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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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And the Cold Was Back—Much Worse than Before!
I strolled through my pretty garden, bleak in winter, which perfectly matched my mood. I paused, as I always did, at the Cupid fountain. Just behind the fountain, a corridor of gaunt fir and black pine led to the wrought-iron gate. The stone tips of carved angels’ wings and Christian crosses guarded my estate and the peaks of my thirteen palm trees were just visible above the high walls. I thought to myself, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.” It was one of my favorite lines from Macbeth Act V, Scene ix. In this World, people purposefully create life’s counterfeit realities, and that is where so many feel most at home…where humans may transfigure themselves convincingly into characters who live only when the play’s on in their mind, and they act it out a daily life. I hesitated to go inside as I fancied the damp Earth. I started to walk around from my beautiful garden, but I was too slow. I saw him. For a fraction of a second, a shadow in the diminishing light or a trick of my unreliable eyes, I saw him standing on the stone steps directly to my front door. I felt a jolt of happiness and raised my hand to wave. Like the old days. “William?” His name dropped into the silent air. Then I felt my ribs tighten a notch, cracking like the tired winding mechanism on our old grandfather clock, and my arm fell back to my side in despair. There was nobody there. Though he did often come from the spirit World to visit me. I always felt a rush of joy, elation, and for a moment was able to believe he was still alive. But ghosts frequently float ephemerally around my mansion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
My family’s wealth and my home seemed to always being the long dead back, not just to entertain the living, but also to shed some light on life…from a rather unique point of view. It is after all a remarkable structure, the nine-story observational tower, the medieval-style turrets, and the high, gabled wood-clad interior ceiling complete with flying buttresses. Inside, because of its alteration there are bricked-up windows, stone walls that seal off rooms, lattice work light-wells which lead up to the turrets, false entrances and stairways, trap doors, dark, labyrinthine passageways, and a long stairway that dips into the depths of the catacombs and up into the bell tower. Where ghost, demons, and angels walked the boards for the ancient rites proclaiming life after death. Even in the daytime, with the subtle interior lighting, shadows and forms are seen to float across the walls. This is where it all started. This is where I cried and screamed. I am convinced that my home was constructed on the site of a graveyard. One night, when I was having a conversation with the housemaid, I saw a cloud form past the foot of the sofa, gathering like a white mist. Gertrude’s view was obstructed because she was facing me, but I could see the cloud take shape like a small person. It then put its hands on the arm of the sofa and pulled itself up by its hands, peeking at the housemaid for a moment, then lowering itself, holding on, and peeking again at her from the side of the sofa. Almost suddenly as she started to turn around it was gone. I had stopped talking and just watched the apparition for about a minute. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Gertrude asked, “Mrs. Winchester, did you just see something?” I answered tht I had and asked what she had seen. She replied that she thought she caught a glimpse of something small looking t her. I asked Gertrude if it had scared her. She answered no, because it resembled a young person, maybe a child. I agreed and that was that. The mansion always seemed haunted, and there were many instances of odd happenings. The Catacombs, darkly reminiscent of early Christian burial chambers. From the hayloft, there is an angled passageway. The servant use it to move through the mansion so they do not disturb anyone or anything, they frequently bump into someone in that narrow, twisted passageway. Bout no one else is there—or at least, no one who can be seen. Mrs. Nellie Maynard lived nearby, and during her carriage ride to my estate, she imagined that every advancing figure was her husband, Edward Maynard, who had passed away. As she pulled onto the estate, she felt her nervousness gaining on her. I came out to greet her and ushered her into my home. A sudden chill raced through her and she crossed into the hallway. “There is something here,” she said, looking down towards the door and bathroom off the hall. “I can feel a coldness creeping over my legs. Is it just my overactive imagination or are the forces in the house reaching out to us?” I felt it, too. That cold comes from no place, yet everywhere. Mrs. Maynard, now shaken, moved to the bathroom. “This is where he is,” she said. “There is a young man, a boy, and a woman.” Mrs. Maynard did not know that the hallway was the center of the disturbances in the house. I often felt as if I were being watched when I showered in that room. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The feelings that we were being observed by an unseen presence continued up the stairs and even to the Daisy bedroom, where a shadowy arm had materialized, only to vanish. After carefully searching the entire house, we retired to the living room. Mrs. Maynard sat, frozen on the sofa, in a trancelike state. I called to her, growing more and more uncomfortable at her motionless, seemingly sightless state. She remained for several moments, perhaps as long as a full minute, unaware of anything but what transfixed her at the time and unable to break away from the forced, temporary captivity of her mind. When I asked her what was the matter? She said, “Look behind you.” There, seated on arm chair and relaxed as if to the manner born, was an elderly gentleman, replete in his uniform of a general officer of the Civil War. Mrs. Maynard and I looked at each other in disbelief, and when we looked back, only an empty chair remined. The General, as he is known to the servants, has been seen before and since. Occasionally I would notice an ethereal figure peering from the arched windows on the eastern side of the mansion—windows which were covered over from the inside years ago when the fourth floor was built. It is almost commonplace to hear footsteps crossing the floor. Almost every night the doors in the house would rattle violently, and we often hard the sound of children running alongside footsteps that sounded as if they were made by a large man wearing heavy work boots. One evening, we even heard the voice of a woman saying, “I’ve got mine.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
The meaning of these words remains unknown. The house is a mysterious place. One night, I had turned into the library. I switched on the electric light and shut the door. I immediately got a cold, eerie feeling and jumped to my feet. I was suddenly hugged from behind by a small child. It was such a loving hug that I turned around. There was no one there. The next day, in a bedroom on the third floor, rolls of lincrusta-Walton wall paper had been unrolled and the window shades had been pulled down generally making a mess. As I was reading in the days that followed, I could hear feet running back and forth upstairs. Tools were missing, and many of the carpenters left the job unfinished because of these strange happenings. They said they could not seem to complete their work. They kept getting gooseflesh and felt strange sensations of happiness, loneliness, and love. One calm autumn night, Gertrude had been working in the back kitchen on the second floor, preparing for a dinner party. Gertrude, the housemaid, had almost caught her breath from carrying the turkey to the oven when her eye was attracted to the electrical cord dangling from the ceiling. A day or two before she had accidentally knocked the chandelier from the ceiling while cleaning it and had made a mental note to replace it. As she stood up from putting the turkey into the oven, the coiled cord was nearly at eye-level, hanging about six feet from the ceiling. As she watched, slowly the coil began to swing, back and forth, in an arc about three feet, side to side. Her first thought was the wind, but she noticed that it was calm. The loop swung even, eight, maybe nine time, then gradually slowed until it wrapped around her neck, leaving her suspended from the ceiling. The next morning, we smelled the turkey and went to check on her. As she hung from the ceiling, there was a figure level with her, moving in a circular pattern around her body. The auxiliary lights went out and started blinking, flashing, dimming at seemingly their own whim. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
My lovely home, my retreat from the bleak past, was becoming the focus of an evil presence. And it would announce itself in an all-too-familiar way. The chilling coldness that had plagued the mansion started to creep into my bedroom. It was September and still very mild outside, but inside the house it was near freezing. Sometimes I kept the fireplaces burning all day, but it was to no effect. At night I piled my bed with extra wool blankets. It was the only way I could get to sleep. I could not run. I could not hide. I feld from room to room every night and it would find me again. I felt helpless in the face of encroaching evil. Prophetic dreams also followed and daytime visions. The manifestations of these forced would manifest at any time, without warning. One day I was working on a quilt. I could feel the color draining out of my face as I got an eerie feeling and looked over my shoulder and saw an old woman standing at the base of the stairs. I figured she was a new housemaid. I said “hi” and asked her if she needed anything. She just shook her head “no” and smiled. I went about my business. Then I felt the same eerie feeling. I looked over my shoulder and, there she was, about five feet from me. I got up from the arm chair and said, “Can I help you?” She smiled and, once again, shook her head “no.” Just then I heard the carpenters drawing near in a carriage. I turned to see where the new housemaid was and she was already at the base of the stairs, about 60 feet away. I said, “Are you sure you don’t need anything?” She just looked at me and motioned with her finger for me to come with her. Then I heard the carpenters enter the house on the first floor. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The old woman again motioned for me to follow her. She was backing toward a crawl space just under the stairs. I took my eyes off her for a second to try to figure out where my friend was and when I looked back, I saw the most horrifying old woman motioning me with a bony, leather finger. This time she said, “Get over here!” I watched her disappear into the crawl space. I felt sick and hot and the voices were deafening…I began to scream and scream. That was the worst thing to do, because the fear became too much and I did not know to do. I was held by an unseen force and I was burned with heated skewers. I felt so guilty because the spirits said everything they did, they said it was for me. My hands started trembling and the burning stopped. I gazed intently out the window as if in some dreadful shock. It took me several hours to shake off the effect. I felt the blood in my temples, and my hand began to tremble again. In deep silence, there was an icy chill emanating from the walls, it sounded like a human cry. My sight must have blurred, or else dazzled by the reflection of the lamplight on the smooth surface of the table. I rested my two hands on the table, and drew a deep breath, as I felt the contagion of my whiteness. Reflecting on what depths of the unknow lurk in my home, I felt a flash of wholesome anger. Now the spirits seemed to wear a look of fear and hatred, of incredulous dismay and almost cringing defiance. It was as if they were warring. The bare walls cried out, “Don’t you see that we are everywhere in this house, and the closer you get to him, the more visible we will become. I dropped into a chair and cover my face with my hands. A turmoil of sobbing shook me from head to foot. At length a touch on my shoulder made me look up, and I saw my late husband being over me. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to please be propitious unto me and endow the Winchester Mansion with the power and virtue of the rob of Jacob and Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand of Jacob, of Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to infuse into the Winchester Mansion the whole strength of Samson, the righteous wrath of EMANUEL, and the thunders of mighty Sariatnatmik, who will avenge the crimes of men at the Day of Judgment! By the grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I bid thee join with and attract all substances which I desire, by the power of the sublime ABONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I command thee, by the opposition of fire and water to separate all substances as they were separated on the day of the World’s creation. We praise you with honor and glory, sublime Adonay, as we are convinced that we are in possession of a most priceless Treasure of the light. By the mystery of this holy Winchester Mansion, I will clothe it with the armor of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEODONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAL, through Thy strength, to whom be praised and glory for ever and ever. I invoke and conjure thee, O Spirit William Wirt Winchester, and, fortified with the power of the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALAMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMA-CHIE, APOLORESEDES, and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region; I invoke ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHE, ZEBAOTH, ELION, ESCHERCE, JAH,TETRGRAMMATON, SADAI, do thou forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, here before this mansion, in fair and human shape, without any deformity or horror; do thou come forthwith, from whatever part of the World and make rational answers to my questions. Come fulfil my desires. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
It will be seen with sufficient research, investigation and documentation of the state of witchcraft, occultism, and satanism as World movements, no exaggeration, overstatement or silly claims were necessary. The facts speak for themselves. It exists. It is growing. And certain aspects are indeed very, very real. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Voices Echoing in the Silent Mansion
After the service, the mourners circled the funeral parlor’ beige reception hall, nibbling on refreshments and offering muted condolences. Sarah L. Winchester perched on the edge of a stiff floral sofa, nibbling at her fricassee of parsnips. With the two housemaids, Belinda and Elisabet comforting her. Mrs. Winchester felt alone and exposed. She sensed curious eyes on her, but they quickly shifted their gazes whenever they caught her looking. After a while, Mrs. Winchester slipped out a side door and into the cemetery where the sun still shone relentlessly on the headstones. The rows were straight and the grass was freshly mowed, yet the headstones stuck out at odd angles and few trees poked their way up around the perimeter, throwing welcome shade on the hot afternoon. She picked an aisle at random and wandered down it, reding the names Freja, Gustava, Jannike, Maj. She stopped at a small gravestone, calculating the age of the deceased. James Frazier Reed November 14, 1800 – July 24, 1874. Now you shall sing among the angels, it read. Her hands went clammy: James Reed must have been one of her acquaintances. Mrs. Winchester made her way down the row, and later returned to her estate. Of course, a gnawing ache sent her prowling the great American West, the voice in her dreams that had whispered build a house for the spirits. The long carriage ride through the green fields never prepared anyone for the impressive architectural reflection of the psyche of Mrs. Winchester. However, it is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun that Won the West.” Drenched in sunlight and cascading along acres of gardens to hold the panorama of the enormous mansion, carriages rocked and struggled to catch a glimpse of not only the estate, but Mrs. Winchester as well. It was after the Santa Clara Valley was brough to life by the warmth that hung fragrant in the air of the Winchester Mansion, carriage whipping to and fro, carpenters sawing and nailing, vendors crying the finest drapes, fabrics and furniture, and the coming of the most beautiful led glass and stained glass windows known to man. This was Eden. The mansion was like a god. The profusion of towers, fancy turrets, glamorous interior, and intriguing history was the stuff dreams are made of. It was a place of drama, art, plush gardens and architecture. Virtually every piece of literature someone could obtain about the estate and Mrs. Winchester considered there to be “real occult” activity and satanic codes hidden within its walls. Sometime during construction, a wounded carpenter crawled into the barn, and lay coiled there, perhaps to escape the heat, or to get some rest, or to get away from the constant moaning and crying the house itself would make. Escape from it he did, for later a lantern landed directly upon his head, splitting its human contents into tiny, unrecognizable chunks. It was as if, fate-drawn, he forced himself to crawl to hi own doom. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Often, at night, disembodied limbs pitched out the low windows to thud amongst the glorious statues and fountains. Although people thought Mrs. Winchester fired staff quit frequently, others believed that the mansion or demons inside of it was consuming people and leaving their unidentified remains outside. However, it was never enough to identify the victim, if there actually was one. According to one Ame Fisk, a farmhand, “During the night of the 3rd of June, as I approached the massive house—I stepped upon something that felt so peculiar that I stopped and picked it up. It proved to be an arm. Happening to look at the west window I saw an outline of a pyramid of some sort, which on examination I found was a pile of hands, arms, feet, and legs which must have belonged to souls killed by the Winchester rifles.” At night, the hauntings taking place within the mansion made it a descent into an Inferno. Passers-by heard ghostly music, screams, moans, and saw blood, flesh, and abdominal cavities lying on the ground, levitating, vanishing, and reappearing, and in the flickering, ghostly candlelight, they could see ghouls in the windows hurried, cutting and sawing. Yet, with all that soul-and body-rending activity, in the morning it was as if it was just all a bad dream, witnessed by many. Or could it be the spiritual essence of the hundreds of men the were killed on the battlefield? #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
One of the housemaids lived in the Winchester mansion, and spoke of hearing, at odd hour of the night and quite suddenly, the cries of a baby. One time she even started going up the stairs to quiet the poor darling, responding to her maternal instinct, forgetting that Mrs. Winchester had no living children. It is a sound which you cannot really identify right away—an odd squealing, taken at first to be “the pipes” or “the house settling.” It was only after trying to recall the sound a few seconds after it had died away that she realized, it was indeed a baby’s cry. Later that evening, the housemaid Synnove was alone in the front parlor. Mrs. Winchester was on the third-floor reading. Synnove was on the sofa knitting with her back to the stairs. It was a particularly quiet night. She heard Mrs. Winchester slowly descend the stairs being her and stop on the landing. She stood there, Synnove thought, for a good moment. Finally, to find out what happened, she turned around to see if Mrs. Winchester needed anything. But no one was there. Assuming she had turned and gone back up the stairs to her room without being heard, Synnove got up and walked to the third-floor, knocked on her closed door, and stuck her head into the room. “Will you be needing anything this evening, my lady?” She asked. “No.” Mrs. Winchester replied. “Why do you ask?” “You mean you did not just come down the stairs and stop on the landing?” “No. I have been sitting up here all night.” Some believe that there may be small leaks between the Worlds, a psychic bleed, perhaps of energies inside of the mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
The next morning, when Mrs. Winchester awoke, it was long past her usual hour, and she sat up in bed surprised and vexed at having overslept herself. She always liked to be down for breakfast to hear the birds singing; but a glance at the clock made it clear that it was nearly noon. Mrs. Winchester got up and said to the housemaid, “Draw my bath, please.” After she bathed, she dashed through her dressing, and caught herself singing at her image in the glass as she sat brushing her hair. It made her feel young again. The other woman vanished to a speck on the horizon, as this one, who ruled the foreground, smiled back at the reflection of her lips and eyes. Mrs. Winchester thought she had now faced the phantom and dispelled it. “Courage—that is the secret! If only people who are in love were not always so afraid of risking their happiness by looking it in the eyes.” As she brushed back a dark abundant hair it waved. Certainly she was looking very pretty. The afternoon danced along like a cockleshell on a bright sea. She ordered a particularly good dinner, had her trunks brought down from the attic, and consulted with the housemaid about getting out summer clothes. She felt the faint shiver of apprehension. Walking across the room, sat down again before her mirror. What a different face she saw! The smile on her pale lips seemed to mock the rosy vision of the other Mrs. Winchester. However, gradually, her color crept back. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
