjects of wild speculations, fueled by the servants’ fear of me, and their knowledge of my eccentric interests. My servants knew I was fascinated by the occult and this played to their fears. They knew the mansion was haunted and I often had the mediums in. However, they never whether any ghosts or sprits were actually summoned. It went on behind closed doors. Of course, they knew of the ancestral curse. It had been cast in the mid-19th century by a coven of witches. The curse had also been cast over future generations; aimed at Winchester heirs; it determined that the children would die before they reached the age of thirteen and those who survived would be haunted by ghosts and demons. For decades, it had seemed to me and my servants that this was a cruse from which the family could never escape. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
One night, it was shortly before three o’clock in the morning when a shadowy figure, dressed from head to foot in back, crossed the landing of the staircase. The night was cloudless, the moon almost full. There was a blackout and the mansion was shrouded in darkness. The light from the moon set tiny point of balance dancing in the darkened windows. I could hear footsteps moving stealthily across the floor and the occasional cry of an animal from the fields. A headless horseman was riding near the tower. I got out of bed, and turned the corner into a passage in one of the parlors. As the men worked in the hallways, they froze. Coming down the hallway was a pair of green eyes belonging to a child. The eyes were about two or three feet up from the floor, leading me to believe that child was three years old. They eyes simply floated up the hall, and then turned into one of the maid’s room where we lost sight of them. That night I also saw dark shapes. There was a dark shadowy thing flying from the Grand Ball Room to the and down the hallway. Then above the chandelier there were several dark shadowy things. They flew outside, barely illuminating the background of the trees and then were blocked out by an even darker shadow, moving slowly, methodically along the tree line. Meanwhile another shadow ran through the hallway, it was tall. The carpenters looked at each other in suspense. Closing the heavy steel door behind me, I had left the Grand Ball Rom to find my way long the labyrinth passages. A long passage reached into the distance. It was gloomy, lit by only the strip lighting in the display cases that ran along with wall. Ahead was a solid oak door, carved in the Gothic style. Another passage led off to my right, I could see that it branched in two. One end led into a small hall. It was in darkness. “No one goes in there,” a mysterious voice whispered. The spirit gave me a fright. Everyone, it seems, even hardened sceptics and disbelievers, has seen a ghost. For some reason, in the back of their minds, ghosts may be real. Everyone has known the feeling of their heart racing for a second when they see a shadow moving in the corner of their eye or they feel some sort of presence standing over them. Or worse still, a tortured face in a window that paralyses their body and retards their breathing to the point that they can hear the blood pumping around their own body. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I took the left passage. I went on some distance ahead, there was a kink in the passage. A man emerged from it and started waling me. He was wearing knee breaches and a nineth-century coachman’s jacket. As we drew level, he stopped. “Mrs. Winchester, those rooms are forbidden,” he said, “What are you doing in this part of the house?” Once again, he repeated, “Those rooms are forbidden.” I did not want to stop and talk; I was anxious to get back to my room. I assumed that the servants were being proprietorial. Finally, I had made it to my destination sometime later. The bedroom was not dark, because the bright light of a full moon entered through the window. I had just lain down, ready to go to sleep, when I suddenly noticed that I was not on my own. I heard a rasping breath in the darkness only a few feet away. Right in front of the wardrobe and looking directly at me was a middle-aged man, dressed like a Catholic priest. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my arms to make sure I was fully awake Yes, I most certain was. Was I having hallucinations? The priest was still standing there, looking at me. He was a rather frail man with hollow cheeks. His face showed traces of a hard life and illness. If he had any hair at all, it was covered by his hat. He looked so real, not like a ghost. I was not a bit scared, because he radiated vibrations of utter peace and tranquility. There was nothing to be afraid of, so I decided to talk to him keeping my voice as low as possible. “Hello, Father,” I said. “God bless you.” “And God bless you, my child,” came the priest’s prompt reply. He was well-spoken, his voice was soft. His English accent was not hard to distinguish. After giving me a few personal messages and stressing the point that there is survival after death, he told me who he was. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
His name was John Ogilvie, and in had lived in Scotland from 1580 to 1615, he wanted hanged at Glasgow Cross for his faith. When I remarked that at the time of his hanging, he was only 36 years old, he confirmed this. After quietly talking about religious matters for a few moments, he bade me farewell and disappeared. It seems that he refused to pledge allegiance to King James, and it was for this crime that the was tried, found guilty and hanged. After his execution, his followed were apprehended and put in jail. If this was not a genuine case of a visit from beyond the grave, what is it? Most of the time, the mansion is benign. Unfortunately, sometimes people find exactly what they are looking for. I had been in bed half an hour when I heard the music playing softly from my sitting room next door. I listened to the same, faintly relentless song. Starting to sweat and grow cold in bed, I recognized the song. Or I thought I did. And it continued. It wavered through the wall and door frame in strained, distended chords, and choruses, swelling and facing, ragged and persistent. The door was to my right. I pulled back the duvet and got out of bed and walked through the door to the sitting room. Where the music was louder. The must persisted, repetitious, frighting me. As I turned the corner, I discovered that Gerhardt hanged himself from the cross beams. Badly wounded, Mr. Hansen carried to the attic to await medical attention, but he died there. Since that time people have claimed that he haunts the attic room. He has been seen and heard there from time to time. Servants have reported hearing the creaking of a rope and the soft thud of a body swaying against the wall. Though they often look for the source of the sound, they never find it. There is a disheveled, aged specter, bound at feet and hands and rattling chains haunting the basement. A journey through my mansion is a passage through history. A real history, one that you can live and breathe, one that you can feel and be part of. You can walk serenely miles through my mansion, it is a place that inspires contemplation and wonderment. It is a living history, of memories as far back as history recalls. It is a place of myth, legend, of ghosts and ghouls, of giants, and dwarves, mermaids, cupid, another other half-remembered, half-whispered-about creatures. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If a sudden, horrifying death is what it takes to make the spirit linger, surely, this place—is a candidate. Certainly, where men grappled back and forth, engaged not only in the struggle for their own precious lives, but for the life of their respective countries, where in the balance was the future of the very world, and this place produce the mechanism of defense, if that does not qualify for the lingering-place of souls wondering for eternity the outcome of their struggles, then we cannot name a place. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Elusive Crossover from One World to the Next
