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The Fear Was Terrible
In was December. The air was ripe with the promise of the new year. The estate was full of life and sound. After the years of supernatural violence and denunciation, it seemed the demons had set their sights elsewhere and, for a while, we were at peace. There were, of course, the usual shadows lurking about. As we walked about the gardens, a boy came running out of the orchards. He was in a state of shock, swallowing his words and talking too fast for me us to hear what he was saying. Ms. Daisy managed to calm him and, with great patience, coax out of the terrified child that there had been massacres. That villages lower down the road had been put to the torch. If old men, women, cut down where they stood. Children, too. I turned cold. “Oh, dear Heavens.” We had no ways of knowing if the report was true. True or false, his testimony would spread panic and alarm. Far better to wait until to verify the stories and then decide what action to take. When I arrived at dinner, everyone was in good spirits. Living as we did, to come together to celebrate, with food enough for everyone and in the warmth, my heart wept at the knowledge that in a matter of hours, all this might be lost. So I sat, knowing what I knew and yet having to conceal it. And all the time, I was watching the door, waiting for my niece, Ms. Daisy. Later I learned she had questioned the boy further and was satisfied that she was telling the truth without embellishment. I instructed the servants to be on alert. My head was spinning with so much information. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I instituted a search of the house. I sighed as I sat down in my chair. It was a grueling day. It was the middle of winter and the wind howled down the chimneys. Shuddering, I pulled my chair a bit closer to the fireplace. Listening to the domestic sounds from the kitchen made me smile. I was home and warm for the night. Tomorrow’s problems were not yet to be faced, and the warmth of the fire slowly lulled me to sleep. The sound of knocking at my front door startled me awake. The sounds seemed a bit faint, but they were persistent. I hurried to the door, wondering who could be out on such a bitter evening and what emergency would I find on the other side. I flung open the door and at first thought that no one was there, but then I was shocked to see a thin little girl no more than nine or ten years old, standing just before me. She was woefully underdressed for the blustery night. She wore thin shoes, a tattered dress, and a blue shawl that she had pulled tightly around her tiny shoulders. I wondered how the child stayed upright against the wind that buffeted her. The little girl did not wait for me to speak. “Mrs. Winchester, you must come, my mother’s sick bad and she won’t make it through the night without your help. Hurry!” Something about the wispy child and the intensity of her pleas moved me to action. “Some in my child, come in at once,” I said and shut the door. I quickly gathered my coat and scarf, pulled on my gloves and hat, and grabbed up my bag. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
We moved swiftly to one of the Victorian cottages on my estate. She ushered me into her home. Her mother was one of the housemaids. She was normally a sassy lass, but now she was reduced to a skinny rack of bones. Her body was woefully undernourished and she was indeed extremely ill. Upon closer examination, she was gravely ill. Indeed, the lass would not last through the night without quick intervention—she was suffering from pneumonia. As I tended the fire, I talked to the woman. I told her that she would be all right and that and that my servants were coming with medicine. I also spoke to her about the brave little girl who had come to fetch me. I inquired as to the child’s whereabouts. The ill woman looked at me with honor. “My daughter died a month ago. Her shoes and shawl are there in the little cupboard.” The woman broke off with a sob. I felt compelled to look in the close. Inside hung the little blue shawl that I seen the little girl clutching earlier. Her shoes lay on the shelf. I reached out to feel them and they were dry. It would have been impossible for those articles to have been worn that same night. I tended to the woman for a bit longer. As soon as the servants arrived, I ordered the cottage searched for the child I had seen. No child was found. I was amazed at the power of human love and the lost child who reached beyond the grave to save her mother from death. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
I returned home. The evening was nearly over, when I noticed a dark shadow to my left. However, when I focused my eyes directly on the spot, I could see nothing. I decided that perhaps my eyes were undoubtedly becoming tired. It was, after all, nearly midnight. A few moments later, I saw the shadow again. This time it crossed directly in front of me, moving toward the sofa. However, once again, when I focused directly on the thing, I saw nothing but the shadows of the dark room. I shrugged, distracted from the heading to bed. “Are you a ghost?” I asked, speaking toward the area in front of the sofa where I had last seen the shadow. There was no response. I went upstairs to bed. By the morning I had forgotten the entire episode with the mysterious shadow. Several moments later, a peculiar sound caused me to raise from my slumber, and I was surprised to see the shadow again. It crossed in from of my bed, then sat on an arm chair. Sometime between two and four in the morning I was awakened by the sound of artillery firing from the fields. It sounded like cannons firing one-at-a-time. I could hear there reloading between the shots. The fire lasted about ten minutes, then faded out, back into some mysterious fold of Time. Frightened, I did not look outside. I work my niece Ms. Daisy in the middle of the night to ask if she heard it. Unfortunately, she had been sound asleep and did not. However, I did not believe the sounds were figments of my imagination. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