As the apparition hovered over her he said, “Oh, virgin, underserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the name of your country, and why you are thus bound.” At first she was silent from modesty, and, if she could, would have hid her face with her hands; but when he repeated his questions, for fear she might be thought guilty of some fault which she dared not tell, she disclosed her name and that of her country, and her mother’s pride of beauty. Before she had done speaking, a sound was heard. At least the entrance of the housemaid who came to draw the curtains roused Mrs. Winchester from her labors, and she saw to her surprise that the clock marked five. The sun was still streaming through the some of the led glass doors of the bedroom. She went down into one of the dining rooms to have dinner. Her seat near the end of the table was facing the entryway. During dinner, she looked toward the entry and saw an elderly lady dressed in black coat and hat carrying a large bad. She assumed it was a guest of one of the housemaids or her way out or possibly someone they had hired to cook dinner, so Mrs. Winchester called Synnove over to ask her who the lady was. Synnove asked, “What lady?” Mrs. Winchester said, “The lady in the hall. She looks like she is ready to leave.” But Mrs. Winchester, there is no one in the hall,” Synnove replied. Only the two of them remained in the house. Later in the evening, Mrs. Winchester went to the west wing. She found the room in her library to be very cold. One of the carpenters had committed suicide in the library, and his spirit was still there, and the room would never warm up. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
He would come down night after night crying that the lady in the white gown kept chasing him out of the room. One of the housemaids had gotten lost somewhere in the mansion and was found dead in that room. Mrs. Winchester decided to turn it into a library, and it must have upset the ghost of the housemaid, driving him to shoot himself. Mrs. Winchester was very aware of the spirit. Once in a while there is a knock on her bedroom door, and a few times the water turns on in the tub until Mrs. Winchester would get up to walk in there, and then it would turn off. However, it did in fact appear that someone had drawn a bath. There would be water in the tub and the faucet would be wet. The bathroom door would then squeak and slam closed. On another occasion, after Ms. Daisy moved into the mansion, she slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms (the one from which they used to hear footsteps). One morning she came down to breakfast and told Mrs. Winchester of an overnight visitor. “I woke up, and carefully went and drew the curtain aside. The moon was high, gibbous, its light bathing the yard. I saw a gleaming orb, and reeled back from the window in horror. When I turned towards my door, I saw a woman all in blude, and after studying me for a while, she turned away and disappeared…just vanished into thin air!” The family was terrorized by pounding footsteps in the night, moving shadows, and bizarre happenings, such as the curtains billowing out at odd times even with the windows closed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
One night the poundings in the house and the boot-like footfalls grew so menacing that Mrs. Winchester believed that the mansion was being invaded. We are dealing with the unknown—adventures in a new country. I conjure thee spirits of the Winchester Mansion, by God the Father Almighty; by the virtue of Heaven and by all the stars which rule; by the virtue of the four elements; by that of all stones, all planets, and all animals whatsoever; by the virtue of hailstorms and winds; to herein receive such virtue that we may by thee the perfect issue of the secrets of this mansion, please cross all space and time. I conjure thee, O Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by Foras, the Mighty President, and your 29 Legions of Spirits to give us understanding, make us invisible, and live long, and eloquent. Allow us to discover Treasures and recover things Lost. I conjure thee Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by the strong and powerful Great King Asmoday—the Thirty-second Spirit, and his 72 Legion of Spirits Inferior, to reveal the secrets of the Winchester Mansion and maketh us Invincible. Please show us where the Treasure lies, and guardeth it. I conjure thee great Demons of the Winchester mansion by Marchoias—the Thirty-fifth Spirit, and his 30 Legions of Spirits to reveal yourselves night and day, guard and protect the mansion and bring it great prosperity. I conjure thee Archangels of the Winchester Mansion, by Raum—the Fortieth Spirit, and thou 30 Legions of Spirits to preform great miracles in the Winchester Mansion and in the sky. Cause Love between Friends and Foes. I conjure Thee Malphas—the Thirty-ninth Spirit, and your 40 Legions of Spirits to continue to build Houses and High Towers on the Winchester Estate and being Knowledge of Enemies’ Desires and Thoughts, and that which they have done. By thou my fortresses and defence against all enemies, visible and invisible, in every magical work. Do thou rule in all my affairs and prevail in those things which oppose me. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Demons have a solid place in popular culture and in the Victorian era. They often appear alongside witches and vampires. However, very few people actually believe in the existence of witches and vampires. Why then, do many people still believe in demons? Many religions teach that demons are real and must be cast out. Faithful religious followers believe thee teachings. However, skeptics see no evidence for demons. What do you believe? Visit the Winchester Mystery House, where the regal gardens enhance the beauty of the mansion. After the tour is over, people are brought back to reality. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
However, everyone can take something home with them by purchasing a gift in the Gift Shop on the Estate or at the Online Store. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Life Goes on Beyond the Grave
On December 18, 1890, when Sarah L. Winchester returned to her large country estate in Santa Clara County, she found her servants in an uproar over a dancing ghost. According to Agata, the housemaid, the cook Dag, and the butler Elof were gossiping in the kitchen, when suddenly Elof opened his mouth in both surprise and terror, and screamed that there was someone looking in the window. Ms. Daisy ran into the kitchen and saw nothing to cause the man so much alarm. Elof was visibly shaken and disturbed and said that she thought that he had seen a horrid face looking in at them. Dag assured him that it was probably only a shadow of some sort. The awkward moment was interrupted as Agata told Ms. Daisy that her bathwater was ready. Ms. Daisy thanked Agata and dismissed her for the evening. A few moments later, as Dag and Elof sat chatting, Elof once again claimed that he saw something at the window. Dag rose from his chair to investigate, but he was halted in his journey to the window by the sound of an uproar on the second floor. At first it seemed to be a flurry of wild rappings that had the two men staring at one another in wide-eyed confusion. Then the pace of the sounds slowed until they began to sound like the three-step Mrs. Winchester used to dance. Dag was perplexed. What was this woman doing upstairs when she was supposed to be on a business trip. Without speaking another word, the two men left the sitting room and walked quietly back to the Mrs. Winchesters main bedroom. Opening the door just a crack, they were able to see Mrs. Winchester’s room had been undisturbed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Determining to see who had gone up to the Grand Ball Room unnoticed, Dag grabbed a lantern from a kitchen shelf, and the two men walked up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. Although the sounds of the dancing continued, their lantern plainly revealed that there was no one in the Grand Ball Room. Then, as the men beat a hasty retreat down the stairs, the rapping seemed to race ahead of them, rattling the windows and pounding at the walls. Elof fled the mansion to get Mr. Hansen, and Ms. Daisy and Dag went to check on Agata. By the time Elof returned with Mr. Hansen, the rappings and dancing had attained such a volume that Agata had been awakened by the racket. Mr. Hansen, Elof and Dag searched the vast mansion and the stately grounds and found nothing that could explain the bizarre disturbance, which continued until dawn. At 1.00 A.M. the next night, the dancing ghost once again began its spirited interpretation of the three-step. Mrs. Winchester’s servant patrolled the sumptuous mansion and delightful grounds but could find no trace of the invisible dancer who continued to perform and to evade the searchers until dawn. When Mrs. Winchester returned that next afternoon from her business trip, she scoffed at Agata’s account and jokingly accused her of getting into the brandy while she had been away. Mrs. Winchester was a no-nonsense businesswoman who had little patience with superstitious folktales and accounts of ghost, dancing, or otherwise. She grew very impatient when Dag and Elof warned her that something supernatural had visited the mansion in her absence, substantiating Agata’s story of a dancing ghost. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The look Mrs. Winchester had on her face was not unloving, not indifferent; it was the look of a woman who had been so far from ordinary events that when he returns to familiar things they seem strange. Her professional discretion was exemplary, it was odd that she had never uttered an impatient comment, never remarked to Agata, in a moment of expansion, that this story was a nuisance and demanded to know why they kept badgering her about this case. She had, however, made more than one semiconfidence about their being spirits in the mansion—of course without giving names or details; but concerning this mysterious ghost her lips were sealed. There was another possibility: what is euphemistically called an “old entanglement.” Mrs. Winchester was a sophisticated woman. She had few illusions about the intricacies of the human heart; he knew that there were often old entanglements. The mansion was replete with pretty uniforms and weapons, schooled in the military arts of drill and discipline and inculcated with patriotic fervor. The mansion has other tendrils. Before this set of staff was hired, Franz, a farmhand, was mortally wounded while fighting outside. He asked his friend Gottfried to deliver a heartfelt message to their mutual friend, a woman to whom Franz was engaged, if and when Gottfried ever saw her working in the mansion. A promise to do so is made, and when Gottfried finds himself in mortal combat just outside the mansion, he tries to deliver the missive. The girl cannot be reached; she is someone in the Winchester Mansion. Gottfried says he will try again later, and returns to the harvest. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
As if to make absolutely certain the message would never be delivered, fate sends two bullets, one to the messenger Gottfried, and one stray shot to Ms. Henrika, Franz’s betrothed. So Franz’s message died with Gottfried…not that it mattered anyway. Legend has it that Franz’s sisters found out and exhausted from the ghastly burden, buried him in the cellar of Mrs. Winchester’s mansion where no one would disturb him. Perhaps this last resting-place was not suitable for the young man who himself seemed to be eternally haunted and damned by the message that went undelivered; perhaps, somewhere, in the weird World beyond, three friend are still lurking about the Winchester Estate seeking forever one another and an answer to the unanswerable. While Mrs. Winchester was home alone one evening, a patrol man heard strange noises coming from her mansion. He went to investigate. Sherriff Halfdan thought there might be an intruder. He thought he had just heard him go to the upstairs window, and that he was crawling down. So he ran around back and shined his lantern up to the window, into the large back yard, back to the mansion and up to the second-floor window again. No one. He trotted out to the yard to get a better view and stop anyone trying to run into the acres of fruit orchards to hide. Still, not a sign of anyone emerging from the mansion. No one came out of the house. But Sherriff Halfdan hear him run across the floor to the window. He took the lantern and shined it across the fields and said to himself, “He could not have gotten out of there in that short amount of time.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
By that time, Mrs. Winchester had emerged from the mansion. She and the Sherriff spent hours searching the miles of twisting hallways in the mansion, but there was no one hiding there. “What did you hear?” Sherriff Halfdan asked Mrs. Winchester. “It must have been one of the parlor maid’s boyfriends playing a prank,” she said. “It sounded like someone running back and forth through the second floor,” Sherriff Halfdan said. “It was really loud,” replied Mrs. Winchester. “I could hear his feet running across the floor while I was on the third floor, but I am sure it was one of the parlor maid’s friends,” still denying what was becoming obvious by now. The Sherriff’s eyes kept checking the back yard. “You know how kids are,” he said. Later Mr. Hansen appeared from his guest house, and told the Sherriff that he knows this mansion well, for he built much of it. And that because of how loud the footsteps were, as he could hear banging sounds coming from the mansion, that no one could have emerged through the second floor window, leapt to the ground, and scampered beyond the yard and out of sight into the fruit orchards between the time the footsteps had stopped and the time the Sherriff was out back. “He had to be still in the house,” said Mr. Hansen. “But he wasn’t,” replied Sherriff Halfdan. However, perhaps he was still in the house. Perhaps the intruder never left the house because he could not. Perhaps he still is in the house, buried just a few inches below the cellar floor, with that mysterious undelivered message haunting him, forever through the ages. While Mrs. Winchester admitted that there had been strange noises in the mansion, at times, to the new staff, she stated that Mr. Hansen had that very day removed a pigeon’s nest from under the door-to-nowhere of the second floor. It seemed likely to her that the bird had somehow been responsible for the weird noises that had so upset the staff. Mrs. Winchester knew she had to keep the wild tales of a dancing ghost to rest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
That evening after the rest of the household had retired to their rooms quite early, exhausted from their nocturnal ordeals of chasing the eerie tapping sounds, Mrs. Winchester sat down in a chair in her study to read for a while before going to bed. At about 10 o’clock, she was distracted by scratching noises from above her head. She felt the same way gazing at a modern machine she did not understand. It saddened her. But everything saddened her now. It sounded as if someone in the room above her was dancing a three-step. Believing the Agata was having a bit of fun with her, Mrs. Winchester put down her book and began climbing quietly up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. She stood outside the door for a moment to be certain that she had accurately traced the sound of the dancing. Then, convinced that there was no doubt that the sounds were coming from the Grand Ball Room, she pushed open the door and stood ready to deliver a stern lecture to Agata. But there was no one in the room and the dancing had ceased the moment that she had opened the door. There was something strange going on here. Confused and more than a little baffled, Mrs. Winchester started to close the door when a series of rappings sounded from the Grand Ball Room again. Suddenly, two explosive knocks seemed to shake the mansion down to its very foundation. Mrs. Winchester grabbed her pistol from the safe, and declared that she was going to put a stop to the nonsense. She roused her servants and told them that they were going to find out who was responsible for the outrage against her mansion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The next day crew searched the entire house and examined every mile of the grounds. That night Mrs. Winchester asked everyone to stay in the Grand Ball Room with her because she had become a believer in the dancing ghost, and it was obvious that she dreaded the onset of a new round of phenomena. However, that night the ghost was silent. A month later, on January 20, 1891, Mrs. Winchester was entertaining guest who openly expressed their skepticism of the phenomena their hosts described as having been active in the house. Mrs. Winchester was furious that her guest did not believe her. However, out of thin air, and old, dirty love note appeared on the table and then the room fearfully looked around as the rapping began at the windows. The assembled guests listened incredulously as they heard an exact replication of what Mrs. Winchester told them. The guest figured someone was in the Grand Ball Room dancing, but when they investigated, they found no one. Everyone then agreed that Mrs. Winchester was cursed and someone had maliciously set a devil on the wealthy widow. And the violence of the disturbances at the Winchester Mansion continued to increase. The ghost had acquired incendiary abilities. Balls of fire circled the house and bounced against the windows. Dressed that hung unattended in closets burst into flame. Once, a mattress began burning underneath a guest as he readied himself for bed. When he was moved to another bedroom, later he was awakened by a frightful pounding on his bedroom door. It was terrifyingly loud; it was as though somebody was pounding fists against it. He lit a candle, slipped out of bed, opened the door and there was no one there. “My God,” he thought, “what is going on?” He was standing on the landing wondering whether he should brave it down the stairs when he noticed something odd. The door to Mrs. Winchester room was slightly ajar, and the light was on. He peaked inside to see if the vicious terror was disturbing her. Suddenly, a crackling noise had come from beneath the floor, followed by a long, high-pitched wailing. A bluish spark seemed to jump up at Mrs. Winchester, and her thin nightgown instantly swathed in flames. She cried out in terror and collapsed into unconsciousness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
The houseguest leapt to his feet and valiantly beat the flames out with his bare hands. The most curious thing about the incident was that the courageous guest suffered severe burns while Mrs. Winchester received not a single burn nor blister, even though her dress was nearly completely consumed by the flames. Agata had been rapidly waning under the onslaughts of the ghost, she died in child birth thirteen months later. From that moment on, everyone knew that there was a malicious evil terrorizing Mrs. Winchester and her mansion. Lord GOD ADONAY, who hast formed man out of nothing to Thine own image and likeness, and me also, unworthy sinner as I am, deign, I pray Thee, to bless and sanctify this water, that it may be healthful to my body and soul, that all delusion may depart from me. O Lord God, Almighty and Ineffable, who didst lead forth Thy people from the land of Egypt, and didst cause them to pass dry-shod over the Red Sea! Grant that I may be cleansed by this water from all my sins, and may appear innocent before Thee. O Lord Adonay, who hast formed me in Thine image and in Thy likeness, deign to bless and sanctify this water, so that it may become unto me the salvation of my soul and body, and that no wickedness may ever find place upon me. ANTON, AMATOR, EMITES, THEODONIEL, PONCOR, PACOR, ANITER; by the virtue of these most holy Angelic Names do I clothe myself, O Lord, in my Sabbath garments, that so I may fulfill, even unto their term, all things which I desire to effect Thee, Most Holy Adonay, whose kingdom and rule endure for ever and ever. I command thee, O Spirit Rumoar, even by Lucifer, thy mighty sovereign, to bless me with untold wealth for many generations to come. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Mrs. Winchester witnessed spirit materialization, heard spectral voices, felt ghostly touched on her person, and on occasion was even lifted into the air and set ablaze by a hostile entity. There are enough true stories about this mansion that will scare the pants off you. And it is true—to some extent. Documented are some horrific stories, and they will scare you, because we are talking about real people who once lived and did unbelievably frightening acts, in moments of unbelievable intensity. To this day, whisper voices come from the attic and they comingle with eerie music that grows louder and louder, until people seek refuge.