Handsome he was, majestic even, as everyone said, and full of that smoldering power as only performers of magic possessed, long years ago. Oh, it was such a pain to lose him. It seemed of consequence of the entire Earth. Across the table, I reached for my lemonade with a shaking hand and took a sip. Reminiscing acquired a thirst. When I saw Elsa looking at me, I offered a weak smile before abruptly averting my eyes, and turning my attention back on the gardens. My heart was growing heavier and heavier. The night waned, the tone on the estate was quite strange. I pondered hard on the possibilities—and ramifications—of returning to the past. Some shrugged it off as impossible, since time, as we know it is a continuum and there is no going back…or forward, for that matter. Some say that all time is contained in the past and there is literally no future. Others bode ominously that even our merest presence in the past would disrupt the continuum and set up an entirely new future—where we live now—and change things so that the present is not what it is, perhaps even leading to the possibility that the time traveler in the past might never have been born! Still others claimed that time travel had already been accomplished and proven by sounds of physical laws. Although we are recognized for these magnificent rifles, the Winchester Arms Company also produced household and sporting goods. We had a product line that touched virtually every aspect of American life. Over 6,300 Winchester franchise stores were in existence. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Ordering products through the Winchester mail-order catalog was extremely popular. We manufactured double-raw ball bearings, safety razors, fishing tackle, and a line of tools: hammers, planes, saws, wrenches, flashlights, batteries, ice boxed, locks, scissors, cutlery, tong, meat grinders, paint and varnish, pots and pans—even footballs and bicycles! However, there was also a secret business that the Winchester Arms Company was involved in. Deep in my mansion, we had a super-secret facility which we conducted experiments using rare metals spinning at tremendous speeds in opposite directions. The result was the creation of a field—a torsion field—within whose influence strange things occurred. One thing was the rapid disintegration of life forms within the field’s influence. We experimented mostly with plants. The result, if the torsion field was strong enough, was the disruption or bending of space. And, because of the space-time continuum—a well known and accepted inviolable connection between space and time—if space is bent or distorted, so is time. A slowing or stoppage of time is the result. This whirlpool or vortex is evidence of paranormal energy. The vortex is a tap or connection into time. This paranormal energy not only gave us a vision of the past, but it allowed us to freeze time. That is why the carpenters were able to make this mansion mushroom from an eighteen-room farmhouse into a hundred room Grand Queen Anne Victorian Mansion in the first six months. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Of course, everything has consequences. One night, I stood on the front porch of my house to watch the stars in the sky. As I was gazing at the Heavens, I suddenly got a strange feeling, a feeling that I was in another space, another time. It was almost like I was in the wrong place. There were couples all over the veranda, talking directly to each other, four or five couples. The women were wearing trousers and so were the men. They looked very peculiar. The vision did not last more than a minute, but long enough to see them chattering, laughing, and walking around my home as if it was some sort of circus or museum. The entire scene vanished before my eyes. I paused to collect my thoughts and gather in my emotions. I could feel William’s energy with me. I felt him right next to me. His energy was here, in our very home. It was mid-August of 1890. The housemaid Elsa was doing chores when she noticed a tall man with a long beard and mustache sitting on a bench in the front yard. The man seemed sad, but paid no attention to Elsa. At first Elsa did not think for a moment that this man was anything other than a mortal. However, when she pointed him out to Mr. Hansen, things began to get strange. Mr. Hansen could not see the man despite the fact that he was obvious to Elsa. Elsa looked at Mr. Hanen and then looked back at the man but he vanished. Now she was beginning to wonder if she had imagined him. Elsa mumbled something and went back to work. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Later that day Elsa was walking down the road past a neighbor’s home when she spotted the man again. He was standing near a hired hand working in a field. No one seemed to pay the man any attention. In fact, no one even seemed aware of his presence. While Elsa watched, the man walked away into the fruit orchard, but he did not cause any disturbance. Elsa still clung to the idea what he might be an optical illusion based on where she stood. She convinced herself that she had seen the man again, and this time she would see that he was flesh and blood. Elsa was destined to meet the man again, but this time there was little doubt that when she saw the man sitting on top of the thatched roof of the stable. He seemed to be repairing shingles. The man still did not seem to notice Elsa, so she ran back to fetch the carpenter Mr. Hansen to verify what he saw. However, when they returned the man was gone. As Elsa looked around, she saw him in the doorway of the shed. Mr. Hansen could not see him, but he believed Elsa. He told Elsa Mr. Hansen to ask the man what he wanted. The man returned to the shed, but he paused as Elsa spoke to him. The man answered that he was William Winchester and he was looking for his wife. Then he asked her for help. Astonished by what this handsome made said, Elsa was so stunned that she thought her knees would buckle. She was witnessing a sight that few mortals were privileged to see. This spirit was identical to William Winchester, except he started becoming translucent, and did not bore the ravages of the terrible illness that caused his death. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
What Elsa beheld next was even more startling. The handsome man in white passed right through the wall of the Winchester Mansion with a child’s spirit in his arms. He sat quietly in a chair for several minutes, and faded away. Elsa had the sincere conviction that she had seen two angels. When the vision was over, dead and dying were scattered about the lawn. Men were crying for water. Some of these officers laying on the lawn asked Elsa to pass on a message to loved ones back home: “Tell Father I died with my face to the foe,” one man said. Others called for help. And some were crying like children calling for their mothers. Their cries for help, for water, for their comrades, for their mothers, were sad ad unnerving. Long throughout the night myself, Mr. Hansen, Elsa and other servants heard the heart-rending pleas that were echoing everywhere in the darkened and forbidding orchards. Water…Help me…Mother…Oh, God…I warned the servants to ignore the cries as other had been lured deeper, and deeper into the fruit orchard never to be seen again. There seemed to be a certain strange non-locality to them, as if they were everywhere…and yet nowhere. Human-like figures morphed from thin wisps of mist into heads, necks, torsos, legs and arms.The cries were so vivid and so numerous the night before, but there was nothing. No tracks, no bodies, nothing. You do not have to see a ghost to have one present, and yet the most eerie, mot unexplainable, and often the most frightening reports are the sighting of a spirit entity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