My mansion served as the venue for a most remarkable connection between the dead and the living which seems to spanned the ages. I tried to sleep, but there was another odd noise that echoed across the fields of my estate. Faint at first, the sound was soon recognizable: drumbeats. I finally fell asleep, never understanding the source of the sound. Once again, I was awakened by bone chilling cold, so cold it sent me running from my room. There was an icy apprehension as I ran forward, as if I was running for my life. I came to a new pathway in my mansion and entered it. I felt the sharp coldness of the air, but I knew I had to keep going. The fear was terrible. As I came around a curve, blood ran through the corridor like water. A strange haze formed. The haze was a visage of a young man with brown hair and a moustache, sideburn in front of his left war, with his eyes gazing to the right. Then a woman walked through the streams of blood, she was moving at a fast walk. She had blonde hair and seemed in a hurry. As I moved down the pathway, she vanished, but there, hanging on the wall, was a shriveled, mummified, human arm. The hand was a contorted claw. I was also astonished to see, floating before my eyes, a white, glowing, disembodied arm pull back and vanish into darkness of the room. The pathway severed never-ending abyss of darkness and horrors than any human being could imagine. A strong hand grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me so violently that I passed out. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
I forced my eyes open once more, and I saw a pair of wooden clogs. I was lying on the fell, which was covered in blood. I struggled to push myself into a sitting position, dragging my legs round from under me, then tried to stand. “Let me help you,” an apparition said. The ghost’s strong hand was under my elbow, guiding me back to a parlor on the second floor. “Here.” I slumped down and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, waiting for the spinning to stop. I looked around the room. Clearly, it was morning. Everything was bathed in a flat, white light. The fire had burned out, leaving a pyramid of soft, gray ash in the grate. “We were concerned when you did not come down to breakfast, Mrs. Winchester. Why are you covered in blood? Have you been injured,” the butler demanded. “No. I slipped and fell in a puddle of blood in the new pathway recently built,” I said. “But Mrs. Winchester, the entire estate is as clean as we left in yester evening.” I frowned, trying to get the sequence of events clear in my mind. I had taken a bath, come back to the room, and enjoyed a cup of tea. Then I heard a cat in the room. As I looked around the room, there was nothing there. Within a short while, the tea cups started dancing about the table. Extended across the table, just inches from me and draped with what looked like some lacy fabric, was a woman’s arm, from the elbow down, the pale fingers eerily entwined in the tea cups. I screamed. The butler came running and saw the phantom limb. “What is it, devil is it Mrs. Winchester?” “There are forces in this house. Such power does not come from the devil. Do you see those books around you? They are full of stories of such persons, called in one place sorcerer, and in another witch, but what has the devil to do with such things? If you have such powers, what can and can they not do?” #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The butler’s eyes grew large but his face was hard. His hands tightened on the arms of the chair and he cocked his head to the left as he looked the room up and down. I saw the look of fear coming to his face. The housemaid whispered: “She is reading our thoughts, Morgan, she can hide her own thoughts from us.” “Morgan,” Mrs. Winchester said, “what you have witnessed is terrible. I can see spirits. I have powers.” Morgan’s face was transformed from cold suspicion to sudden contempt. “Ah, witch!” he cried. “Why did you not tell me? Your house is full of witches! You are an order of Satan. This house is expanding so quickly because you have the power to stop time.” And then as tears poured down his face, I sobbed. He wrapped his arms around me. “We are all damned,” he said, “and you hide here in this mansion where they can’t burn you! Oh, clever, clever witch in the devil’s house!” “Wicked am I? A witch am I? Stopper of time? I will not have you speak to me in that manner!” Mrs. Winchester moved into the very center of the room and looking up and out the window, it seemed to the blue sky, she cried: “Come now Caim and you 30 Legions of Spirits Infernal! I entreat thee to favor me in the adjuration which I address to thy might minister LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE! Come hither to speak with me.” And at once a great dark shadow appeared in the window, as if the spirit upon whom she had called condensed himself to become small and strong within the room. “Damn you into hell, witch. I shall not be your warlock,” Morgan cried, and as the books began to fall around he, he feld the mansion, and the door slammed front doors shut after him and no one could pry it open ever again, try as they might. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Phantom limbs hovering over us, or playfully touching, or roughly shoving us. What could it be that allows the many manifestations of an active, viable, yet impossible World, sometimes seen, more often unseen, that apparently exists right next to us? What aberration in Time or Physics or Mass or Energy reveals to us this other land, usually unheard and invisible, that seems the dwelling place of the dead? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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And Finally the Spirits Drew Blood