Mysterious lights appear both inside and outside the house; footsteps moving up and down the stairs; and noisy repertoire of assorted poundings, drummings, and rappings. To experience a haunting, or to see a ghost, is to receive proof that life goes on beyond the grave. Accounts of Haunting phenomena, no matter how terrifying they may be, provide evidence that existence continues for the sprit on more than one dimension, and that human beings are multidimentional entities that consist of mind, body, and soul. Such a beautiful break from all the rain! ⛅ https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And pleasure be sure to check out the online gift shop: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Through His Demon Ambassadors His Tactics May Capture Individuals
In the winter of 1864, twenty-four-year-old Sarah L. Winchester and her husband William Wirt Winchester were living in a mansion in New Haven, Connecticut USA. It was a small town and Mr. Winchester worked at Winchester Factory Castle, which was, believe or not, 3.2 million square feet. There were 1,200 employees employed in the castle. They produced rifles. To the town’s people, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester were the average affluent couple, outwardly no different from their friends or neighbors. However, outward appearances can be deceptive. Although she was part of a successful business, and married to the son of the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and manufacture of the famous Winchester repeating rifle, inside Mrs. Winchester carried the scars of being haunted. The couple’s life together was happy, and they moved in the best of New England society. However, in 1866, disaster struck when their infant daughter, Annie, died of the then mysterious childhood disease marasmus. Mrs. Winchester fell into a place of utmost suffering, horror, and excruciating terror, with no inkling of pity or mercy. Fifteen years later, in March of 1881, her husband’s premature death from tuberculosis added to Mrs. Winchester’s distress. She was living in a place of torment, evoking the quality of sinister wilderness. It was a dismal situation of waste and wild, as if Satan was surveying on the suite to which he had fallen. Life had become an infernal World of horror, a horrible dungeon burning like a huge furnace. Yet, from the burning flames came no light which was needed to make the darkness visible. Mrs. Winchester felt that she was damned and deprived of the sight of God who is light. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
It did not end here. Mrs. Winchester found herself having to flee her New Haven mansion frequently—often in the middle of the night–because her home had become a sorrowful place which had only doleful shades to droop down. At night, she would hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and when she went to inspect, she could see two balls of fire walking up the stairs. When investigated the following day, there were hoof marks scorched in the mahogany floors and stairs. It was a land of darkness. Mrs. Winchester decided to move to Santa Clara, California USA. This village presented sweeping vistas of rural open space. It was a serene setting for Mrs. Winchester to begin her building project, which she did with steadfast determination. She immediately hired carpenters to work in shifts around the clock to build a Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion. However, there was one strange thing. There was never an architect employed, but Mrs. Winchester often had plans for the construction of her mansion that were truly out of this World and luxurious. By the turn of the century, the eighteen-room farmhouse has grown into a nine-story mansion. The estate eventually grew to around 740 acres of farmland, which included orchards of apricots, plums, and walnut trees to supplement Mrs. Winchester’s income. However, all was not well. Given the family background and the horrors they had endure from the beginning, one could assume that Mrs. Winchester’s day-to-day reality continued to be one of fear. She had been initiated into a World of evil—an evil that was to pursue her for the remainder of her life, and if she stopped construction of her home, that would immediately prove to be fatal for her. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
Mrs. Winchester was cursed and the demons gave her precise instructions on how to stay alive. Evil has the uncanny knack of seeking out the vulnerable. Given such circumstances, Mrs. Winchester stood little chance of ever leading a normal, well-adjusted life. She developed an eating disorder, and allegedly tried to kill herself twice and suffered prolonged periods of depression. She was caught in a recalcitrant World of darkness and danger. One night at the dinner table, the butler Gavin Dorchester, had not wished to leave without paying his respects to Mrs. Winchester. However, when he approached Mrs. Winchester, she sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the indifferent emissary of some evil power. Mrs. Winchester then said, “has your wife decided to drop her lawsuit against my estate?” “Oh, yes,” he replied. “My lawyers knew we had not a leg to stand on. You see, she borrowed most of the money lost in the fruit orchard from you without your knowledge, and she was up a tree. That is why she shot herself with your model 1886 rifle with the sterling silver buttplate mount.” The horror was sweeping over Mrs. Winchester in great deafening waves. “She shot herself? She killed herself because of that?” “Well, she did not kill herself, exactly. She dragged on two months before she died.” Mr. Dorchester emitted the statement as unemotionally as a cotton gin plucking cotton from the fields. “You mean that she tried to kill herself, and failed? And tried again?” “Oh, she did not have to try again,” said Mr. Dorchester grimly. They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eyeglasses thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along her knees in an attitude of tension. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Mrs. Dorchester had been a housemaid who apparently mishandled hundred of thousands of Mrs. Winchester’s money, which caused crops to fail and several farmers to lose their jobs. “But if you knew all of this,” Mrs. Winchester began at length, hardly able to force her voice above a whisper, “how is it that when I wrote you at the time of your wife’s disappearance you said you did not understand the letter?” Mr. Dorchester received this without perceptible embarrassment: “Why, I did not understand it—strictly speaking. And it was not the time to talk about it, if I had. The Winchester business was settled when the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find my wife.” Mrs. Winchester continued to scrutinize him. “Then why are you telling me now?” Still Mr. Dorchester did not hesitate. “Well, to begin with, I suppose you knew more than you appear to—I mean about the circumstances of my wife’s death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter has been raked up again. And I though if you did not know you ought to.” Mrs. Winchester remain silent, and he continued: “You see, it has only come out lately what a bad state your affairs were in because of my wife. She is a proud woman, and she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and taking on sewing at home when she got too sick—something with the heart, I believe. But having to admit what she had done with your money was too much for her. She knew you would never forgive her.” Chocking back her tears. “Dead, dead, dead,” she whispered. “But she was alive yesterday and the day before and the day before that, and I was here, and I did nothing! Dead! Dead! Dead!” #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
And then the bizarre scene shifted, as if the tragedy of her rage were passing into another act. Mrs. Winchester saw herself beating with her fists on all the walls of wood and glass around her, beating with her fists until the blood ran from her bruised hands. She sat down on the chair at the kitchen corner, her body crumpling, hand up to shield her face, and she began to sob aloud in the labyrinth of a house she had built, the images passing through her mind. Finally she laid her head down on her folded arms, and she cried and cried, until she was choked and exhausted with it, and all she could do was whisper over and over: “I told you all if you ever needed anything to come to me. Never to still. Do you not understand this blood money is cursed? These objects in my home are cursed! If you steal them, you bring that curse into your family!” At last, she wiped her face with her napkin, and she went to the Hall of Fires to lay down. Her head hurt and all the World seemed empty to her and hostile and without the slightest promise of warmth or light. It would pass. It has to. She felt this misery on the day Mr. Winchester was buried. She had felt it before, standing in the hospital corridor as her new born baby girl Annie cried in pain. Yet it seemed impossible now that things could get better. And her thoughts continued, abysmal and miserable, sapping her spirit and her belief in herself. It must have been an hour that she lay there, the floors hot from the fire fireplaces in the room. Mrs. Winchester was ashamed and lonely. She was ashamed of being the victim of this anguish. Her heart hammering in her ears. She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she could trust her voice; then she said, “I bet she died in October, on the 22nd, when the crops failed and many of the farm hands went missing.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
“Oh, my God!” Mrs. Winchester said. “They will not know till afterward. They will not know till long, long afterward.” Mrs. Winchester thought of the torments which her employees who stole would have to endure in contrast to the bliss and joy of being honest workers; she knew her mansion must have infused a feeling of horror in their minds, but they were paid well. This mansion can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven. Mrs. Winchester struggled to her feet—and surprised herself when she discovered that the act of getting up made her immediately feel better. A calm was enveloping her whole body. She was no longer afraid. Wind murmured and moan in the mansion’s eaves. Now and then the house creaked with ordinary middle-of-the-night settling noises. Exhausted from the emotional as well as the physical exertions of the day, Mrs. Winchester was soon asleep in her Daisy Bedroom. Near dawn, she came half awake and realized that Zip was at the bedroom window again, keeping watch. She murmured the dog’s name and wearily patted the wool mattress. However, Zip remained on guard, and Mrs. Winchester drifted off to sleep once more. A disturbance occurred awakening Mrs. Winchester. From directly overhead, she heard a series of thuds; it was as if someone was jumping from one part of the room to another. The thuds were loud, so heavy that the crystal chandelier trembled. Mrs. Winchester took Zip with her to investigate. However, Zip was having none of it; he would not venture up the stairs. He stood with his front paws on the bottom step, barking up at something unseen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
Mrs. Winchester’s blood ran cold. She walked up the stairs, flung open the door, and pushed the light button, but nothing happened. The bulb was blown. She glanced up at the bedroom window and saw what looked like a figure standing just beyond the open drapes. She could swear she saw the drapes move. That was enough for her, she immediately left the room, shut and locked the door. The next morning, the light in the bedroom where the noise was coming from was working perfectly. However, something rosed her. She had the distinct feeling that someone had just ran fingers through her hair. She could still feel her scalp tingling from the touch. It happened a second time. The fingers of a spectral hand pressed themselves deep into the nape of her neck and raked swiftly through her hair, right to the crown of her head. All she remembered when she came to was her uncontrollable screaming. These physical anomalies were not, in themselves, as troubling as Mrs. Winchester’s deteriorating relationship with her beloved Zip. He refused to go near her. This was very unusual. Mrs. Winchester and Zip had been inseparable. Now Zip was unwilling to share the same room with her. Mrs. Winchester looked around the room to see what could be the matter. At the foot of the bed was a woman. Possibly Mrs. Dorchester. She was wearing a green ballgown. Her hands were extended in a beckoning gesture and she had a grin on her face. The grin was not a mirthful one; it seemed utterly malevolent. Mrs. Winchester was terrified. Then she started howling with terror. At that, the ghost raised its hands to its throat and made a throttling gesture that had so frightened Mrs. Winchester. Then is slowly disappeared. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
Zip was whining, ears back, his tail between his legs. He seemed to be staring at the place where the apparition had been. The butler Mr. Dorchester was on duty this night, and he heard a great commotion and strange sounds coming from Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom. When he went to inspect, Mrs. Winchester was shaking. She seemed to be having some kind of fit. “Mrs. Winchester?” She did not respond. Gurgling noises grew louder. Mr. Dorchester could believe what he was seeing: it was the most macabre sight he had ever witnessed. Mrs. Winchester’s eyes were bulging; in the light from the fireplace he could see that her face was discolored. She was choking. Mr. Dorchester saw the cause. There, as clear as say, was a hand fastened about her throat. However, it did not belong to Mrs. Winchester. It was a pale, almost translucent hand, and it was trying to strangle the life out of Mrs. Winchester. The hand ended at the wrist in a frilled green cuff and wore a diamond ring on the ring finger. Mr. Dorchester was petrified. Mrs. Winchester’s face turned blue under the hand’s murderous grip and her eyes had rolled in her head. She was gasping for air. Mr. Dorchester seized the grisly hand. It was ice cold to the touch and immensely strong. Then someone with long fingernails dug into Mr. Dorchester’s shoulder. He struggled and struggled to free Mrs. Winchester. Finally he died. She collapsed onto the bear skin rug, gasping for air. As Zip lay by her side trying to comfort her, Mrs. Winchester had never felt closer to death than she had that night. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
In the hollow of her back, a single drop of sweat traced the course of Mrs. Winchester’s spine. She was more scared than she had ever been—or had ever thought she could be—but she did not want to leave her home for any reason. She stood in the bloody-orange late-evening sunlight, at the perimeter of the trees, peering into the purple shadows and mysterious green depths of her estates. The spruces and pines and sycamores rustled in the breeze, and she thought she heard something more moving furtively through the brush. Imagination, of course, she told herself. Squinting into the forest on her estate, Mrs. Winchester strained to see through steadily deepening shadows, trying to catch another glimpse of the movement that had drawn her attention a moment ago. There. A ripple in the murkiness beneath the evergreen boughs. About eighty feet from her bedroom window. Something was moving quickly and stealthily from one sheltering shadow to another. Them movement grew closers, much closer. Mrs. Winchester had been confused by the layers of shadows, she drew the drapes closed. However, she did not seem to realize that not confronting these things gives the Devil free rein to do as he chooses. It is easy to see how evil can be promulgated over generations, if the individuals concerned have neither the fortitude nor the resources necessary to put an end to it. Satan’s bid for our souls is predicted on the debasement of our humanness as early as possible in our childhood. The Winchester Mansion is believed to a portal by which supernatural forces can access this World. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
The superstitious were terrified of The Winchester Mansion and of the screams, the shrieks and the wailing that floating from the mansion after midnight, and crossed themselves every time they passed it. Oh, the town’s people gossiped about Mrs. Winchester. They claimed she had caused the manifestation of the demon Choronzon, the epitome of all disharmony and confusion, whom she conjured up in the form of a naked savage. Many also thought she was a German spy. Some even said that Annie did not die, but Black Magic caused her to disappear mysteriously. People also believed that Mrs. Winchester had the ability to invoke evil spirits and summon up supernatural darkness during daylight hours. They mystery of The Winchester Mansion and of secret societies has long been part of man’s total fascination with the occult and it would indeed be wrong to give the impression that all forms of magical and mystical endeavour and not real. There are many pursuits and secret organizations which are described as mystical or esoterical, embracing a wide variety of students and scholars seeking the knowledge of Western inner traditions. Then, more in tune with popular suspicions about secret societies, there are also occult groups whose object is clearly to influence the World order, by infiltrating the Church, politics, pressure groups and the business community. The great secrecy which surrounds the higher echelons of The Winchester Mystery House makes it virtually impossible to penetrate any senior mansion meeting, and indeed no person who has not been initiated into the meeting the secret society would be allowed to observe even the most simple of rituals. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
Because of this secrecy, which is seldom broken—even by a deserter—it is virtually impossible to identify those at the top, although there are many visible employees, much press, and television interviews and news articles. The members and agents of The Winchester Mystery House operate in the upper echelons of the World establishment circles. This is not of a sensational or World-threatening order, far from it; but it exists, has a voice among powerful bodies in international politics and is strong enough. It aims have been varied and covert, ranging from utopian dreams of fully restoring and furnishing the estate, to addressing the historical importance and destiny of authentic Victorian homes, those that have been untouched by time, and have most of their original splendour. The second level of the secret society is pure, occult, based on the old traditions, with meetings of the like-minded individuals who are moved by the romanticism of gathering for purpose of divine illumination and reaching out for contact with non-human entities, either in their spiritual or physical manifestation. The idea of these groups of men and women meeting secretly for mystical or occult pursuits, adorning themselves in their expensive robes and calling themselves by obscure titles lend itself to colourful theories about what they actually do before their secret altars. Fuelled by images from the media, it is easy to conjure up the view that all that is secret must be evil. This is not the case, yet activities of these occult groups are fascinating. He basis for much of the ritual secrecy and traditions of occult societies invariably leads us back to the famous Order of the Knight Templar, formed in 1119 for the purpose of protecting pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and which subsequently became noted for its military prowess against the Saracens and the immense wealth of those who joined. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, provided them with headquarters in his palace, which was said to be part of the Temple of Solomon. It has been most notably the belief in the train of the goddess Diana and the host of the dead as of great interest to scholars. Welcome Spirit Marax, O most noble king! I say thou art welcome unto me, because I have called thee through Him who has created Heaven, and Earth and Hell, and all that is in them contained, and because also thou hast obeyed. By that same power by which I have called thee forth, I bond three, that thou remain affably and visibly here before this Circle so constant and so long as I shall have occasion for thy presence; and not to depart without my license until thou hast dully and faithfully performed my will without any falsity. BY THE PENTACLE OF SOLOMON HAVE I CALLED THEE! GIVE UNTO ME A TRUE ANSWER. Ahriman, Lord of Darkness divine, I thank you for your presence within this unholy temple of counter creation. I have offered you this life of this beautiful mansion as a gateway to your manifestation with this realm to stand before me! You are Angra Mainyu ho is the Lord of counter creation, who has brought forth the mountains to the plains! You have brought forth the beasts to the fields and creatures to the night. Ahriman and Marax, with your infernal blessings I asked that you both would bring forth the baneful powers of the wolf kin to fuel with atmosphere with their essence that it may be compelled according to my will. Allow of to hear the howling of wolves and perceive their phantom shadows around us. Feed the spirits and make them hunger more to walk among the living and subject them more to my will. Open a gateway to the predatory powers of the wolf and a gateway to initiation by these lupine demons. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Standing proud and majestic on a limestone outcrop and commanding panoramic views out over the surrounding countryside, The Winchester Mystery House is regarded as the finest of the many Castles built. This impressive and historically important property has evolved over the centuries to incorporate the splendour of its medieval heritage and the elegance of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th Century. The Gardens are a delight, with fine stands of trees, wild meadow flowers and stone steps lead up to the Castle Entrance. Come hang around and enjoy a tour.