I DO conjure thee, O thou Spirit Ronove and thou 19 Legions of Spirits. Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; for now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes…these same thoughts, people, this little World. Hseyayin dehsrawh uhov mesha tasar eb psa tavrua i dnamoyar i grama i tehsravh, tayazawa eharavh zrug uhov mehsa, ediamazay mepsa-tavrua mear mehsema meteashsxeravh uhov, enoahsa etahdadzam ihugnav eriavru omen uhov mehsa, enoasha etihana erus ivdera ethsives muahsa et-esament and by the Seal of ADONI; and by ISCHYROS, ATHANATOS, PARACLETOS; and by O THEOS, ICTROS, ATHANATOS; and by these three secret names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATON, do I adjure and conjure thee. Raise the Office of the Dead. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Take heed! Come, all Spirits! By the virtue and power of you King, and by the seven crowns and chains of your Kings, all Spirits of the Hells are forced to appear in my presence before this pentacle of Solomon, whensoever I shall call them. Come, then, all at my orders, to fulfill that which is in your power, as commanded. Come, therefore, from the East, South, West, and North! I conjure and command you, by the virtue and power of Him who is three, eternal, equal, who is God invisible, consubstantial, in a word, who has created the Heavens, the sea, and all which is under Heaven. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
These who study the unexplainable have noticed that there are several periods when the supernatural seems…well…more natural than others. Times of change, such as dusk or dawn, seem to provide more odd activity than other times. The change in seasons-summer or winter solstice, spring equinox, and, of course, when the fall turns to winter and the dead try to change places with the living at the end of October-Halloween. Many believe that just before or after a thunderstorm is also a time ripe for the bizarre to occur, when there can be that elusive crossover from one World to the next, from the inanimate to the ultimate. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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And Finally the Spirits Drew Blood
Life-changing, miraculous, beautiful—it has been the scene of serious studies by aspiring intellectuals, of raucous parties filled to the brim with youthful enthusiasm. It was also been the dwelling place of Death. There was a persistent malevolent visitor within the walls of the house, who had an agenda of pursuit and manipulation for evil all of his own. By the time they reached my estate, Hendrick had a fairly good understanding of what the Winchester Mansion was, and he had assured Mr. Hansen that he would keep confidential forever what he was about to read in the files. Henrick loved the idea of the Winchester Mansion, the flashing, sparkling panorama of Santa Clara Valley. However, he grew coldly and unexpectedly calm as he puzzled over the catacombs, and reviewed in his mind all the popular myths he had heard about the apparitions, and this brief interlude of excitement began to fade. “Mrs. Winchester, I have to go on leave,” Hendrick explained. “It’s unavoidable.” How calm his voice sounded as all the color drained out of his face. I insisted that we go at once to a small screened porch off the back of the second story, and there, overlooking a formal garden with miles of green grass and fountains, we could sit down to eat. However, Hendrick insisted that he had to leave at once. Mr. Hansen showed him to the door. The atmosphere began to change. I felt a whisper of fresh air on my face. The floor suddenly veered precipitously upward. Tiny drops of blood began to fall from the ceiling. Rappings shook the walls. Then a large butcher knife appeared and menacingly headed in our direction. When ran into the morning room, and all the chairs therein fell over and danced about noisily. “The spirits are angry,” said Mr. Hansen. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I felt light-headed, intoxicated by the danger. There were noises, a myriad of them and terror-filled cries of the wounded and dying echoing long and pitifully into the night; disembodied rumblings from artillery, and even more mysterious, unidentifiable rustling in the darkness just behind my shoulder. Several knives and a large glass paperweight were thrown at us by invisible intruders, narrowly missing our heads. “Do angels really lack knowledge of the heart?” I asked Mr. Hansen as I wept. There was the dark melee, horrifying screams in the night. Night was always a time of icy fear and apprehension. It must stem from our most primal subconscious. It can bring sudden death. And sleep, if it should come, steals consciousness, our last warning system and makes us more vulnerable to Earthly creatures who would do us harm. Or to other entities not of this Earth with perhaps the same ambition. Perhaps sleep was the main portal through which ghosts came into our lives. I felt Mr. Hansen’s brown eyes sweep across my face. He shook his head. There was something about the translucent moon that gave me the impression he was made of air or water, rather than blood and bone. I looked at him more closely, scared that he might have slipped away. But he was still there. “I feared you had…” “Not yet,” Mr. Hansen said, reading my mind. Around and around the room an unexplainable jingling went, pausing first in one corner, then at another wall, until the sound was right next to us. Then it became a plopping sound like water dripping. We were being troubled by entities that seemed set upon us by a curse of black magic. Suddenly, a hooded figure appeared and was moving about the house. It appeared to be the image of a man with thinning white hair on the sides, and bald at the top. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
There were secret passageways in the mansion, hidden from view. The tiniest opening in the mahogany walls lead to tunnels, hiding places, a labyrinthine sequence of passageways and caverns. As we entered a secret passageway to escape the ghost, I heard a whole bunch of voices whispering, but I could not understand them. They were all jumbled together. As we walked along the pathway, Mr. Hansen said my name right in my ear, and when I turned to look at him, he was gone. The voice was a demon voice: throaty, hoarse and very mean. It said to me, “Sarah, show yourself to me!” I could not actually pinpoint the exact location the voice had come from. But there was a black, floating swirling mass, about four feet high and three feet wide. It unnerved me so much that I feld the catacombs, and as I came out where the dining room was, something hit the wall with such a force that it knocked down several of the paintings. It looked like there had been an earthquake. And I was about to fall. However, something grabbed the collar of my collar of my shirt, and pulled me back to safety. No apparition could be seen, but the collar of my shirt had been pulled back. It was midnight when I went back to my room in the north wing. I rose early the next morning. Drawing back the curtain, then I saw a dark shadow of a woman entering my home. I could hear the dark figure ascending up their stairs and towards my room. The footsteps and voices got louder. The shadow of the woman appeared in the doorway to the room I was in. It disappeared as quickly as it manifested. I felt a cold wind pass by me, and the curtains closed and billowed as a shadowy figure. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
I decided to stay in my room until I fell asleep. Not only did I lock the door, but I put a chair against the door as an added safety measure from intruders. Late into the night, I was awakened by the loud rattling of the door and the chair. Frighteningly, the sound came from inside the room and not outside the door. It was as if someone was trying to get outside the room, not in. The room was dimly illuminated by a faint, green-glowing light. On the wall hangs a mirror, into which the light casts its luminescence. In a semi-awakened state, I gazed into the mirror and saw the reflected light begin to take the shape of a woman dressed in a beautiful dress. As I continued to stare at the apparition in the mirror, she was suddenly accompanied by a man dressed as a cavalry man, complete with high cavalry boots. How long I had been sitting in bed, I scarcely know; I had been half meditating, half dozing, mixing broken snatches of thought with brief glimpses of dreaming, when I was startled into wakefulness by a sound that was strange to me. As I opened my eyes, the sun risen. I inspected the chair and found that somehow it had been pulled out, away from the door about an inch. I stood transfixed. When suddenly my entire body flew back, and on to the floor. My eyes rolled into the back of my head. Mr. Hansen and Ersula overheard the commotion and burst into the room. “Mrs. Winchester, are you okay, where have you been?!” Ersula demanded as she and Mr. Hansen lifted me off the floor. “You are as pale as a ghost!” he said. “Never mind the sal volatile,” I said at last. “I am not ill; I have been startled, that is all.” Even now, I get the chills thinking about that night. I do believe there was something evil in the house. I have been quite reluctant to tell about the hauntings, for most people just do not want to know the truth about what is out there. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The spinning in my head slowed and then finally stopped altogether. As the last chime of the clock struck ten, I came downstair to the reception area. I felt my heart expand with the beauty of the same old World but seen through new eyes. Glancing out the skylight, a white winter sun hung low in the sky and it was bright but cold. A bird was singing. My plans for construction where castles in the air, dreams of sliver days. Places where I could spend countless dusks watching the sun sinking down into the Earth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. A flash of blue, perhaps. I could not tell. A shiver crept down my spine. For a moment, I stood motionless. Everyone looked very dead now, very empty. There was no odor yet, but they were dead. The rigidity of Ersula’s face absorbed me. The body of Hendrick on the floor was dry and wrinkled. Not even murmuring melodies to myself of the songs I most liked to play meant anything to me. In my ears, I heard a din as if the imps of Hell were making a horrid music to drive me out of my mind. I whispered to myself to silence it. Shortly after discovering the bodies, I heard muffled voices and noises on the second floor, followed by a sharp crash. I rushed up stairs to find a large painting in the hallway had been flung violently across the hall into a freshly painted wall. The wall had been damaged by the force of the crash. I was terrified to hear the wails of a baby coming from the wall. Petrified, I remained on the second floor with the terrible cries until carpenters began a search and found me. Nearly incoherent when I was taken to my chamber, I told the carpenters about hearing the baby cry. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Emperor Lucifer, Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, please appear instantly. I command thee to surrender me the nearest treasure, and I promise thee as a reward the first piece of gold or silver which I touch with my hands on the first day of every month. Such is my demand. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, O Lord! And I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. I Do invocate and conure thee, O Prince of the Rebellious Spirits; and being with power armed from the SUPREME MAJESTY, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachidae, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. And being armed with power from the SUPREME MAJESTY, I do strongly command thee, by Him Who spake and it was done, and unto whom all creatures be obedient. Also I, being made after the image of GOD, endued with power from GOD and created according unto HIS will, do exorcise thee by that most mighty and powerful name of God, EL, strong and wonderful; O thou Emperor Lucifer. And I command thee and Him who spake the Word and His Fiat was accomplished, and by the names of God. Also by the names of AFONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHI, EHYEH, ASHER EHYEH, ZABOTH, ELION, IAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, SHADDAI, LORD GOD MOST HIGH. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that which I shall desire. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Something awakens you from a fitful sleep. You roll over in your bed and there, right at the foot of it, is a misty shape resembling a human. However, its features are hazy, unclear. The dress it wears is recognizable, but from an era long past, and it is tattered, as if it had spent too much time hanging in a closet, or lying in the damp mustiness of a coffin. The figure is, at first, an object of curiosity, since you immediately assume you are dreaming. However, its tendril-like arms begin to wave, to move towards you—no, to beckon you—and the face twists into the mockery of a smile. Now you begin to panic as you realize-despite your hoping it is not true—that you are fully awake, that this is no dream and there is no explanation for the horrid sight before you, except that it is real, in all its dead splendor. It is well known that, possessions, apparitions, and other supernatural intrusions have occurred what is now known as The Winchester Mystery House.
There is No One Who Could Help Now?
I turned away astonished to see that in the few moments we had been talking, dusk had stolen the remnants of the day. Time always did seem to pass differently in my home. As we clattered down the corridor, I glanced into the rooms where the doors stood open. All were empty. There were no sounds of conversation, of caretakers going about their duties. Mr. Hansen stopped in front of a high wooden desk at the foot of the stairs. I caught the smell of beeswax polish, a sharp reminder of the back stairs leading up to the attic of the witches cap. We walked on the staircase, until I stopped in front of a paneled door and unlocked it. “I will have the fire made up,” Mr. Hansen said. The room was bone chillingly cold, though it was clean. I lit the oil lamps from the candle, and looked around. A small writing table and chip and dale arm chair sat adjacent to the door. Straight ahead, two tall windows, floor to ceiling, filled one side of the room. On the opposite side of the room was a heavy chest of gold, covered by a lace runner. When Mr. Hansen returned, I said, “Dearest Jim, will you please open that chest, there is something inside of it for you and your family.” Mr. Hansen eagerly walk over to the chest, and his eyes lit up like a new born baby having his first birthday cake. “Go ahead, Mr. Hansen, it is for you.” “No, Mrs. Winchester; I can well believe it. But this is a treasure I can live on for years. Only you must tell me how I can repay you…In a hundred years I could never do enough for you,” he said. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Well, that word went to my heart; but for a minute I did not know how to answer. For it was true I had risked my soul, and that was something he could not pay me for; but then maybe I had saved his, in getting him away from those foul people, so the whole business was more of a puzzle to me than ever. However, then I had thought that made me easier. Mr. Hansen went on to explain to me, “Well, Mrs. Winchester, the day before yesterday, I was with my young son; the poor young man, without health or hope, lying sick in a mean rooming house. Until now, I had no way to know how I would care for him.” Mrs. Winchester sat up in bed in a flutter of pity. “Oh, Mrs. Hansen, how dreadful! Why did you never tell me? You must hire a better room for him at once. Has he a doctor? Has he a nurse? Quick—give me my checkbook!” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester. But you have already given me a king’s ransom.” When I got back to my room after a long, hot soak in the bath, a fire was burning in the grate, releasing an aroma of pine resin into the room. The smell snapped at my heartstrings, taking me back to New Haven winters when William was home from work. I gazed into the fire awhile longer, happy in my own company. I sometimes wondered if some of those grizzled old souls were able to make the journey from New Haven to Santa Clara. My home seemed to add so much to the ambience of the area. However, unlike the Earth, this huge estate seemed to need people within it to survive. That is one of many reasons my construction project went on so long. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Have you ever noticed how houses, as long as they have someone occupying them, no matter how little maintenance is done, always hold up better than houses that are abandoned? Houses, like a body which the soul has abandoned, deteriorate more rapidly when on one resides within. One evening in the cooling fall of the year, Mr. Hansen and his wife left the caretaker’s house on the estate for a social function. The son of Mr. Hansen was home alone. He was in the basement which was used as a recreation room. It was getting late and her was expecting his parents any minute. Sure enough, he heard footsteps on the floor above his head. They traveled across the living room and into the dining room and back again. He thought it unusual that his father and mother would be in the house walking around for nearly a minute and not call him. He walked to the stairs that led from the basement to the first floor and called out, “Daddy?” The only answer was the sound of footsteps crossing the room and beginning to ascend the stairs to the second floor. “Daddy?” he called again. With still no answer, he began to slowly climb the stairs from the basement to the first floor. He could hear what he was convinced was an intruder walking through the bedrooms just above his head, apparently looking for something valuable. The footsteps crossed the second floor just above his head and began approaching the stairs and descend to the first floor. He rushed into the basement again. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Wanting to run but not wanting to run into whoever it was who prowled above his head, he could only wait in icy apprehension for his parents. As he waited, the intruder stalked the floor above him, apparently not interested in valuables, seeking something known only to him. His wanderings became more aimless. First to the kitchen, then back to the living room, then the dining room—pacing…pacing—to perhaps peer out a window at the fruit orchard. The ancient floorboards that once soaked up blood of those killed by the Winchester rifle, groaned with the wandering footfall of an apparently lost intruder. Slowly the footsteps approached the cellar steps…he swore he heard him put a foot on the top step. Ghosts supposedly went out of fashion when electric light came in. What nonsense! The supernatural were always around on my estate. My very mansion was patrolled by headless victims with clanking chains, and even though it was a comfortable house with an ice box and 47 fireplaces where you feel, as soon as you are in it, that there is something wrong, it sends chills down your spine! It is certainly a lovely, airy, high-ceilinged house with electricity, but I knew we were dealing with something that was invisible and could not be seen—something that was very malevolent. I often saw a boy with glowing eyes near the 7-11 staircase. But here I belonged and here I would stay. There morning had been bitter, with a driving sleet—though it was only the last day of October—but after lunch a watery sun showed for a while through banked-up wooly cloud and tempted me out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
I was an energetic walker, and given, at that season, to walking about the beautiful grounds. I made my usual round, and was following the path back to the mansion when I overtook a plainly-dressed woman walking in the same direction. When I caught up with the intruder, I was surprised to find she was a stranger. It was almost dark, and the woman’s face was hardly visible, but this woman was middle-aged, plain and rather pale. I greeted her, and then added: “You are going to my house?” “Yes, ma’am,” the woman answered, in a voice that the Connecticut Valley in the old days would have called “foreign.” I could not say where she came from. What struck me as queer was that I did not know her. I asked the woman, politely, what she wanted, and the woman answered: “Only to see Annie.” The answer was natural enough, but there was no one by that name on my estate. I turned off from the drive to the lower part of the gardens, so that I saw no more of the visitor then or afterward. And, in fact, half hour later something happened which put the stranger entirely out of my mind. I approached my house, slipped on a froze puddle, turned my ankle and lay suddenly helpless. Elroy, the butler, and Ersula the housemaid, knew exactly what to do. In no had me stretched out on a lounge, and Dr. Parker had been notified. When he arrived, he ordered me to bed, and did the necessary examining and bandaging, and shook his head over my ankle, which he feared was fractured. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Concerned about how I would get around my estate, as I was laying in bed, the spirit gave me an idea of building mini stairs that rose only two inches, so I could make it around, until I healed without being bound in plaster. From that night on, there was an appearance of ghost, who would manifest in front yard, walk up to the house and enter it, and interact with me. My home brought me deeper and deeper into a mysterious territory whose boundaries I had never before dream of transgressing. Ghosts often took shape right before my eyes. They would start off as tendrils and grow into glowing, mistlike things. Turning into orbs, the figures would grow larger and denser and began to assume a humanlike form. One evening, I extended my hand into the mist, and could feel its cold interior. Such a bold act may have been considered very rude by the entity, as the glowing image suddenly vanished. There were plenty of vibrations in my mansion to tune into. The place was drenched with psychic vibrations. In my Blue Séance Room is where the glowing lights and ethereal broadcast were received well enough that caretakers were aware of their presence. They would morph into columns of light about the height of a man and make their trek out of the room. One night Ersula reported seeing ghostly face looking through the window at her one night. The ghost then chased her hands away from the cows during an evening milking. The following morning, it was about nine o’clock before I admitted to myself that something uncommonly strange must have happened in the house. Mysterious things—dreadful things—were associated with darkness; and the wholesome prosaic daylight had not come to banish there. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I conjure thee, O Spirit Pheynix, and your 20 Legions of Spirits, by all the most glorious and efficacious Names of the Great and Incomparable Lord the God of Hosts, come quickly and without delay, from whatsoever part of the World thou art in; make rational answers to our demands; please come visibly, speak affably, speak intelligibly to our understanding. We conjure and constrain thee, O Spirit Pheynix and your 20 Legions of Spirits, as also by these seven other Names wherewith Solomon bound thee and thy fellows in the brazen vessel, to wit, ADONAI, PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEX-HEXETON, INESSENSATOAL, PATHUMATON, and ITEMON; do thou manifest in the Winchester Mansion, fully our will in all things that they may seem good to us. Come, therefore, in the Holy Names ADONAI, ZEBAOTH, AMIORAM, come, ADONAI commands thee. Please grants us your powers and virtues by the powers and virtues, and by the name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whose host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit of Sarah L. Winchester here before to return to her mansion, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to herself or any creature, that she many continue to expand and make her estate thrive, so that she accomplished her desired end, whatsoever it be, provided that it is proper to her office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. Please appear and make the sweet perfumes, give good entertainment. May all the Company of Heaven, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Light of Hosts of Heaven guide you back to your estate by the power of TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEXHEXETON, PRIMEMATUM. So bless it be. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If such peculiar manifestations as orbs and ghosts should be as intelligent as their actions often indicate, just what are they and what is their purpose? We have folklore that is at least 2,000 years old that equates these mysterious globes of light with spirits of the dead and with those beings we label nature spirits—the Devas, the elves, and the fairies. The manipulation of glowing balls of light as a means of transportation may even be employed by angelic beings and spirit guides. Indeed, these benevolent beings may take form as ghosts of light before fully materializing in our dimension. These orbs seen in the Winchester Mansion are intelligent and may be able to manifest a physical appearance that is most compatible with the level of understanding of each individual witness.