Life-changing, miraculous, beautiful—it has been the scene of serious studies by aspiring intellectuals, of raucous parties filled to the brim with youthful enthusiasm. It was also been the dwelling place of Death. There was a persistent malevolent visitor within the walls of the house, who had an agenda of pursuit and manipulation for evil all of his own. By the time they reached my estate, Hendrick had a fairly good understanding of what the Winchester Mansion was, and he had assured Mr. Hansen that he would keep confidential forever what he was about to read in the files. Henrick loved the idea of the Winchester Mansion, the flashing, sparkling panorama of Santa Clara Valley. However, he grew coldly and unexpectedly calm as he puzzled over the catacombs, and reviewed in his mind all the popular myths he had heard about the apparitions, and this brief interlude of excitement began to fade. “Mrs. Winchester, I have to go on leave,” Hendrick explained. “It’s unavoidable.” How calm his voice sounded as all the color drained out of his face. I insisted that we go at once to a small screened porch off the back of the second story, and there, overlooking a formal garden with miles of green grass and fountains, we could sit down to eat. However, Hendrick insisted that he had to leave at once. Mr. Hansen showed him to the door. The atmosphere began to change. I felt a whisper of fresh air on my face. The floor suddenly veered precipitously upward. Tiny drops of blood began to fall from the ceiling. Rappings shook the walls. Then a large butcher knife appeared and menacingly headed in our direction. When ran into the morning room, and all the chairs therein fell over and danced about noisily. “The spirits are angry,” said Mr. Hansen. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I felt light-headed, intoxicated by the danger. There were noises, a myriad of them and terror-filled cries of the wounded and dying echoing long and pitifully into the night; disembodied rumblings from artillery, and even more mysterious, unidentifiable rustling in the darkness just behind my shoulder. Several knives and a large glass paperweight were thrown at us by invisible intruders, narrowly missing our heads. “Do angels really lack knowledge of the heart?” I asked Mr. Hansen as I wept. There was the dark melee, horrifying screams in the night. Night was always a time of icy fear and apprehension. It must stem from our most primal subconscious. It can bring sudden death. And sleep, if it should come, steals consciousness, our last warning system and makes us more vulnerable to Earthly creatures who would do us harm. Or to other entities not of this Earth with perhaps the same ambition. Perhaps sleep was the main portal through which ghosts came into our lives. I felt Mr. Hansen’s brown eyes sweep across my face. He shook his head. There was something about the translucent moon that gave me the impression he was made of air or water, rather than blood and bone. I looked at him more closely, scared that he might have slipped away. But he was still there. “I feared you had…” “Not yet,” Mr. Hansen said, reading my mind. Around and around the room an unexplainable jingling went, pausing first in one corner, then at another wall, until the sound was right next to us. Then it became a plopping sound like water dripping. We were being troubled by entities that seemed set upon us by a curse of black magic. Suddenly, a hooded figure appeared and was moving about the house. It appeared to be the image of a man with thinning white hair on the sides, and bald at the top. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
There were secret passageways in the mansion, hidden from view. The tiniest opening in the mahogany walls lead to tunnels, hiding places, a labyrinthine sequence of passageways and caverns. As we entered a secret passageway to escape the ghost, I heard a whole bunch of voices whispering, but I could not understand them. They were all jumbled together. As we walked along the pathway, Mr. Hansen said my name right in my ear, and when I turned to look at him, he was gone. The voice was a demon voice: throaty, hoarse and very mean. It said to me, “Sarah, show yourself to me!” I could not actually pinpoint the exact location the voice had come from. But there was a black, floating swirling mass, about four feet high and three feet wide. It unnerved me so much that I feld the catacombs, and as I came out where the dining room was, something hit the wall with such a force that it knocked down several of the paintings. It looked like there had been an earthquake. And I was about to fall. However, something grabbed the collar of my collar of my shirt, and pulled me back to safety. No apparition could be seen, but the collar of my shirt had been pulled back. It was midnight when I went back to my room in the north wing. I rose early the next morning. Drawing back the curtain, then I saw a dark shadow of a woman entering my home. I could hear the dark figure ascending up their stairs and towards my room. The footsteps and voices got louder. The shadow of the woman appeared in the doorway to the room I was in. It disappeared as quickly as it manifested. I felt a cold wind pass by me, and the curtains closed and billowed as a shadowy figure. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