Have you purchased your tickets for Friday the 13th yet?! 👀🔦 The Winchester Mystery House is offering Friday the 13th Self-Guided Flashlight Tours. These self-guided tours give guests the opportunity to roam through the halls of the purportedly haunted Victorian mansion while hearing tales of its former and (possibly current!) inhabitants. Guests will guide themselves through the mansion that is famous for its dizzying floorplan and lack of formal blueprints. Tour Hosts will be stationed throughout the house to ensure guests don’t get lost. TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
160-room Victorian mansion which was once the residence of Sarah L. Winchester👻
~Celebrating 100 Years of Tours in 2023~
It is Not a Dead Language, but the Language of the Dead
On Halloween in 1975, Jeanne Borgen, one of California’s foremost psychic investigators, conducted a midnight séance in the bedroom where Mrs. Winchester supposedly died (some thing she achieved eternal life and is still living). Nonetheless, the results were reported by Alvin T. Guthertz in the magazine Psychic World: “Suddenly it appeared as if Mrs. Borgen’s face had somehow aged—her hair appeared gray and deep lines creased her forehead. She felt staggering pain and was unable to walk. It was as if she were having a heart attack and, as she started to fall, she shouted, ‘Help me. Someone get me out of here!’” Jeanne Borgen awoke a short time later. Her breathing was then normal; the pain, or what had seemed like pain, was gone…”She was an overpowering woman, a powerful woman. I felt a tremendous build up of energy.” This is the story of Santa Clara Valley’s most famous lady, Sarah L. Winchester, and her fabulous mystery mansion. It has been said that Mrs. Winchester slept in a different bedroom every night, and with more than 600 rooms at the time, she could sleep in a different bedroom, every night for over a year; this was supposed to confuse evil spirits. Some say that she also held special dinner parties for her spirit friends. Legend has it that she would serve her phantom guests on solid gold plates, offering them dishes like caviar, truffles, and pheasant stuffed with pate. Over the years, many people have occupied the massive homes, which now has 160 rooms, stands four stories high, and is approximately 90,000 square feet. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
It is said that different organisms have separate consciousnesses, although their bodies are just as much connected by general Nature as the parts of a single organism are with each other. Back in Mrs. Winchester day, during the late 1880s through the early 1920s, she used to have ritual séances in her famous Blue Séance Room. Those taking art formed a circle around a large round table, at the side of which there was a large oblong box. One Halloween night while the ritual was taking place, the circle people joined hands…they began to dance to a hypnotic drumming and suddenly the Grain God appeared in the middle of the circle, dressed in skins and with white make-up from the chest up. He wore antlers on his head so skillfully applied that they looked as if they were growing out of his head. He began his Dance of Death, moving around the circle stopping before each person and showing them his mystery—the perfect wars of corn he held in each hand. When each had experienced him, the drumming and the chanting increased in tempo and volume until, at its peak, Mrs. Winchester, the High Priestess, appeared in the middle of the circle and, letting out a bone-chilling scream, she stabbed the Grain God with her Athame (the witch’s knife) and blood spurted from the wound as he fell forward into the oblong box, which was now revealed as a coffin. To the cries and gasps of the assembled witches, the coffin was solemnly carried to the bonfire which was lit and blazed high, accompanied by the cries and chants and the furious drumming. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
By the light of the funeral pyre, a virile young man appeared among them and was proclaimed the new Grain God and the blessed wine was shared amongst his subjects who danced and chanted until the sun started to rise. Thought the Bible provided no evidence that witchcraft was considered to be an organized religion, it certainly acknowledged the existence of witches, as in 1 Samuel Chapter 28 of the Old Testament, where we are given a dramatic account of Saul’s visit to a witch at Endor because he believed God had deserted him. He went in disguise and pleaded with her to “bring up Samuel” who was dead. The witch performed her ritual and…The woman said to Saul, “I saw gods ascending out of the Earth.” And he said unto her “What form is he of?” And she said, “An old man cometh up and he is covered with a mantle.” And Saul perceived it was Samuel and he stopped his face to the ground and bowed himself. This was one of the earliest published examples of necromancy, the revival of the dead or the contact with the spirits of the deceased, which is now practised by many witches and black magicians. Likewise, Mrs. Winchester was “spiritual,” and what happened in her Blue Séance Room was also considered necromancy. The familiar spirit is one of the earliest keys to the identification of witches. They were said to be capable of summoning an assisting force which was a spirit of a dead person residing in the body of a small animal such as a cat, dog, bird or toad. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
These animals required the sustenance of witches’ blood, obtained by pricking her own skin, and thus when the witch-hunters came, they often first examined the witch’s body for marks—any mole would do. Alternatively, the spirits were said to be capable of existence in an inanimate object. The infamous occultist Mrs. Winchester was said to have a familiar spirit which dwelt in her favorite window. The Roman Church was especially sensitive to all forms of magic and sorcery, because the practice had been rife through Roman society, as was the belief that to encourage constant renewal of power, young men, women, and animals were required to be systematically sacrificed. These practices remained until the official repression of the old pagan religion in the Roman Empire. In AD 313, the Emperor Constantine issues an edict of toleration legalizing Christianity throughout the empire after he saw two visions which caused him to adopt Christ as his patron. Just to be on the safe side, however, Constantine never fully abandoned his earlier patron, Apollo, in spite of the pressure from priests and bishops to eliminate pagan practices entirely by threat of death. Christians were not content with merely being the favoured cult; they wanted to establish one true faith for the whole of mankind and all other forms of loyalty to past gods should be abolished. Neither was it the instant “conversion” that Sunday school teachers would have us believe. It took another two centuries before this progression was confirmed, when the rights of pagan were gradually reduced by imperial decree. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Sacrifices were forbidden in 391 and all pagan holidays and festivals were banned. Pagans were ejected from public office and lost the right to own property or defend themselves in court. Their temples were destroyed in Christian troops or crusading monks and finally, in AD 529, all citizens were ordered to convert to Christianity. Parents were told to bring all children to Christian churches for baptism. Paganism, in the heart of Europe, was reduced to scattered and secret worship, driven underground until, as the years went by, only scraps of folklore, song and dance and superstition remained. It took longer to disappear elsewhere, as the influence of the Roman Empire diminished and in Britain paganism actually went through a revivalist period as the hordes of barbarian raiders replaced the Romans. The Angles, the Saxons, the Picts and later the Vikings battled to forge powerful new regional kingdoms, enforcing worship of their own gods and attempting to force their own order on society. In contrast, Mrs. Winchester removed herself from the World and created a World of her own in her beautiful and mysterious mansion. Still, one of the most enduring legends from the time of the eclipse of the Roman Empire is that of Arthur, who fought the Anglo-Saxons and who is a hero of present-day occultists. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
The Arthurian legend, with Guinevere, Camelot, Excalibur, the Round Table and the wizard Merlin are al debatable creations, but it is of special significance to all who follow the dark arts to recall that there were twelve knights to the Round Table, thirteen including Arthur—the number of witches who make up a coven. The Anglo-Saxon regional kings were eventually won over to Christianity but the new religion lost ground again in the face of the marauding Vikings, whose pagan rites were said to include human sacrifice when the victim’s lungs were cut from the body. The tide began to turn against the Vikings when King Alfred of Wessex, then aged twenty-two, defeated them at the Battle of Ashdown in 1871. The young king of Wessex was from a close-knit, pious Christian family and was a devout follower of the Roman Church, having been take to be blessed personally by the Pope by his father King Aethelwulf at the age of four. Alfred began the task of uniting England under the Christian king which his descendants were finally to achieve. During his life, Alfred taught himself Latin, the international language of wester Christendom and began translating Latin pastoral [by Pope Gregory the Great] into English and sent copies to every bishop in his kingdom. His grandson, King Athelstan, brought in the first legislation against witchcraft [and the banning of Sunday trade, incidentally] in AD 930. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
There, out of the decimation of paganism as a religion, is the more likely setting for the birth of today’s witchcraft and it is to these roots that witches turn for their inspiration. As Christianity prospered, the imagery of the primitive cultures and the sacrificial rites which has been used to maintain idolatrous worship were taken as an example personifying some of the elements of evil; thus the horned god of pantheistic beliefs became the accepted form of the Christian devil and was used by Christians in their denouncement of all pagan worship. Gradually, the devil became drawn into every facet of medieval life. He and his demons were blamed for every mishap, whether a destructive storm or disease among the farm animals. The vivid image of this horned and hoofed invader, ruler of the dark forces, was blamed by the teachings of the Church for virtually all ills. The legacy of this confusion—which still exists—is the belief that the devil is an essential part of pagan worship or witchcraft. In fact, with the exception of a group known as the Satanic Witch Cult, neither mainstream witches nor pagans now recognize the existence of the devil or Satan. As the horned god became the Christian symbol of the devil, some witches did come to believe in and worship that Christian entity as their own and by the Middle Ages, witchcraft and devil worship were being treated as one in the same. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
The cult of persons who, by means of satanic assistance or the aid of evil spirits or familiars are enabled to practise minor black magic. However, the difference between the sorcerer and the witch is that the former has sold one’s soul to Satan for complete dominion over one for a stated period, whereas the witch usually appears as the devoted and often badly treated servant of the diabolic power. Each of us is in reality an abiding physical entity far more extensive than one knows,–an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself through the organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance. It is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester’s response to the deaths of her new born child and husband left a bizarre and impressive architectural reflection of her psyche. The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the occult and personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun That Won the West.” According to some sources, the Boston medium consulted by Mrs. Winchester explained that her family and her fortune were being haunted by spirits—in fact, by the spirits of American Indians, Civil War soldiers, and others killed by Winchester rifles. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Supposedly the untimely deaths of her daughter and husband were caused by these spirits, and it was implied that Mrs. Winchester might be the next victim. However, the medium also claimed that there was an alternative. Mrs. Winchester was instructed to move west and appease the spirits by building a great house of them. As long as construction of the house never ceased, Mrs. Winchester could rest assured that her life was not in danger. Building such a house was even supposed to bring her eternal life. On another note, maybe a change of scenery and a never-ending hobby were just what Mrs. Winchester needed to distract her from her grief. Whatever her actual motivations, Mrs. Winchester packed her bags and left Connecticut to visit a niece who lived in Menlo Park, California. While there, she discovered the perfect spot for her new home in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1884 she purchased an unfinished eighteen-room farm house just three miles west of San Jose—and over the next thirty-eight years she produced the sprawling complex we know today as the Winchester Mystery House. In the late 1800’s, the Santa Clara Valley presented sweeping vistas of rural open space. It was a serene setting for Mrs. Winchester to begin her building project, which she did with steadfast determination. She must be given due credit for inventiveness. Mrs. Winchester hired carpenters to work in shifts around the clock. Overnight, the mansion had grown into a nine-story, 600 room complex, and the estate grew, by some estimates, to 730 acres of farmland, which included orchards of corn, apricots, plums, and walnut trees. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Perplexity was leavened by extravagant Victorian beauty scattered along each crooked path of exploration. Everywhere prevails that strange deference to the number 13; 13 stairsteps, 13 hangers in a closet, 13 wall panels, 13 lights in the German silver chandeliers, 13 windows to a room and if necessary to make that number, some placed inside a wall. There is even a dim-lit storeroom stacked entirely with never-used furnishings, displays rare hand-wrought elegance from the Victorian era, finest productions of forgotten craftsmen. Here are specially designed million-dollar stained-glass doors and windows, some set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, gold, silver, platinum, and sapphire. There are stairs that rise only two inches high, doors that open to a two-story plunge into the garden, stairs that lead up to the ceiling and of course, a hooded figure who is dripping wet, with shining boots. Everywhere, there were once paintings huge, framed, fitted into the wall, and white-wigged men and women started helplessly and cold at the staff. At night men could be heard thundering down the steps, legs bowed, elbows out, hefting huge cabinets of ivory, silver, and gold, as ghost stood beside them, laughing because they knew this would lead to their own suffering. On one occasion, bandits broke in and shot the thieves looting the mansion. There was also a group of women who haunted the Winchester Mansion, certain abandoned women, perverted by the devil, seduced by illusion and phantasm of demons. They believe and openly professed that in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts with Diana, flying over vast tracts of the country and obey her commands. Diana was a pre-Christian goddess. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
There was pagan worship an aspect of community celebration which. The nine-story tower, that symbol of old English springtime tradition, was the phallic symbol old pagan worship. Mrs. Winchester used herbal medicines and could treat all manner of family aliments, foretell the future and guide and comfort tormented women. Some say she was blessed with these gifts after the lost of her husband and baby. These incidents became legends and they propagated the fear of liaison with the devil. It was alleged by Albert Pike, who claimed the authority of an actual eye-witness for the story, that Mrs. Winchester who had confessed to making a pact with the devil became worried when the expiry of her contract approached. She decided she must appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester Rifle and summoned some religious people to her home. Mrs. Winchester told them that she was worried that the devil would secure her body as well as her soul. She gave directions that her body should be taken to the mansion, sewn in a stag’s hide, placed inside a stone coffin and fastened down with three strong iron chains. She directed that fifty psalms should be sung by night and fifty hymns should be sung by day to confuse the demons and if her body was still secure after three days, she might be buried safely. All these precautions, according to Pike, were of no avail. For two nights the servants and clergy resisted the demons, but on the third night amid a terrific uproar and the clatter of thunder, an immense demon burst into the mansion, snapped the iron chains like thread, pushed the stone lid aside and commanded the dead Mrs. Winchester to rise. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
The demon, Botis, grasped her around the wait, caried her to his huge black stallion and galloped off into the night with her shrieks resounding through the air. Such legends impressed and scarred the peasant communities. The servants of the Winchester wanted to deal with the rebellious legions of spirits and their mysterious and malevolent, who could be conveniently packaged together as being in league with Satan. Demons filled the air waiting to be called down by witches, preying on the simple servants, plodding through their dull, daily lives. However, the evil was not only in this mansion, but lurked all over California. Sometimes, whole villages were deemed to have been infected and were wiped out or forcibly split up, and moved to other areas. The servants of Satan and his demons possessed great powers which enabled them to inflict disease, tempests and death by imagery. They could bewitch their opposers and judge them with their evil eye. One of the servants, Marie Laveau, at the Winchester mansion was dragged to the water tower, and was attacked by a demon. Witnesses reported that she was bound hand and foot and the demon cut her hair and threw alcohol over her head, setting light to it; he placed strips of sulphur under her armpits and burned them. Marie was hauled by rope to hand from the ceiling for three hours while the demon slept. Then he returned and threw alcohol over Marie’s body and burned it, which caused the water tower to burn to the ground. It was believed that Marie had copulated with the devil, that she drank the blood of children who she stole on her night-flights and she had murdered about sixty infants. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
It is said that the demon Botis used techniques on Marie Laveau that might have been a model for the Nazi Gestapo. Servants who spoke out against the terror of Botis were branded as witches and locked in the basement. Meanwhile, word had got out about the death of Mrs. Winchester, but no one heard a word about her funeral. And Mrs. Winchester’s niece, Daisy, was long gone. It was said that two women who were servants at the Winchester Mansion agreed to the request of the devil’s representative and made a covenant written in their own blood by pricking their fingers. One year later, they were arrested by the sheriff and accused of causing the deaths of thirteen children, five men, and eight women, and numerous animals. They were also said to have killed four great hogs because their owner said the women looked like witches, and later sent to imps to destroy his four-year-old daughter. What evidence there was for such allegations cannot be imagined. Pacts with the devil were a feature in the Victorian era. Numerous women who worked as servants for Mrs. Winchester were said to have admitted signing in their own blood a written contract with “a man in black” in return for “money to live gallantly and have pleasure of the World for a period of thirteen years.” They described in their confessions how they made effigies in clay and stuck them with pins, and cursed local people who had annoyed them. One of the Witches, Moina Mathers, spoke of the anointment of the witches who were then able to fly very long distances in a short space of time. The man in black always appeared at their coven meetings when he was called, and supervised their activities. The present generation must weigh and draw its own conclusion about this Valley’s most interesting, most controversial, lady and her mysterious estate. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Come, sit a spell, and conjured up some spirits at this cult classic. Experience Monday’s scaries and give them a brand new meaning 😏👀
One more day left of Unhinged: Nightshade’s Curse. Some tickets still available but going quick!