These were Mrs. Winchester’s carpenters on the estate. One of these gentleman has been spotted inside the house by both guests and tour guides for decades! He is usually seen fixing the fireplaces and rolling around his wheelbarrow in the basement. Can you guess which one he is? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/ 👻
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Angels and Demons, Gargoyles and Ghostly Apparitions
Except for William, the idea of love to me always seemed a question of submission. Of giving in to some powerful emotion, of losing control. Poor souls. However, with my beloved William, love seemed a natural thing, something one did not even need to remark upon, like breathing or raising one’s face to the sun on a summer’s day. It is no matter now, for he passed away years ago, and all I ask is to be left alone in my chair. Money has been an armor, you see; and there are few cracks in it. But William had a loving nature, if only others had show him love. He was a delicate boy when he was little, so his mother could curl him up, and put him into black velvet pants, like that boy in the book—little Lord Something. However, when his legs grew out of the pants, and they sent him to school, she said he was not her own little cuddly baby any more; and it riles a growing boy to hear himself talked about like that. It was like being pushed out of an illuminated ballroom, all flowers and chandeliers, into the winter night and snow. Yet, Mr. Winchester grew up into a fine man and that is why I married him. He used to go over and see his mother now and again; or she would come home for the holidays. And he used to take her out for lunch, or to dance at those cabaret places; and when the headwaiters adore his mother’s beauty and charm, he would talk about it for a week. For a time she used to get some comfort out of telling me about her early triumphs; and I used to listen to her patiently, taking notes on how to be a good wife and mother. You must not think of her as an unkind woman. She was friendly to her husband, and friendly to her children, but she knew she had to raise William to be tough and strong. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
There were always people prowling about in the background that she did not like the look of; people, you understand, who live on weak people. There is nothing more I can say. Reflecting of these memories was nice. It allowed me to sleep all day and into the evening. Or, rather, I drifted in and out of twilight state. I was aware of the housemaids and the parlor maids coming and going, shapes, blurred faces, the sound of kindlin and a striking match, the maid laying a fire. I work fully only twice. First, when Ersula placed a bowl of soup and bread beside the bed and waited until I had eaten it all. The second time, when she returned to administer a second draft of the bitter white medicine, a sleeping draft or some kind of traditional remedy, I never knew and hardly cared. My skin was alternatively burning and clammy with sweat. I tossed and turned in bed, like a ship on a storm-wracked sea, plagued by dreams and delusions. Angels and demons, gargoyles and ghostly apparitions, long-since deserted friends waltzed in and out of my head. For hours, so Ersula later told me, things hung in the balance as my temperature climbed as high as the nine-story observational tower. Certainly, I oscillated between beauty and horror. A skeletal hand pushing up from beneath freshly turned Earth, blossoms dying on the bough. The back of Annie’s heads, impassive and deaf to my consoling up her upset tummy. William smiling at me, in the orchard and by the stream, but then stepping just out of reach and turning away when I called out to him. Barbed wire and mud and blood, chlorine gas, a World of unimaginable pain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Nearly 175,000 men—jamming the streets and roads and field of my estate, attempting to tear each other apart, and in doing so, leaving anywhere from 44,000 to 51,000 casualties behind, to be cared for immediately after the battle by a handful of doctors, orderlies, and the servants of my estate, and my mansion metamorphosing into one vast charnel-house. To day the least, my tidy rooms, barns, and farmhouses, and Victorian gardens were overflowing with men who were seriously hurt and badly needed shelter from the elements. These horrors seemed to last for weeks. The fever broke at about three o’clock in the morning. My temperature dropped. I stopped shaking and my skin, sticky with fever, returned to normal. For the first time in hours, I was able to get out of bed. In the still and sleeping house, I could hear the whirring and chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs. A ribbon of moonlight made its way between the shutters and painted a line across the floor. I watched the moonbeams dance, slowly shifting, as the hours passed and the World continued to turn. I walked through the hallway, looking through a couple of doorways and back into the original section of the house when I noticed a fresh-countenanced young man standing and watching the goings-on with a peculiar look on his face. The more I watched him, the more I saw it was a look of wanting to come out of the Grand Ball Room. Catching his eye, I motioned for the young man to come join me for a cup of tea. He just stood there and stared, the expression on his face becoming even more painted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Then it dawned on me that he was a ghost, and he was stuck in the old part of the house and could not leave the Grand Ball Room. With an understanding shrug, he turned away from the door and walked further into the room to join the other apparitions. I stood back with my eyes closed, and a quiet smile on my face. By this time, the sky was a mass of teal and fuchsia. At first it looked like a kite-flying contest, the could over my mansion obstructed by swooping streaks of color that danced on the air currents, trailing multi-hued streamers behind them. Then I heard the chirping cacophonous twittering like an orchestra of xylophones. As I looked further through the skylights, I realized that the kites’ long tails were really feathers, and they were not tethered to the ground by strings. A flock of birds, what seemed like hundreds of them, painted the air with wings the color of the rainbow, dipping and soaring on air currents visible only to them. I could barely take my eyes off the flock. I wished the birds would stay forever: They were like an elaborately painted scene on a China teacup, and their chirping filled me with the kind of inexplicable joy that I had felt as a child, climbing onto my mother’s lap and smelling the faint scent of her jasmine perfume after a long day of play. The birds, as if acting on an invisible signal from above, formed two loose lines and soared higher, heading towards Heaven. I wished I could fly with them, borne along on whatever invisible breeze they had ridden in on. The birds had stirred something powerful in me, mysterious symphony of joy and emotion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It must have been some kind of European sorcery and magic. And, there seemed to be something else in the atmosphere. Around 5.45 a.m., I heard what sounded like for all the World, a small child. It came from further down the hallway, and I walked curiously down towards where the sound seemed to be coming from, the sound moved into the living room. I followed, and it kept moving and cooing at a distance of what I estimated was about six feet in front of me. As I got to the living room, the cooing baby moved on into the next room, the kitchen. I stood in the living room and rationalized for a moment. The lights from outside the mansion were spilling into the room, and it slowly occurred to me that if the baby had been playing, I would surely have seen her cross the room between the hall and the kitchen. I listened to the cute baby sounds in the next room, and a chill went down my spine. I now had no idea what I was dealing with. The cooing faded within the next moment, and I backed down the hall, ducking into the Alice in Wonderland room and, of course, there was no one in the room, but the tiny rocking chair was swaying back and forth. A few nights later, I was up in the middle of the night. I was in complete darkness. No windows in the room, no light, just darkness. Suddenly, from the area to my left, which would have been the bathtub, I heard very clearly—sharp and loud enough to make me jump—a voice shout, “Belly Ache!” The voice was that of a little girl, but there was something sweet and warm about the voice, like the voice of an angel. I pushed the button to turn on the light. Nothing. Not that I found the matter unfathomable. Quite frequently, I saw the figure of a little girl moving up and down the hall past my bedroom door during the night. She has a soft, blue glow. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