I decided to stay in my room until I fell asleep. Not only did I lock the door, but I put a chair against the door as an added safety measure from intruders. Late into the night, I was awakened by the loud rattling of the door and the chair. Frighteningly, the sound came from inside the room and not outside the door. It was as if someone was trying to get outside the room, not in. The room was dimly illuminated by a faint, green-glowing light. On the wall hangs a mirror, into which the light casts its luminescence. In a semi-awakened state, I gazed into the mirror and saw the reflected light begin to take the shape of a woman dressed in a beautiful dress. As I continued to stare at the apparition in the mirror, she was suddenly accompanied by a man dressed as a cavalry man, complete with high cavalry boots. How long I had been sitting in bed, I scarcely know; I had been half meditating, half dozing, mixing broken snatches of thought with brief glimpses of dreaming, when I was startled into wakefulness by a sound that was strange to me. As I opened my eyes, the sun risen. I inspected the chair and found that somehow it had been pulled out, away from the door about an inch. I stood transfixed. When suddenly my entire body flew back, and on to the floor. My eyes rolled into the back of my head. Mr. Hansen and Ersula overheard the commotion and burst into the room. “Mrs. Winchester, are you okay, where have you been?!” Ersula demanded as she and Mr. Hansen lifted me off the floor. “You are as pale as a ghost!” he said. “Never mind the sal volatile,” I said at last. “I am not ill; I have been startled, that is all.” Even now, I get the chills thinking about that night. I do believe there was something evil in the house. I have been quite reluctant to tell about the hauntings, for most people just do not want to know the truth about what is out there. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The spinning in my head slowed and then finally stopped altogether. As the last chime of the clock struck ten, I came downstair to the reception area. I felt my heart expand with the beauty of the same old World but seen through new eyes. Glancing out the skylight, a white winter sun hung low in the sky and it was bright but cold. A bird was singing. My plans for construction where castles in the air, dreams of sliver days. Places where I could spend countless dusks watching the sun sinking down into the Earth. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. A flash of blue, perhaps. I could not tell. A shiver crept down my spine. For a moment, I stood motionless. Everyone looked very dead now, very empty. There was no odor yet, but they were dead. The rigidity of Ersula’s face absorbed me. The body of Hendrick on the floor was dry and wrinkled. Not even murmuring melodies to myself of the songs I most liked to play meant anything to me. In my ears, I heard a din as if the imps of Hell were making a horrid music to drive me out of my mind. I whispered to myself to silence it. Shortly after discovering the bodies, I heard muffled voices and noises on the second floor, followed by a sharp crash. I rushed up stairs to find a large painting in the hallway had been flung violently across the hall into a freshly painted wall. The wall had been damaged by the force of the crash. I was terrified to hear the wails of a baby coming from the wall. Petrified, I remained on the second floor with the terrible cries until carpenters began a search and found me. Nearly incoherent when I was taken to my chamber, I told the carpenters about hearing the baby cry. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Emperor Lucifer, Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, as the agent of the strong living God, of His beloved Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, please appear instantly. I command thee to surrender me the nearest treasure, and I promise thee as a reward the first piece of gold or silver which I touch with my hands on the first day of every month. Such is my demand. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, O Lord! And I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. I Do invocate and conure thee, O Prince of the Rebellious Spirits; and being with power armed from the SUPREME MAJESTY, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachidae, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. And being armed with power from the SUPREME MAJESTY, I do strongly command thee, by Him Who spake and it was done, and unto whom all creatures be obedient. Also I, being made after the image of GOD, endued with power from GOD and created according unto HIS will, do exorcise thee by that most mighty and powerful name of God, EL, strong and wonderful; O thou Emperor Lucifer. And I command thee and Him who spake the Word and His Fiat was accomplished, and by the names of God. Also by the names of AFONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHI, EHYEH, ASHER EHYEH, ZABOTH, ELION, IAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, SHADDAI, LORD GOD MOST HIGH. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that which I shall desire. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Something awakens you from a fitful sleep. You roll over in your bed and there, right at the foot of it, is a misty shape resembling a human. However, its features are hazy, unclear. The dress it wears is recognizable, but from an era long past, and it is tattered, as if it had spent too much time hanging in a closet, or lying in the damp mustiness of a coffin. The figure is, at first, an object of curiosity, since you immediately assume you are dreaming. However, its tendril-like arms begin to wave, to move towards you—no, to beckon you—and the face twists into the mockery of a smile. Now you begin to panic as you realize-despite your hoping it is not true—that you are fully awake, that this is no dream and there is no explanation for the horrid sight before you, except that it is real, in all its dead splendor. It is well known that, possessions, apparitions, and other supernatural intrusions have occurred what is now known as The Winchester Mystery House.