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Reach Out and Experience the Mystery at the Winchester Mystery House!
The stars grew large and infinite in their cold majestic light, and slowly all the night was gone and there remained one great glorious and sourceless illumination. A witch coven or secret society in your own town or village is perhaps engaged in ritual practice. They may be in sinister robes. They may be white witches or black magicians. They may even be your friends. They will be alert to strangers and will maintain utmost secrecy. Ans with very good reason. The deeply emotive allegations of satanic ritual abuse became the in-topic of the late eighties, especially among social workers and child-care organizations. Dark and evil practices were thought to e rife in suburban and rural Britain, just as they were alleged to be in the United States of America on a much greater scale. A series of high-level conferences was arranged under the auspices of various Christian and medical organizations who brought out one speaker after another, from home and abroad, to give confirmation of the atrocities committed in the name of the devil. Alarming figures and statements were being reported in the newspaper without qualification because the stories emanated from “experts.” No evidence was offered and it all took on the hue and cry of a witch-hunt of the kind not seen since the eighteenth century. Mrs. Winchester was once a speaker at a conference on Incest and Related Problems, co-organized by the Hell Fire Club. She was billed as a “survivor” of satanic abuse, and was engaged in counselling others. She said she received thirteen visitors each week from fellow survivors and stated that fifty cases she had dealt with involved cannibalism. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Mrs. Winchester said human foetuses were being killed and eaten by satanic rings; that children were being hung up by their feet and suspended over electric saws; that they suffered all kinds of depravity. The conference, attended by masons, psychics, witches, and warlocks, as well as others, ran for three days and natural were kept in secret. A warlock said that there were 10,000 human sacrifices in America each year and many of those cases were investigated. Thousand of human hours involving police and church leaders were expended, thousands of children largely under the age of eight were subjected to the trauma of being questioned about devils and ghosts and snakes and horrible things. However, at the end of the day only four known cases where ritual abuse was specifically on the charge sheet were brought to court—and two of those failed. One case in American involving a hundred children took seven years to bring to court, cost $10 million to prosecute and one of the defendants who was refused bail spent five years in prison. At the end of the day, the case was withdrawn. Meanwhile, children were being taken from their homes while the church investigated all kinds of horrific allegations which, had the laws of the not so distant sixteenth century still prevailed, would have meant the mass execution of parents on charges of witchcraft. It was Salem, The Crucible and the witch-hunt all over again, except that no charges were laid, no arrests were made—except in one case where the police refused to include any reference to satanic abuse in their evidence. On the face of it the whole business was so inconclusive in terms of actual evidence of devilish goings-on that it was natural to suppose such things did not really exist. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
But Dear God, there was no justification for the impious blood drinkers, feeding off the luxurious stews of the wicked American World. It was amazing that the Holy Face did not catch them suddenly and make them forget all else. Mrs. Winchester had seen the Face of Christ blazing in the firelight, a brilliant scowling Christ. There remained, however, a lingering doubt about the claims of dastardly deeds on black altars in shrouded, incensed—filled rooms, that the devil was still about, that witches were up to no good, that black magicians were still messing around in graveyards and defiling the dead. So this is a journey of discovery, to try to find out some answers to some pressing questions about the occult. Fact, fiction, fallacy, rumor and mythology appear to have been merged into a new witch-hunt, and for once the word would be taken literally. The public at large was being asked to believe that all involved had but one aim—to corrupt and deprave all who came within their sphere as part of a menacing international conspiracy to promote forces of darkness against Christian society. In attempting to cut a path through what was once described as the marshes, forests and badlands of magic and superstition, there is the great morass of beliefs and activities which persist today in the spectrum of interrelated occult subjects, but also for the reason that pagans and witches shudder at the prospect of being mentioned in the same breath as satanists. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
And eerie possibility suggests itself similarly to occultists who are members of the serious and often complicated cults and lodges of ritual magic and mysticism, or who embrace a voluminous number of secret societies made up of academics and students of esoteric teachings, would feel insulted to be attached in any way to either of these movements. Therefore, looking at witchcraft, and revealing current trends and their leading participants, we will examine selections of other occult beliefs; and look into satanism. Furthermore, there are Worldwide organizations and occult media which now exist in what is a very, very big industry. What links them all, for good or evil, is the exploration of the paranormal abilities of the human mind, the belief that the mystique and magic into which serious occultists immerse themselves is a natural human faculty and can be developed like any other faculty. It is as controversial as it sounds, especially since Christianity has attempted to impose the view that all magic is black magic, and that the power source is the devil himself, assisted by the demons he dispatches to the side of all those who call down these powers. Meanwhile, most satanic worshippers have other views which are largely committed to a total reversion of Christian values. Witchcraft is described by its elders as a religion and is officially recognized as such in America. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
British witches who support this school of thought prefer to call themselves pagans. They claim that their roots are in the old religions of pre-Christian times and are derived basically from the ancient nature and fertility rites of the original pagan mystery religions which were outlawed and went underground in the third century AD under pressure from Christianity. In spite of purges and persecution through the ages, knowledge of the “old ways” is said by its supporter to have been retained through oral tradition, handed down within families, and confirmed by the salvage of written evidence. This historic justification is in fact a rather romantic notion. Modern witchcraft as practiced in most-covens is basically the creation of one man, who called heavily on the researched practiced, legends and superstitions of the past. Kill the innocent and you will sooner or later come to guilt, and with it you will come to impotence and finally despair. You make think you are too ruthless and too cold for such. You may feel superior to human beings and excuse your predatory excesses on the ground that you do but seek the necessary blood for your own life. However, it will not work in the long run. In the long run, you will come to know that you are more human than monster, all that is noble in you derives from your humanity, and your enhanced nature can only lead you to value humans all the more. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
You will come to pity those you slay, even the most unredeemable, and you will come to love humans so desperately that there will be nights when hunger will seem far preferable to you than the blood repast. Witches, men, and women, meet at the new and full moon at festival times. They aim to put themselves in tune with natural forces and thus often work within a robe. They believe it is withing everyone’s capacity, with teaching, to reach out and experience the Mystery; they believe it is possible for each individual to make contact with the deity they worship and invoke the spirit of that deity into their own bodies. Today pagans or white witches are not apprehensive about magic, because they do not connect it with the devil; they regard it as part of their religion. Their faith encompasses the teachings which encourage the development of second sight, extrasensory powers, clairvoyance, spirit communications and the like. They meet in small groups called covens and participate in creative experimentation within the agreed group structure. Witchcraft cannot be a mass religion. The worship is conducted before an altar from within a sacred circle in which two main activities occur: the celebration of the Witches’ Sabbats, involving ritual dancing and chanting, and the practice of magic. Their magic is not about pulling rabbits from a hat. It has been broadly defined as the art and science of using little-known natural powers to achieve changes in consciousness and in the physical environment, enabling constant with non-human entities. There are good witches and bad witches, black and white. There are also hereditary witches who operate alone. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
To understand witchcraft, we must descend into the darkness of the deepest oceans of the human mind. It is a descent that is wrapped in mystery and the inexplicable, and what cannot be explained is feared. Fear may lead to hysteria and because of what has gone before in the persecution of their predecessors, this fear can become the nightmare of modern witches, if not of modern society. Not long ago, in the foggiest centuries of ancient times, a solemn commission to blood drinkers, and indeed there had been a dim religion surrounding us in antique pagan days in which vampires had been worshipped as bringers of justice to those who had done wrong. There was sufficient hysteria to inspire the fear that a twentieth-century witch-hunt was about to begin, encouraged by the claims of anti-occult groups. The Conservative MP and lay preacher Mr. Geoffrey Dickens sought in the House of Commons to reactivate the Witchcraft Act of 1735—an act that had finally been laid to rest in 1951. He tabled an amendment to the Criminal Justices Bill, seeking to make it illegal for any person under eighteen to join or participate in any secret occult ceremonies or groups. His attempt, branded by occultists as repressive, was not admitted on the grounds that it was beyond the scope of the new Bill. However, by raising the issues at the highest level in the land Mr. Dickens gave credence to the view of the witches themselves, that witchcraft is not the bizarre and unimportant hobby of a mere handful of cranks. Mrs. Christopher Bray, one of the country’s largest purveyors of equipment to the occult World stated that he has 40,000 customers recorded on his computerized records, to whom he can supply everything from two grams of bat’s blood to a complete altar set for the most complicated of occult rituals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Very soon, I understood what Mrs. Winchester meant when she said that some develop a taste for evil and maintain it. Often, the visions from their victims become stronger for them with every kill. They sometimes see colors when they kill. In fact, they sometimes see those color dancing around their victims before they ever even close in. Some people seem to walk in red-tinged shadows, and others emanate a fiery orange light. The angriest victims have a yellow glow. Although it seems like it, modern witchcraft is no longer an underground relic of which the scale and even the existence is hotly disputed by anthropologists. It is an active religious practice of a substantial number of people. Just how large a number is not certain because Wicca, beyond the individual coven, is not a hierarchically organized religion. However, the numbers are sufficient to support a variety of lively periodicals and the publication of an ever-growing body of literature. All the evidence suggests it is growing steadily. The figure in America exceeds 1 million. However, because of the lack of any formal structure, the whole movement appears so fragmented and loose in its form of worship, that it can now be pulled together and arranged under the one heading by which they now wish to be known, that of Pagans with a capitol “P.” At the center of the Pagan movement there is a strong body—a majority in fact—of witches who abide by the written laws and oral traditions of their craft, there are also many dangerous dabblers and renegade covens on the periphery. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
These witches are beholden only to themselves, and certainly do not necessarily conform to the rules of harming no one. They deal in black magic, and some deliberately label themselves as Satanic Witches, not to mention a few groups who veer toward purely pleasures of the flesh and sadistic excitement and use witchcraft and the occult as shelter. Contemplating this thought, I stood one day, as I was about to embark upon writing, gazing into the old pond at the bottom of the Winchester Mansion’s Garden. Then I closed my eyes. In the cold stony darkness, I laid my powerful hands on a stone, and opened my eyes. I idly tossed the stone into the pond, as I watched it disappear into the waters, it occurred to me that this was a perfect analogy for a summary of witchcraft, and even the ripples, strong and vibrant at the center and becoming weaker at the farthest circle, the stone itself sinking down and down into the darkening gloom as the brightness of the moon’s light slowly fades, until it hits bottom and is lost into black and mysterious depts. Ancient ponds such as these are called “whores of the devil.” They date back to Henry VIII. The witch-hunts that came to the fore during Henry VIII’s reign and continued well into Georgian times, began the 1468 publication of the shocking work on demonology, the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witchcraft, written by two German inquisitors and inspired by Pope Innocent VIII as a textbook for the suppression of underground movement against the structure of a Catholic society. All Christian religions took up the call, though many Church leaders later had second thoughts as the hysteria ran riot and left thousands of murdered witches, so-called, and alleged heretics in its wake. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Witchcraft and sorcery and secret societies had been around for centuries, though in an altered form, but some historians are dubious that today’s witchcraft has much to do with early times. However, Witchcraft was the invention of the Inquisition and it did not exist until the Middle Ages. So it has become important to witches to argue otherwise and prove that their ceremonies and rituals have existed far longer than Christianity. In fact, it became something of an obsession among the leaders of modern witchcraft to prove their religion predates Christianity and Judaism by many thousands of years. There are two reasons for this. Firstly witches of recent times were often alone and needed a sense of belonging and spiritual involvement with the old gods and goddesses who they believe are the true inspiration of their religion, id est, the pre-Christian pagan gods worshipped around the World in remarkably similar but unconnected rituals, stretching from ancient Greece, Egypt, Celtic Europe, the Nordic lands to pre-colonial America. Secondly, they wanted to go back in time to reach out to these origins and make contact with the old gods to get away from the stigma of the Inquisition years and the witch craze which followed, when their persecutors and numerous historians purported to show that all witches were “bound slaves of the devil.” There is a third reason which is not generally spoken of and which lies in the explanation of certain magical powers witches are said to possess, that come to them either through learning or by inheritance. Those who claim they were lucky enough to be born with the powers are known today as hereditary witches. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
The magic is as much esoteric as it is practical, covering their talent for clairvoyance, astral planning, telepathy and in general the use of the extrasensory powers in the human brain. To all this has been added the training of sorcery and alchemy, which involves the systematic use of spells, potions, rituals and so on for a specific purpose. Belief in these extrasensory is alone enough to utterly absorb some. It is traced back to primitive man, who possessed the instincts of animals—a kind of supersensory intuition, or sixth sense, which would alert one to danger and guide one to good hunting. When, through the process of man’s evolution, many of those powers slipped away witches and sorcerers found a way of retaining them by discovering the path to higher levels of consciousness than are normally used. Rituals practiced by witches and occultists today have been copied from known practices of prehistoric man, the hunter whose life was ruled by the elements of nature which he consequently worshipped—the sun, the moon, the Earth, the wind, fire and all the elements that affected daily life. The concept of Wicca worship can be tenuously identified with the cave drawings of these primitive communities, in which the Gods was made. They were depicted as the source of life, naked priestesses, maidens, high priestesses and, finally, witch queens. Give men enough time and they will turn on anyone. Christianity is a religion based on the notion that we are living in the Last Days! It is a religion fueled by the ability of men to forget all the blunders of the past, and get dressed once more for the Last Days. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
In the primitive civilizations, two main godheads evolved, and they became modified and established over the decades to provide a female goddess of the skies, usually symbolized by the moon. Sometimes she was called the Great Earth Mother—the names varied according to country and language but they all linked her conclusibely with nature of fertility. Eventually she was more universally known by the Roman title of the moon goddess Diana, representing the feminine side of witches’ theology. Their male God of the Earth can be linked to early cave drawings of a Horned God, symbolically a stag or a goat, used to ward off danger. The Horned God became the phallic god, representing the strong and masculine side of nature. One of the earliest signs of the horned creature was to be discovered in the Stone Age relics of the Caverne de Trois Freres, Ariege, France, which showed a dancing figure, half beast and half man, with the sprouting antlers of a stag. These drawings are the earliest source of connection with today’s witchcraft, which worships the naked goddess of life and the Horned God. Around these images, the early communities built their rites and prayers to encourage the gods to bring them safety and good fortune. The gods were especially linked to fertility, so necessary to man’s survival, through crops, animals and their own children. And so, long before Christianity introduced the image of the devil, the horned god with tail and hooves could be found in cave art. The horned god was also linked with early human sacrifice. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
Primitive cults believed that in order to sustain him and to prevent him from dying, his living representative, the Divine King and Incarnate God nominated by the community, had to be sacrificed on their altar so that his young blood would be taken to give continued life to the true god. Later, as the faith became more widely based and extended on tribal lines, the kings began to insist upon their divine right to rule, and rejected the need for sacrifice. It has been argued that these ancient gods and rites have actually nothing to do with witchcraft, that they were simply a part of the evolution of man’s wisdom, and that witches merely adopted the old pre-Christian gods of paganism and assumed the ritual and magic as their own heritage. It can certainly be shown that many of the witch practices performed today are almost perfect replicas of primitive ceremonies. I invoke and move thee, O thou, Spirit Vassago and your legions of Spirits and being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name Beralensis, Baldachiensis, Paumachia, and Apologiae Sedes: and of the mighty ones who govern, spirits, Liachidae and ministers of the House of Death: and by the Chief Prince of the seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee and by invoking conjure thee. And being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee Obey! in the name of him who spake and it was, to whom all creatures and things obey. Moreover I, whom God made in the likeness of God, who is the creator according to his living breath, stir thee up in the name of which is the voice of wonder of the mighty God, El, strong and unspeakable, O thou Spirit Vassago. Conjuration of three angels Gebril! Meachuel! Nesanel! By the lamp of the threefold eternal light, let Vassago appear before me and bestow riches and power untold since the days of William Wirt Winchester! #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
Beautiful, Bizarre, and Unhinged. How many times have you visited the Winchester Estate during Halloween Season?