For week, I lie awake at night, thinking this could be my beloved Annie. I waited and waited, night after night to see her again and perhaps talk with her, but she did not return. However, the bathtub faucet leaked and dripped fairly on occasion. I lay in bed, listening to the drip. It had developed a steady rhythm, as drips will. Suddenly, the rhythm changed. The drip sound changed in pitch, and it literally played a tune. It was the Highland Fairy Lullaby. The temperature in the room dropped, and I could clearly hear the sound of a little girl playing with her doll. She was singing a tuneless little song, the kind of melodic chat that was common among young children, especially little girls at play. From time to time, she would interrupt the humming of her sing-song to speak lovingly to her doll, and then she would call rather loudly to her mother that she had a tummy ache. However, there was no response from the mother, and she would return to playing with her doll and singing. I could almost see the little girl dressing her doll, combing its beautiful hair. From that night on, I would awake in the middle of the night or in the morning and hear the little girl calling for her mother. Once I had thoroughly searched the house and determined that it must be the sound of some lost and confused spirit-child, eternally singing and occasionally calling for her mother, or perhaps it was some kind of ethereal phonograph, eternally reproducing the sounds of a little girl. For some, this haunting might be considered a nightmare, but for me, it reminded me of the death of my six-week-old daughter, and it gave me hope that she was still near me, in my house growing and aging, even if she were only a spirit. I took these as signs from the spirit World and had a bird aviary constructed with exotic birds from all over the World, and invited my niece Daisy to live with me. Someone I could be a mother to. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I invoke, conjure, and command thee, Spirit Botis, and your 60 Legions of Spirits to bring with you power armed from the Supreme Majesty, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHINENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachide, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. Magic forces, black and white, reaching out through space and light, be he far or be he near, brings us the demon Balthazar here. Ancient powers, we summon thee, we the power of three and seek your help in finding the demons who are in the Winchester Mansion. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that magic running through this estate, help us see with clarity, power that we have summoned here, protect us and we will have no fear. Throne having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Mighty Wisdom of God; by the Seal of Basdathea, by this name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou make faithful answers unto all our demands and perform all our desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which we desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice, that we may understand. TETRAGRAMMATON IEHOVAH, do I command three, at which being heard the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea runneth back, the fire is quenched, the Earth trembleth, and all the hosts of the celestials, terrestrials, and infernals do tremble together, and are troubled and confounded. Wherefore come thou, O Spirits Sarah, William, and Annie Winchester, forthwith, and without delay, from any or all parts of the World wherever thou mayest be, and make rational answers unto all things that we shall demand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
A thin door indeed it is between life and death: one moment young and full of future, the next lying wounded in some stranger’s house in a small farm-town, the following instant forever lost and wandering in eternity. Could it be the vital spark, the spirit of not only souls killed by the Winchester rifle, but also members of the Winchester family that still search for the youth they lost, roaming the miles of hallways in the Winchester Mansion for all of eternity? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Good-by; You’ll Never Know What This Has Cost Me
Mr. Hansen had never been able to understand why there was any harm in giving people a little encouragement when they needed it. Sitting back in my comfortable armchair by the fire, I thought to myself, “You would be surprised to find how discouraged the grand people get, in these big houses with all the help, and silver dinner plates, and a bell always handy if the fire wants poking, or the pet dog asks for a drink.” It was then that I first became aware of a disturbance in the air. A kind of restlessness. I looked sharply around the front parlor, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was deserted. No one had come along for some time. Yet there was a suggestion of movement nonetheless, a shifting of the light from the chandelier. The drapes loomed more menacingly and the fire appeared even closer, as I glanced out of window, my yard looked like an ancient forest of evergreen. What secrets did they contain within their shadows? My heart skipped a beat. I opened the window. The silence surged around me. Again, nothing. And inside—no telltale footsteps or voices. Only later, did it occur to me that the silence was peculiar. I should have been able to hear something. The roar of the furnaces, or the belching chimneys. The sound of the carpenters hammering. The servants washing dishes in one of the kitchens. However, I was only aware of the silence. Silence, as if I were the only one left alive on my estate. Then I heard it. No, not heard. I sensed it. A whispering, almost like a singing. The others have slipped away into darkness. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I heard the ghost of Mr. Winchester’s voice inside my head, though it was growing fainter with the passing years. However, this was different, a lighter sound, gentle and exquisite, carried on the cold air. A reverberation, and echo of words once spoken in this place? And what of the crimson mist on arising from the floor? On these cold winter nights, it was not unusual to hear the clanking like a bucket, and the shuffling of feet. When I looked over toward the kitchen, there was a man—or something—dressed in a long white coat, all bent over like he was tired or something, slowly walking toward the door-to-nowhere. He was filling up the buckets using the exterior water faucets on the second floor that were used to water my flower boxes. He seemed to walk right out the door and to the front of the house, but there was nothing supporting him. Then he watered the flowers and walked slowly back into the house, real tired- like. And almost suddenly vanished. There were spirits caught forever in the never-ending labor to keep this estate operating. Perhaps these were visions out of time making their journey into the eternal flame as well as into Eternity itself. However, every July 2, officers could be frequently seen in the dim moonlight, in the Victorian garden, dressed in their gray tunics and gold stars and wreath, gathering around the fountains, mixing fine bourbon with the clear water, and toasting to the next day’s victory or death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Summer nights always tended to be a little eerie. In the dark, the estate at best, is an uncomfortable place to be. The tragic memories and sorrows of a nation’s struggle defending the hour of the country with their Winchester Rifle’s hanged heavily and seemed magnified in the night. There is always something moving in the fruit orchards or the grass just off the unlighted portions of the estate. It all makes the Other World all that much closer. Sometimes one could even hear the strange military noises emanating from the 740 acres of land I own, and the fallen faces of the slaughtered. Desperate orders shouted…steel rammers ringing in muskets…the clicking of hammers cocked…the hoarse trill of a bugle…the clacking of artillery chains…a roar…shrieks…men gagging, crying, screaming, moaning, moaning, moaning….and there is often heard the funeral call, mounrful apologies of a heartsick, dying warrior to a lost friend bemoaning a fateful decision to be regretted down the ages. Although we had transitioned into summer, there was just an endless expanse of cold on these nights. Memories would seep into my mind. My Daisy Bedroom. Candles burned out. Me crying in the dark, jolted awake by bad dreams and calling out for my infant daughter who passed away long too soon. Then Mr. Winchester, sitting at the end of my bed, opening the curtains to let the silver moon in, saying there was nothing to be afraid of. How nothing could hard me. Not even a curse. How I was a Winchester, invincible and courageous. Nothing could get me as long as I kept building. And with William by my side, I believed it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
So I talked to myself to keep my spirit up. I was in no actual physical danger, I said. It was just a matter holding on to my nerved. Still, fragments of life flashed into my mind and out. Broken images of my husband and daughter, photographs of our happy days. Memories of Mr. Winchester. And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow coming to meet him. Had he recognized the moment for what it was? Whispering, I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the walls. “She is the last, the last, the heiress.” Heard howling from the walls. Sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching on the floors, and a terrible weeping. I worked hard to turn this mansion into something beautiful. Having evergreen trees planted and a variety of flowers. I even remodeled a room with attractive redwood walls, and another with floor to ceiling glass panels that provided a 180-degree view of the estate. I smiled when I saw the perennials that I had planted. However, a number of other peculiar incidents began to convince me that I was being visited by discarnate entities. I always knew I was being haunted. But now I was catching fleeting glimpses of fast-moving shadows from time to time when I would least expect to see such a thing. There would often be smells of delicate perfume. Mr. Hansen thought it was closer to a man’s cologne. Sometimes we encountered the scent together, but in every instance it came and drifted away after only a few minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once, when I was outside tending the flowers growing under the front windows, and I was suddenly enveloped in an invisible puff of strong cigar smoke. Then I was choking, coughing. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the smoke away from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, I saw the daisies with drops of blood on them, glittering and yet dull at the same time. I propelled myself into a standing position, and walked towards the front doors. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get those doors shut. When I looked in the mirror, I was not injured at all. That night while I was falling asleep, I sensed a large, dark presence in the bedroom. It glided over me and seemed to hover just over my head, and I was the recipient of a telepathic command: “I want to know your thoughts!” After I fell asleep, I experienced horrific nightmares. I was awakened by the sounds of terrific crashes, as though something huge had fallen over somewhere in the house, causing terrible damage. Thanks to the stocks I owned and the ones I bought in Con Edison, I was able to keep building rooms to evade the ghosts. Do you know how it is, sometimes when you are doing a bit of fine darning, sitting by the window in the afternoon; and one minute it is full daylight, and your needle seems to find the way of itself; and the next minute you say: “Is it my eyes? because the work seems blurred; and presently you see it is the daylight going, stealing away, softlike, from your corner, though there is plenty left overheard. Well—it is the way it is with these ghosts around.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Most nights, screaks could be heard emanating from within the walls. Then everything would be stripped of color, an absence and shade. Fog hovered motionless from the ceiling. And it would come again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want from me?” But the fog, the apparition, had vanished. After the Spanish-America War, all the fine ladies took to running to the mediums and the clairvoyants, or whatever the stylish folk call them. The women had to have news of their men; and they were maid to pay high enough for it…Oh, the stories I used to hear—and the price paid was not only money, either! There was a fair lot of swindlers and blackmailers in the business, there was. I always had a way of seeing things; from the cradle, even. I do not mean reading the tea leaves, or dealing the cards. No, no; I mean, feeling there are things about you, behind you, whispering over your shoulder. I felt more and more sorry for those women that the soothsaying swindlers were dragging the money out of for a pack of lies; and one day I could not stand it any longer, and though I knew the Church was against it, when I saw one lady nearly crazy, because for months she had no news of her boy at the front, I said to her: “If you will come over to my place tomorrow, I might have a word for you.” And the wonder of it was that I had! For that night I dreamt a message came saying there was good news for her, and the next day, sure enough, she had a telegram telling her her son was coming home. And that August, the war ended. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
One is confronted finally with the metaphysics of time: is it merely linear; are we moving along it like riding a train on a track and all that happens, once it occurs, is forever gone? Or can that time be bent, as some prominent theoretical physicists of the late 19th and 20th centuries have said, so that we may run into it again? Or, can an event go out in more directions than just backward, carried on time like ripples from a stone throw in a pond, occasionally under very special circumstances in very special places, returning like a faint echo? Is it possible that the bigger the event the larger the ripples and the more likely they are to return? Or perhaps is it possible, if time can be bent, or the ripples move slowly enough, to catch up with events again, and again, and again? Come tour the Winchester Mystery House and perhaps you will find some hidden clues. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Randolph Harris II International 