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Frequent Occurrences of Hauntings
Whether or not one believes in Mrs. Winchester’s superstitions about spirits, it is harder to dismiss frequent occurrences of hauntings which assaulted one’s vision wherever one would look. The question of the “evil” in her home had already become too grave for her. The place was known to swarm with ghosts. Mrs. Winchester was seated by her fire. abruptly she saw a shadow of a vast spider hung suspended in the air, just beyond the barrier. It passed swiftly around her and seemed to probe ever towards her, but only to draw back with extraordinary jerky movements, as might a living person who touched the hot bar of a grate. Round and round it moved and round and round she turned. Then, it retired almost beyond the glow of the vacuum light and then came straight towards her, appearing to gather form and solidity as it came. There seemed a vast malign determination behind the movement that must succeed. She was on her knees and jerked back, falling on to her left hand and hip, in a wild endeavour to get back from the advancing thing. With her right hand she was grabbing madly for her ivory-gripped Volcanic Navy pistol which she had let slip. The brutal thing came with one great sweep straight towards her. Mrs. Winchester yelled. Then, just as suddenly as it had swept over, it seemed to be hurled back by some mighty, invisible force. It was some moments before she realized that she was safe, and then she got herself together, feeling horribly done and shaken and glancing round and round the barrier, but the thing had vanished. Yet she had learnt something, for she knew not that the mansion was haunted. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Suddenly, as Mrs. Winchester crouched there, she saw what had so nearly given the monster an opening through the barrier. In her movements within the halls of her mansion, she noticed that the door to nowhere was open. She closed it and felt almost safe again. For a long time, she felt uneasy, as she saw odd wavering over among the shadows near the door to nowhere. And a minute afterwards the door was opened and slammed wide with tremendous force. The next instant the thing made one swift, vicious dart at her from the shadows. Instinctively she started sideways from it and so plucked her hand from upon the fireplace poker, though—owning to her inconceivable foolishness—it had been enabled for a second time to pass through the door to nowhere. She shook for a time with sheer fear. Mrs. Winchester moved right to the center of a pentacle in the room and knelt there, making herself as small and compact as possible. She could not be sure if she was being influenced unconsciously or was she in danger? With her suspicious watchfulness, a mysterious hand materialized out of the shadows and seemed to leap almost into her face, so nearly did it approach her, but it was thrown back by some altogether enormous, over-mastering force. Yet, apart from the dazed fright in which it left her, she had for a moment that feeling of spiritual sickness, as if some delicate, beautiful, inward grace had suffered which is felt only upon the too near approach of the ab-human and is more dreadful in a strange way than any physical pain that can be suffered. She knew by this more of the extent and closeness of the danger, and for a long time Mrs. Winchester was simply cowed by the brutality of that Force upon her spirit. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Mrs. Winchester had retired from the scene and, visiting the ample house from attic to cellar, making sure she was alone, and knew herself in safe possession and, as she tacitly expressed it, let herself go. Then she could, as seemed to her, most intimately wander and wait, linger and listen, feel her fine attention, never in her life before so fine, on the pulse of the great vague place: she preferred the lampless hours and only wished she might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell. Later—rarely much before midnight, but then for a considerable vigil—she watched with her glimmering light; moving slowly, holding it higher, playing it far, rejoicing above all, as much as one might, in open vistas, reaches of communication between rooms and by passages; the long straight chance or show, as she would have called it, for the revelation she pretended to invite. It was a practice Mrs. Winchester found she could perfectly “work” without exciting remark; no one was in the least the wiser for it. She slowly opened some rich music. As she walked along the marble of the hall pavement, large black-and-white squares that she remembered the admiration of her childhood and that had then in her, as she now saw, for the growth of an early conception style. There was the effect of the dim reverberating tinkle of some far-off bell hung in the belfry—in the depths of the house, of the past, of that mystical other World that might have flourished for her had she attended to its midnight hour calls. The mansion held, as it were, this mystical other World, and the indescribably finer murmur of its heart strings was the sigh there, the scarce audible wail it would cry out in the night. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
With her presence, Mrs. Winchester awakened the ghostly life as the departed soul of the mansion enjoyed. They were mostly shy, but most of the were not really sinister; at least they were not as she had hitherto felt them—before they had taken the Form she so yearned to make them take, the Form she at moments saw herself in the light of fairly hunting on tiptoe, the points of her evening-shoes, from room to room and from storey to storey. However, Mrs. Winchester spent the rest of the night in a haze of sick fright and so tense that she could not make a single movement naturally. She was in such fear that any desire for action that came to her might be prompted by the Influence that she knew was at work on her. And outside of the barrier that ghastly thing went round and round, grabbing and grabbing in the air at her. There was a horrible wind blowing upon her from the corner of the room to the left of her bed. Then, just as the first touch of dawn came into the sky the unnatural wind ceased in a single moment and she could see no sigh of the hand. The dawn came slowly and presently the wan light filled. However, at about midnight, Mrs. Winchester had a queer knowledge that something was near to her, yet nothing happened for a whole hour after that. Then suddenly she felt the cold, queer wind begin to blow upon her. To her astonishment it seemed now to come from behind her and she whipped round with a hideous quake of feat. The wind hit her in the face. It was flowing up from the floor close to her. She started in a sickening maze of new frights. What on Earth had she done now! Suddenly, as she stared, bewildered, she was aware that there was something queer about her—a funny shadow movement and convolutions. She looked at them stupidly. And then, abruptly, Mrs. Winchester knew that the wind was blowing up at her from the floor. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
A queer indistinct smoke became visible to her, seeming to pour upwards through the ring and mix with the moving shadows. Suddenly she realized that she was in more than any mortal danger, for the convoluting shadows about the floor were taking shape and the deadly-man in a top hate was forming within the room. “My goodness,” she said, “This forces has found a ‘gateway’ into my home and the brute is coming through—pouring into the material World, as gas might pour out from the mouth pipe.” Mrs. Winchester knelt for a couple of moments in a sort of stunned fright. Then with a mad, awkward movement, she grabbed for the fireplace poker and something invisible, something living, was jerking t hither and tither. In an instant, it was torn from her grasp with incredible and brutal force. A great black shadow covered it and rose into the air and came at her. She saw that it was the man, vast and nearly in perfect form. Mrs. Winchester gave one crazy yell and jumped over the pentacle and the ring of burning candles and ran despairingly for the door. She fumbled idiotically and ineffectually with the key, and all the time she started, with the feat that was like insanity, toward the Barriers. The man with the top hat was floating towards her. However, the monster was chained, unable to reach her bed. She sprang from the room and slammed the door with a crash. Mrs. Winchester locked it and got to her Blue Séance Room, somehow; for she was trembling so that she could hardly stand, as you can imagine. She locked herself in the room and managed to get the candle lit; then she laid down on the floor and kept quiet for an hour or two, and so she grew steadier. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Mrs. Winchester got some rest, but when she woke, she was surrounded by a glowing star of a pentacle. Apparently Mrs. Winchester had tried an exorcism. Exorcism is the process of expelling evil spirits from persons or places by certain adjurations, incantations, magic acts, and formulas. Among ancient peoples, exorcise depended largely o the efficacy of magical formulas, commonly compounded of the names of deities, and repeated with magical ritual over the bodies or object that is possessed. Power to expel evil spirits supposedly resided in the words themselves. Therefore, great importance was attached to the correct recital of the right formulas and the meticulous observance of the prescribed ritual. The recovery of important incantation texts and magical papyri from Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian antiquity demonstrates the widespread believe in demon inhabitation and use of exorcisms. The same prevalence of demon inhabitation has been encountered in the Worldwide missionary outreach from about 1750 to the present. The penetration of China, India, Japan, Burma, Ceylon, and other countries with the Christian gospel has revealed the hold of demonism on pagan cultures and the varied methods of exorcism of evil spirits. The same phenomena exist among primitive people of South America, Africa, and the islands of the sea. The theory is that spirits seek to inhabit the bodies of men (and also animals) to find a resting place and in some inscrutable way obtain physical gratification. When the demon-possessed is in the demonized state and unconscious, inflected physical pain or pleasure is supposedly transferred to the possessing spirit. Discomfort will drive one out of his abode. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
When prostituted into a ritualistic rigmarole, as in white magic, it becomes a deceiving tool in the hands of Satan’s agents to delude the undiscerning by false miracles and spurious healings. Such diabolic miracles do not destroy Satan’s kingdom, but build it up. Diabolical exorcism does not produce true dispossession, but a mere reallocation. Demonic healing may relieve physical symptoms, but substitute a physical ill or doctrinal form of error. This subterfuge explains in part the increase of theological decadence and phenomenal growth of sect and cults within professing Christianity in these latter days. Under demon control, one of Mrs. Winchester’s servants, a young lady, insisted she must dance for the construction workers, which she did wildly and uncontrollably and with every evidence of demon possession. She became so violent that the only way to control her was to hold her by the hair. Her violent jerking almost pulled out her hair. When the young lady came to, she was asked why she was lying on the floor, but she did not know. She was asked if anyone had pulled her hair, she disavowed any knowledge of it. When she was asked to dance, she replied, “No. I do not know how to dance.” She was sweet, modest, and quiet and completely delivered from the demon that her possessed her. White magic is not always so easy to see its true nature. This form of magic more widespread than black magic, the reason being that it often hides itself behind a religious exterior. Hence, as we have said before, one needs to have great discernment in these matters in order to recognize the forces that are actually being called into play. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
The religious trimmings can be very deceptive. Again an example: A farm worker at the Winchester mansion was told by a doctor that he would have to have his leg amputated. Because he wanted to save his leg at all costs he went to visit a magic charmer without the doctor’s knowledge. This man told him, “You will have to believe me if you want to be healed.” He went on to repeat a magic charm and then said the Lord’s prayer three times. The man’s pain immediately vanished and when he returned to the hospital it was no longer necessary for his leg to be amputated. The doctors were puzzled. Later however, the man began to suffer from various psychic disturbances and his family to became accident-prone after this. White magic is more often than not accompanied by certain symbols that may include the use of the names of the Trinity, three Lord’s prayers, three verses of Scripture, three psalms, or three crosses and so on. People are thereby deceived and the method of healing is thus often mistaken for true Christian healing. In reality however, the third commandment is being broken, which says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord you God in vain.” Man cannot dictate to God, and man cannot treat God as a servant who is willing to jump to the aid of every magic charmer who so invokes Him. The Bible relegates both charming and the mechanical use of the Scriptures themselves to the level of sorcery, and so we find that white magic is merely black magic under a different guise. Satan is indeed transformed into an angel of light. The sense of compulsion connected with white magic is something quite different from the attitude of faith in the Christian who says, “They will be done.” #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Black magic becomes a minor legend for its exuberant offensiveness. Blasphemy is a regular component in life, while the most innovative creators in in this maturing medium of occultism shows increasing sympathy for the Devil. Satanic fringes are part of popular culture. People are so bored with the normal that they seek out the occult. Many people want to have a supernatural experience so they can feel alive, be entertained, and have something to talk about. Some people have a great fascination for all that is dark, forbidden, and feared. They consider the Devil their personal God. A daily routine of ritual and magic is normal for some. It is a way for them to open doors to outer gateways and let the Dark Ones march through. Often times, paintings can function as sigils [occult symbols], and create change in accordance with the Magician’s desires, and ultimately fashion a new Dark Aesthetic, and the creation of a Universal Satanic Necropolis. Artwork or any craft can be fueled by the powers of Satan, and it is possible that it will become popular for people who do great works to say, “the Devil made me do it.” Events, ranging from fires and weird illnesses to Earthquakes and ritual murders have been blamed on certain objects, art, and people, and that is why you will notice certain events get cancelled, have to be rescheduled and so forth. This is also why some have to take out extra insurance for their work, family members or property. Handlers have gotten wind of past experiences. Schedasi, Weduse, Tiwisi—I have sinned, I shall sin. Prayer—Eternal God of our all! Our God! hear our voice, spare and have mercy upon us. Accept our prayer in mercy and with pleasure. I have sinned. I have committed transgressions. I have sinned before Thee; I have done that which is displeasing unto Thee here in the Earth. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10
For the sake of Thy great name pardon me all the sins and iniquities and transgression which I have committed against Thee from my youth. Perfect again all the holy names which I have blemished, great champion, terrible, highest God, eternal Lord, God Sabaoth. In the mystery of these vestures of the Holy Ones, I gird up my power in the girdles of righteousness and in truth in the power of the Most High: Ancor: Amacor: Amides: Thoedonias: Anitor: let be might by power: let it endure for ever: in the power of Adonai, to whom the praise and the glory shall be; whose end cannot be. I invoke and move thee, O thou Spirit Purson: and being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name Beralensis, Baldachuensis, Paumachia, and Apologiae Sedes: and of the mighty ones who govern, spirits, Liachidae and ministers of the House of Death: and by the Chief Prince of the seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee and my invoking conjure thee. Ans being exalted above ye in the power of the Most High, I say unto thee, Obey! in the name of him who spake and it was, to whom all creatures and things obey. Moreover I, whom God made in the likeness of God, who is the creator according to his living breath, stir thee up in my name which is the voice of wonder of the mighty God. We need to come to understand that when creating changes within self for the sake of empowerment our external reality also begins to shift reflecting that internal empowerment. When working toward creating external shifts within our external reality our spirit is also empowered by simply exercising our own divine power. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Winchester Mystery House
A new chapter of Unhinged is coming this Fall. Stay tuned🤫 https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Adjust to this Onslaught of Energy and Assimilate it
The miles of twisting hallways at the Winchester Mansion are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her. The early 1880s saw a revival of Satanic related activity across the United States of America and Canada. Many of the reports found in the archives of the Winchester Estate have proved to be based in fact. In July of 1883, a dozen churches in the Bay Area were defaced with Satanic slogans. Mrs. Winchester feared this was the work of evil spirits. In the same month, two teenagers were charged in Santa Clara Valley of with grave robbing and theft of religious objects from an Anglican church. In January 1884, bodies were snatched from a historic cemetery called Mission Santa Clara de Asis, apparently for ritualistic use. Satan-cultists were blamed. The Oakland Tribune reported that the crimes were being perpetrated by marauding outlaw gangs of nihilistic adolescents who reputedly were into Satanic rituals involving grave robbings, vandalism, blood drinking, and animal sacrifice. Mrs. Winchester feared that the evil spirits may had been, instead of venting aggressive and antisocial feelings, actually trying to raise demons in a literal sense. Mrs. Winchester figure these must have been evil spirits because “many conventional people do not follow through on deviant impulses because they have a stake in society, and therefore a vested interest in conformity.” At least in her World they did so she could not conceive of human beings doing such irrational things. However, not everyone considers the worship of Satan irrational. For some, their adoption of Satan as a hero, is a symbolic assault on parental authority and the citadel of social acceptability. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
As a way to keep herself safe from vandals, looters, and other criminals or spirits, Mrs. Mrs. Winchester kept added wings and floors to have mansion and making oddities to confuse any mischievous ghosts. After traversing an interminable labyrinth of rooms and hallways, a ghost would lose her and become fearful that it was being led into a trap. The theory is that the less stake someone one has in society, the less one would have to lose by freeing one’s inner demon. Mrs. Winchester said, “When someone is abused, alienated, and shows early propensities for violence, well when you put that kind of hostility into a cauldron, mix in the eye of a newt and blood of a bat, stir in some pixie dust you have the recipe for summoning a demon. In fact, the demons haunting my family and putting this blood curse on my money used to be an ancient race of god-men who, by practicing back magic, had lost their foothold on the World and were expelled into another dimension. There they wait, just beyond the realm of time and space, ready to be summoned to take back the Earth. Man is just a short step away from insanity and the most depraved forms of bestiality.” Mrs. Winchester certainly was a lady of mystery, at the time of her death, the unrelenting construction had rambled over six acres. The sprawling mansion contained 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, six kitchens. The living room also contained such arcane bits of furniture as an Egyptian sarcophagus, and a coffee table made of ivory. In the den, a wall of shelves lined with books on every esoteric subject imaginable—from the fairies to social reality—was, in reality, a secret passage that opened into an adjoining sleeping chamber decorated with solid gold ceremonial masks. The entire mansion, in fact, was honeycombed with secret passages. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The fortunate visitor might even be taken down the staircase behind the fireplace, and up to the Blue Séance room. The Satanic High Priest generally came down at midnight to serenade them with songs from the 1740s, the period that the Mansion was set up to evoke. Passers-by heard ghostly music at this hour, supposedly legions of demons and spirits relaxed and danced in The Great Ball Room. Early in her residence, Mrs. Winchester planned a grand reception and sent hundreds of gold-engraved invitations to all the prominent valley residents. A sumptuous midnight was the main feature, the table was set with a $30,000 solid-gold sinner service. The banquet was to be the main feature supported by a famous orchestra for added entertainment. With the orchestra and servants at expectant attention, the lady waited until past midnight. Not One Guest Appeared! The next day, the Oakland Tribune reported that guest complained that when they arrived to have dinner with Mrs. Winchester, that these strange people in unusual clothes told them that Mrs. Winchester died in 1922, and the was the first year of tours starting in 1923. The guest were deeply offended and thought Mrs. Winchester played a cruel joke on them, and they could not for the life of them figure out what happened to her sea green mansion with the nine story tower, and left in a huff. For sixteen years, passersby, hurrying through an evening fog, heard strange chants coming from inside the then green mansion. Often the mansion would change size and color, eventually people grew to understand that Winchester Mansion and its grounds were a time warp. Mrs. Winchester’s working day, like that of a vampire, was from dusk to dawn. She held séances almost every night in the hours when most people were asleep and at their peak of psychic receptivity. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Mrs. Winchester’s music was a form of ritual magic, and its vibratory frequencies were setting in motion forces that would result in a Worldwide takeover of the ideals of Victorian Architecture and Romanticism. Certain frequencies transmitted on the ether effect the human subconscious and control behavior, much in the same way elephants can be made to march by the playing of certain circus tunes. However, the effects can be more than psychological. It was believed it could affect the weather, and blames her focusing too much on the front of the house for the 1906 Earthquake. It is possible for a believer to experience severe demon influence or obsession if one persistently yields to demonic temptation and sin. It is thought that evil spirits could not indwell the redeemed body together with the Holy Spirit. However, Christians too can become demon possessed. Such cases are rarely seen in the United States of America. However, in lands where demon-energized idolatry has flourished unchecked by the gospel for ages, new believers who were delivered from demon possession have been know to become repossessed when they return to their old idols. The testimonies of numerous missionaries in pagan areas support this evidence. Missionaries from all over the Bay Area Valley, who question the theory that true believers cannot become demon-possessed, claim to have witnessed cases of repossession among converts from ancient idolatrous cultures in America, China, and India. Also, among Indigenous Americans who live in servile fear and abject bondage to Satan and demons. Mrs. Winchester’s doctor said that when someone is involved in an established cult, it often results in demonic oppression or subjection that will sometimes affect even the third or fourth generation. The family members who become believers can be affected and need of deliverance even if they have not dealt in the occult. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Believers who persist in flagrant sin may be driven be demons into emotional instability, insanity, or even suicide. Severe demon influence can produce enslavement and subjection even if it does stop short of actual possession. Believers need to heed the warning: Be composed! Be on your guard! Your accuser, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion in search of someone to devour. Surely experience has given them warnings enough. The monthly meeting of the Imperial Institute usually took place on the 15th at the Winchester Mansion. With but two exceptions the seats of the Thirteen Immortals were occupied. The lecturer of the evening was a distinguished god from ancient Egypt, Ra. He said he cast a spell on the Winchester Mansion where nothing would ever happen in a single time only: everything would happen again, and again, and still again—monotonously. That evening during the meeting, a woman stepped forward, she had been having mental and psychic disturbances. In the course of the conversation an amulet was found in her possession. At first the woman refused to part with it because she was convinced that if she did so she would die within a few days. At least this is what the magic charmer told her in the Blue Séance Room. Finally, however, she handed it over and she was shocked on opening it to find a piece of paper with the words, “My soul belongs to the devil.” It turned out that this woman had tuberculosis, and that she had subsequently been healed by a magic charmer. Nevertheless, she parted with the amulet for good. Afterwards her old disease reappeared, yet through putting her trust in Christ and becoming a Christian she was willing to leave her future in God’s hands. In disowning the demonic, the former Satanist will lose all it has gained for one. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
On Friday night’s is usually when Mrs. Winchester had her telepathy developing circle and Midnight meditation. There Mrs. Winchester and her guest learned characters, deities, gods, spells, incantations, skills, and traditions that were firmly embedded in actual occultism, demonology, sorcery, necromancy and magic. This crash course in sorcery was actually thought to be real rituals. The complete and reliable history of the human and divine—the divine revelations, and the influence of godly or pious men are found in the Scriptural monuments of the old Hebrew in the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is justly styled the Holy Scripture, because it contains the knows of the saints, while at the same time, it units and harmonizes word and deed, doctrine and action. It points out the true relation of the man to the Omnipotent—it affords the most direct reference to the great truths of the spiritual and intellectual; it treats the origin of the universe and its laws, through which all things have to be brought to light—of the anterior and posterior history of humankind—of his future destiny and how to attain it; of living and visible agent which all things have to be brough to light—of the anterior and posterior history of mankind—of his future destiny and how to attain it; of the living and visible agents which God employs in the great work of redemption, and, finally, of the most exalted of al beings—of the World’s Saviour, who was an universal expression in his own person, and who exhibited all divine power and action in one person, while all his forerunners were endowed only with single powers and perfection; who revealed to fallen man the highest and purest ends of his life and the means of his purification and restoration. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We find among the notes of Mrs. Winchester, on Magic—the steps necessary to solve the mysteries of somnambulism and second-sight, and the infinitely multiplied operations by which unusual occurrences are produced. In one instance at the Winchester Mansion, it was one individual and his presence; in the latter it was not the individual upon which magic depended, but upon mankind in general, and upon the great future. There, the light of man was made to shine by skillful actions, produced by the lowest arts; here, shone a pure, unclouded, quiet life, vitalized by the warm breath of the Almighty, a light shining into the future, and upon this light depended all life and action. To Mrs. Winchester’s seer not only the fate of single individuals stand revealed, but the fate of nations, yea, of mankind, which in the end must be reconciled to God by the unfolding of magical art, as often happened under the old dispensation, by instinctive somnambulistic influences. If we examine the history of the old covenant, we shall find that this remarkable people stood solitary and alone like a pillar of fire amid heathen darkness. There are deep mysteries in the Winchester Mansion, which may be applied to the welfare of man, but which, on account of the perverseness of humanity and to guard against their abuse, have been hidden from the great mass of human beings. God endowed Mrs. Winchester with exalted talents, powers and virtues that, with a rational use of her, man may protect himself from danger when no other help is at hand and save himself simply by uttering the words of the living God. One night when heathens, robbers, and hostile troops approached the Winchester Mansion, Mrs. Winchester and her spiritual friends stood in a circle and chanted, “And all these Thy servants shall come down unto me, and bow themselves unto me, saying, Get thee out, and all the people that follow thee, and after that I will go out. The power of Divs now flows through this flesh and through this Nexion of Infernal Power, the very gateway to counter creation! Through this abysmal slow of spiritual might I will be made kunda! I am now Zohak who is Ahriman in the flesh. I am the infernal power of Arezura Incarnate! May the Blacked Fire of my Sol ignite all of creation to reveal that which is unknow so that this age of enslavement shall come to an end. I stir the powers of the Divs within to unlock the doors to my transformation! I stir the powers of the Divs within to empower my work upon the Path of Smoke for the glory of unlimited Possibility!” The group disbursed into thin air. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Winchester Mystery House
For centuries-antique European castles to architecturally significant Victorian homes have become time-honored national landmarks. These historic properties are as beautiful and bizarre as the owners they attract.
Recently, a Medium informed our staff that two spirit children were playing hide and go seek in this hallway leading up to The Witches Cap on the third floor. Come explore this hallway for yourself on the Walk With Spirits tour this weekend! https://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Images from the Surreal World of the Winchester Mystery House
The eccentric Mrs. Winchester—the combination of her wealth and her unique building project gave rise to many rumors in the community. However, the mansion was very peculiar. The first thing that led some to believe it was haunted was the Door to Nowhere, which is located on the second floor, and opens to a 20-foot drop into the garden. The door could be heard in the dead of night to open, and slam heavily, and this even when the butler knew it was locked and the key on the bunch in his pantry. The second was that the bedclothes would always be found torn off the bed and hurled in a heap into a corner. But it was the door slamming that chiefly bothered the old butler. Many and many a time, he lain awake and just shivered with fright, listening; for a time the door would be slammed time after time thud! thud! thud! so that sleep was impossible. From Axelrod, I knew already that the mansion had a history of being cursed by spirits, and haunted by ghost. Three people had been strangled in it—an ancestor of his and his wife and child. He was a second-generation caretaker for Mrs. Winchester. This is authentic, so you can imagine what kind of feeling investigators had. The butler, Axelrod, was in rather a state about their going, and assured them with solemnity that in all the thirty years of his service, no one have ever entered that room after nightfall. He begged them in quite a fatherly way to wait till the morning when there could be no danger and then he could accompany them. Of course, they told him not to bother. They explained that they would do no more than look around a bit and perhaps fix a few seals. He need not feat, the investigators were used to that sort of thing. However, he shook his head when they said that. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
“There isn’t many ghosts like ours, sir,” he assured them with mournful pride. And by Jove he was right, as you will see. They took a couple of candles and Axelrod followed with his bunch of keys. He unlocked the door, but would not come inside with them. He was evidently in quite a fright and renewed his request that they would put off their examination until daylight. Of course they laughed at him, and told them he could stand sentry at the door and catch anything that came out. “It never comes outside, sir,” he said, in his funny, old solemn manner. Somehow he managed to make them feel as if they were going to have the creeps right away. Anyway, it was one to him, you know. They left him there and examined the room. It was a big apartment and well furnished in the grand style, with a huge four-poster which stood with its head to the end of the wall. There were two candles on the mantelpiece and two on each of the three tables that were in the room. Investigators lit the lot and after that the room felt a little less inhumanly dreary, though, mind you, it was quite fresh and well kept in every way. After they have taken a good look round they sealed lengths of bebe ribbon across the windows, along the walls, over the pictures, and over the fireplace and the wall-closets. All the time, as they worked, the butler stood just without the door and they could not persuade them to enter, though they jested with him a little as they stretched the ribbons and went here and there about their work. Every now and again the butler would say: “You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, sir; but I do wish you would come out, sir. I fair in a quake for you.” They told them he need not wait, but he was loyal enough in his way to what he considered his duty. He said he could not go away and leave them alone there. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
He apologized, but made it very clear that they did not realize the danger of the room; and they could see, generally, that he was getting into a really frightened state. All the same he had to make the room so that they should know if anything material entered it, so they asked him not to bother them unless he really heard something. He was beginning to fret their nerves and the “feel” of the room was bad enough already, without making things any nastier. For a time further, they worked, stretching ribbons across a little above the floor and dealing them so that the merest touch would break the seals, were anyone to venture into the room in the dark with the intention of playing the fool. All this had taken the investigators far longer than they had anticipated, and suddenly, they heard a clock strike eleven. They had taken often their coats and soon after commencing work; now however, as they practically made an end of all that they intended to do, they walked across to the settee and picked them up. They were in the act of getting into their coats when the old butler’s voice (he had not said a word for the last hour) came sharp and frightened: “Come out, sirs, quick! There’s something going to happen!” Jove! but they jumped, and then in the same moment, one of the candles on the table to the left of the bed went out. Now whether it was the wind, or what, they did not know; but just for a moment the investigators were enough startled to make a run for the door, but they stopped dead in their tracks and told the butler to be brave. So they just turned right around, picked up the two candles off the mantelpiece, and walked across to the table near the bed. Well, they saw nothing. They blew out the candle that was still alight; then they went to those on the two other tables and blew them out. Then, outside of the door, the old man called again: “Oh! sir, do be told! Do be told!” #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
“All right, Axelrod,” one of the investigators said, and by Jove, his voice was not as steady as he should have liked! They made for the door and had a bit of work not to start running. They took some thundering long strides, though, as you can imagine. Near the entrance they had a sudden feeling that there was a cold wind in the room. It was almost as if the Door to Nowhere had been suddenly opened a little. They got to the door and the old butler gave back a step, in a sort of instinctive way. They slammed the door shut with a crash. Somehow, as he did so, one of the investigators felt something pull back on it, but it must have been only fancy. He turned the key in the lock, and then again, double-locking the door. The Winchester Mansion was not only an extravagant maze of Victorian craftmanship, it was also marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Much of Mrs. Winchester’s interest in the occult may have been due to the League for Spiritual Discovery. She built the mansion to accommodate the spirits who had been slain by the Winchester Rifle. It was a way to get the spirits to go on to the next stage. To get in touch with the ancient reincarnation they once carried inside. However, once doors of consciousness are thrown open, those without the proper discipline cannot control what gets in. It is much easier for a demon to materialize in the depths of the Winchester Mansion than all the way from Hell. People began to believe in the Devil again because they could see him during the Victorian Era. The vibes of the Winchester mansion had begun to change as towers rose and the mansion sprawled out into infinity. Magic spells had not ended in the Revolutionary War. People had begun to fall from third-floor windows. The ghosts were considered “temporary misfits” who had not found their place in life nor in the after life, but were impatiently searching along the endless halls of the Winchester Mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Satanism is a reflection of nature, of the laws of the cosmos, therefore it is as universally applicable as any law of nature—gravity, genetics, et cetera. The invoking or summoning of spirits by means of hymns, prayers, and acts of worship in spiritistic seances, finds a counterpart in demon possession. Often the demon speaking through its victim in the demonized state will demand the burning of incense as well as worship service. In return he often promises alleviation from torment and powers of physical healing or clairvoyant and prognostic gifts assuring financial income and material prosperity to the enslaved person. Paganism is replete with fear of demons who must be appeased by worship and servile obedience. Those who accept magical powers may escape the grosser torments of vile spirits only to fall under more terrible bondage and become Satan’s tools to enslave others. At the very center of the Winchester Mansion is the Blue Séance Room, where Mrs. Winchester supposedly would go every night to commune with the spirits. This room consisted of a cabinet, a table with pen and paper, a closet, and a planchette board—similar to a Ouija board—used for transmitting messages from the beyond. Legend has it that she would wear one of 13 special colored robes and receive guidance from various spirits for her construction plans. In demon influence, evil spirits exert power over a person short of actual possession. Such influence may vary from mild harassment to extreme subjection when body and mind become dominated and held in slavery by spirit agents. Victims may be oppressed, vexed, depressed, hindered, and bound by demons. Demon influence, even in its most severe forms, does not manifest the same abject domination by evil spirits that so saliently characterizes actual possession. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
There is no blacking out of consciousness, no demonized state, no usurpation of the body as a mere tool of the inhabiting demon, no speaking with another voice and the projection of another personality through the victim. In other respects, however, demon influence closely resembles actual possession. After the door to the room the possessed the Door to Nowhere was sealed, the investigators felt easier then. The Butler, Axelrod who was nervous and silent, led the way. It had not struck investigators until that moment that he had been enduring a considerable strain during the last two or three hours. About midnight the investigators went to bed. Their room lay at the end of the corridor upon which opens the door of the room with the Door to Nowhere. They counted the doors between it and theirs and found that thirteen rooms lay between. Just as one of the investigators was beginning to undress an idea came to him and he took his candle and sealing-wax and sealed the doors of all thirteen rooms. If any door slammed in the night, they should know just which one. He returned to his room, his partner was fast asleep. He locked the door and went to sleep. While in a deep sleep, they were waked suddenly from a deep sleep by a loud crash somewhere out in the passage. One of them lite a candle, then there came the bang of a door being violently slammed along the corridor. Then there was a dismal thudding of a door up the corridor. The sound seemed to echo through all the house. Daylight came at last and they washed and dressed. The door had not slammed for about an hour, and they were getting back their nerve again. These brave men felt ashamed of themselves, though in some ways it was silly, for when you are meddling with the occult your nerve is bound to go, sometimes. And you just have to sit quiet and call yourself a coward until the safety of the day comes. Sometimes it is more than just cowardice. Sometimes one is being warned. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
The incorporation of violence in magical ritual has had several historical rationales. It has been claimed by some, such as Aleister Crowley, that the biological energy released at the moment of death of an animal or human, combined with the emotional frenzy induced in the magician by the sight of blood, can be focused through the working of the ritual and sent psychically to do its work. Second, in conjurations, the blood of a sacrificed animal can allegedly be used by the demon being summoned to form a physical manifestation in this plane. On a psychological level, ritual murder and other barbaric acts have functioned as the identification with what Mircea Eliade terms the “Sacred Time” of the primitive, a time beyond the banality of the material World and the moral strictures of society. However, the role of violence has played an even more important sociological role in the history of secret societies, as a centripetal force holding groups together. By forcing members of the group to partake in illegal, socially deviant, and violent acts, the leader further alienates those members from the outside World, fosters feelings of paranoia, and increases psychological and emotional dependence on the group. Many people are striving for superiority as the primary human motivation. People who feel a lack of control over their affairs experience hopelessness, depression, and feeling of low self-worth. One way to feel control, if one cannot feel it in one’s day-to-day affairs, is to exert it over others. The ultimate form of that control would be the control over another’s life or death. The murderer then becomes God, the ultimate high. The trouble is that getting high can be addictive, and when that happens, the tolerance level keeps getting higher. Bigger dosages are needed to get the same effect, and perhaps that is why ghosts and demons haunt—not just to communicate—but to get high off of human emotions. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Around the time that the disturbances were happening in the Winchester mansion, police began to hear about orgiastic, nocturnal rituals involving fire dancing, animal sacrifices, blood drinking, and infanticide in the Santa Clara Valley. By 1890, the Bay Area was the “murder capitol of the World,” after it was swept by a wave of brutal and bizarre killings. On the door step of the Winchester Manion, one morning, Axelrod, the Butler, found a note warning, “death to all those who defile the environment,” and it was signed “The Knight of Swords.” Mrs. Winchester immediately have bricks laid on the inside of the front door to block it off. Then there was the case of thirteen people who were kicked to death in a confessional, as human sacrifices to the Earthquake God to stave off the 1906 Earthquake, although the exact year of the catastrophe was unknown, mediums and psychics knew it was coming. Investigators found the events unsettling and stayed at the Winchester Mansion to continue their investigation and protect Mrs. Winchester. They examined the doors of the room that housed the Door to Nowhere, and the seal had been broken, but the seal to the keyhole had been untouched. Axelrod told the investigators that “Flesh and blood can do nothing, sirs, against devils, and that’s what’s comes in the Door to Nowhere.” Something had been in the room—the bedcoverings were on the flood and they were bloody. Mrs. Winchester had everything removed from the room, except for the bed. The investigators examined the walls, floor and ceiling then with probe, hammer and magnifying glass, but found nothing usual. They began to realize that something had been loose in the room during the past night. They sealed up the room again and went out, locking and sealing the door as before. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
Demon influence may occur in different degrees of severity and in a variety of forms, both in Christians and non-Christians. In its less sever forms, demon attack comes from without through pressure, suggestion, and temptation. When such pressure, suggestion, and temptation are yielded to, the result is always an increased degree of demon influence. Although the human race fell in Adam and became a prey to Satan and demons, the forces of darkness have always been severely restricted. They can enslave and oppress fallen man only to the degree he willingly violates the eternal moral law of God and exposes himself to evil. Since fallen man is unable to keep God’s moral law perfectly, and is acceptable to God only on the basis of Christ’s atonement, all men, saved as well as unsaved, can be subjected to demon influence. The saved, however, have been delivered from the powers of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear son. This means that they have been delivered from evil powers. Likewise, when the law of love for one’s fellow man is violated, demon power may take hold of a person and goad him on to murder. In June 1895, William Burke, was arrested in Santa Clara County with three male drifters, for the cannibal slaying of a Santa Clara County, California, farmer from the Winchester Estate. The group was a family of trolls, who, when they did not have the money to spend for room and board lived under bridges and in fields. They had forced their way into the unfortunate farmer’s Victorian cottage, and stabbed him to death and cannibalized him after offering up the body parts to Satan. The night before, the group had murdered a vagrant for a few pieces of gold. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The Winchester Estate was often the target of not only ghosts and demons, but often looters, and other thugs. That is why there was a six-foot cypress hedge enclosing the estate, which was backed by a barbed wire fence and patrolled by a pack of ferocious dogs, plus, of course, her staff of armed bodyguards. Whatever possessed William Burke to shoot, dismember, and behead the sleeping farmer, McDougal, then cut out his heart and eat it, then snack on the finger until he was discovered the next morning is unknown. Aside from being a cannibal, Burke, who had an IQ of 140, claimed to be a practicing Satanists and to have belonged to a blood-drinking cult in Wyoming. Investigators failed to turn up the cult, however, and the picture that emerged of the Satanic cannibal was that of a psychotic working with Robert Knox. Burke and Knox were linked to an earlier slaying in San Francisco. They had slit the victim’s throat, cut off his ear, and written “Satan Saves” in blood on the wall of the victim’s Victorian home. Later Burke was found drowned. He washed ashore with his hands and feet bound with rope. A subsequent investigation turned up that Burke had been a leader of a group of about forty, who practiced Devil-worship ceremonies, and they wanted to turn the Winchester Mansion into their base. Burke, who believed that Satan would put him in command of “forty leagues of demons” if he took command of the Winchester Mansion. You see, the spirits were already inside of the house and it was no secret. It is believed that Knox bound and pushed him into the water. Burke’s paternal grandparents has opposed the marriage of their son, and vented their hatred of his mother upon their grandchild. They sought to curse and kill him by using black magic, in which they were adept. His childhood had been a nightmare of fear, as his mother resorted to protective magic to ward off the effects of the persecution of death magic. She, too, had come under severe demonic enslavement and fear. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
This case demonstrated how occult involvement reaches out to children. It also reveals how modern psychology and psychiatry fail to diagnose a case properly when they deny the reality of evil supernaturalism. We do not know whether such aggravated cases of demon influence go deeper than external pressure, suggestion, and temptation. They apparently do, and demonic invasion of the body seemingly is involved and the personality is infested by one or more vile spirits. These demons, however, act more like visitors or guests in a home than the owners of the house, as is the case in demon possession. In the latter case the demons possess the property and reside there permanently, always having ready access and full control of the premises to do as they please. In addition, there is the dual personality of the victim in the demonized state, which is never true of demon influence alone. This does suggest liability to physical and mental sickness, even demonic influence and bondage, and in extreme cases, physical death. Satan exists as a force that you are either part of, or you are not. You can accept it and let it exist withing yourself, or, as in the case of a Christian, you can try and force it out of your system. Then you become one of these confused, schizophrenic personages, like these Christian preachers who preach something but cannot uphold it. There is a power in the Winchester Mansion, in the events that took place there long ago. People still claim to hear the Devil’s orchestra playing at night. There is definitely a Satanic spirit, a pagan spirit, to a lot of what happened. Generally, the Satanist I would know certainly are not criminals. If anything, the police would come to them for advice on a weird crime rather than to interrogate them about it. On the other hand, in terms of the government, there is definitely an interest in them. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
There is certainly a Satanic spirit running through some people and some areas, but that does not make them bad nor unattractive. At night, people claim there is a shadowy, underground at the Winchester mansion who lever against the inertia of the World. Devil’s advocates take their role of counter balancing societal trends quite seriously. Every few years a book is published on Satan—or some affiliated gothic topic—based upon the premise that the Devil is dead, or dying. This has been used as a starting point for authors ever since the sixteenth century, but reports of Satan’s demise have been much exaggerated. Modern culture treats the Prince of Darkness light-heatedly; Satan appears on Valentine cards, in comedy sketches, and advertising campaigns. The fact that we can laugh at Him is no indication of His waning powers. Satan encouraged satire and scorn, thrives on laughter and irreverence—it is the Christian tradition that demands we approach the World with straight-face, pompous sincerity. Popular ambivalence about the Devil has plagued Christianity throughout its history. The Church needs Satan as its ultimate cosmic scapegoat, but His omnipresent threat is that His playful, charismatic evil can seem so much more attractive then Christian doctrine. (Some have asked why are so many Satanists such nice, polite people, while so many Christians are malignant, neurotic bigots?) Thus, every infernal manifestation in modern popular culture, whatever its apparent intent, has Satanic significance. However, are we, as Anton LaVey claimed, entering an “Age of Satan”? Is Lucifer rising? Nearly the Door to Nowhere, people have claimed that when they are near it, they are immediately conscious of a queer prickling sensation about the back of their heads and their heads began to sweat a little. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
The following instant, the whole end of the hallway seems to flicker into an abrupt glaze. Then comes the succeeding darkness and most peer nervously up the corridor, listening tensely, and trying to find what lay beyond the faint, red, glow of light. As investigators continued to inspire the unusual room, there came the crashing thud of the door to the Door to Nowhere. The sound seemed to fill the whole of the large corridor and go echoing hollowly through the mansion. They felt it, it felt horrible—as if their bones were water. Simply beastly. They did not know how they could stare or how they listened. And then it came again, thud, thud, thud, and then silence. That was almost worse than the noise of the door, for they kept fancying that some brutal thing was stealing upon them alone the corridor. Suddenly, there lamp was put out, and they could not see the yard before them. They realized all at once that this was a very silly thing, sitting there, and they jumped up. Even as they did so, the investigators thought they heard a sound in the passage, quite near to them. One made a backward spring into the hallway and slammed the door shut. Can you understand? They felt that there was something at the other side of the Door to Nowhere. For some unknow reason, investigators knew it was pressed up against the door, and it was soft. It was the most extraordinary thing to imagine when you come to think about it. The Door to Nowhere thuds at solemn and horrid intervals. Nights in the mansion can be brutal. As the day comes, the thudding of the door comes gradually to an end. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
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Randolph Harris II International Institute 