Many People are Prepared to Dismiss the Occult World
There was no one downstairs, though the oil lamps were burning. A tall antique-case clock with a mahogany surround stood in the alcove beneath the sweep of the stairs. I looked up at the mottled ivory-colored face, at the slim Roman numerals and delicate black hands. There was a whirring of the mechanism inside the case, then a high-pitched carillon started to chime. I know I had taken my time, but even so, I was surprised that it was eight o’clock already. There was a deep nocturnal silence in the house, in which five caretakers were presumably coming and going about their work. It was certainly strange. I looked out the window, hoping to see someone crossing the court or coming alone the drive. However, no one was in sight, and the rain was still falling, with a business-like regularity, muffling the outer World in layers on layers of thick white liquid velvet, and intensifying the silence within. A noiseless World—were people so sure tht absence of noise was what they wanted? Let them first try a lonely December in a mansion this size! My heart began to hammer. Luckily there was a chair near the fireplace. I sat down to recover my strength—or was it my courage? Astrid the caretaker slept in the nearest wind. It occurred to me that by looking from the window of a neighbouring bathroom I could see the kitchen chimney. There ought to be smoke coming from it at this hour; and if there were, I would be less afraid to go on. I got as far as the front parlor and looking through the window I could see there was no smoke coming from the chimney. My sense of loneliness grew more acute. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Whatever had happened below stairs must have happened before the morning’s work had begun. The cook had not time to light the fire, the other caretakers had not yet begun their rounds. I was struggling against my fears. If I carried on my investigations, what next would I discover? I walked along the passage, and rested my hand on a radiator. It was stone-cold. Yet in my well-ordered house during the winter, the central heating was never allowed to go out, and by eight in the morning mellow warmth typically pervaded the rooms. The icy chill of the pipes startled me. No matter, I will just have the carpenters remove this fancy new technology and go back to using the 47 fireplaces. It was Mr. Hansen who looked after the heating—he was too involved in the mystery, whatever it was, as well as the house caretakers. At Astrid’s door, I paused and knocked. I expected no answer, and there was none. I opened the door and went in. The room was very dark and cold. But what frightened me was no so much its emptiness as its air of scrupulous and undisturbed order. There was no sign of anyone having lately dressed in it—or undressed the night before. And the bed had not been slept in. The woman was out, then; had gone out, no doubt, the night before, since the bed was unslept in, the dressing and washing appliances untouched. Astrid never set foot out of the house after dark. I could not believe she had deserted the house on a cold rainy night, while her mistress lay upstairs, suffering and helpless! #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Why had she gone, and where had she gone? When she was undressing me the night before, taking my orders, trying to make me comfortable, was she already planning this mysterious and dreadful occurred? I took a few deep breaths to steady my nerves. Held in a spell, filling my head with images, with emotions, that had long been absent my eyes filled with tears. My home had suddenly become the scene of virtually indescribable horrors and life-altering (and life-ending) event. Sadly, as I walked into the hallway, I saw wounded bodies laying desperately wounded. Wounded, shattered men and boys by the hundreds were strung about the mansion. The sounds of soft lead being driven into bone made a shattering sound, there were tiny bone fragments. Hundreds of torn bodies pouring into every in of my home. Blood covered doctors were sweating over several hundred filthy bodies with their guts torn open. Sticky gore flung in my sinks, and my morning room transformed into a mourning room, roped-offed for those who had been hit in the head. My former happy, joyous home had morphed into a hospital and cemetery. Suddenly, a choir singing. The reverberation of the plainsong in the upper echelons of the cathedral ceilings of the Grand Ball Room. As I made my way though the hall, time stopped many times. I noticed a lady who looked like Astrid and was on the point of waving when she vanished right before my eyes. A ghost of a man with a bright lantern appeared. He felt neighbourly and hovered in the hallway. He suddenly darted at me. I was absolutely frozen stiff until the light sailed out of sight. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
As I looked out the window, I could see human tibia, fibula, femur and radius, rings and cuff buttons were scattered on the emerald green lawns. My mansion was filled with groans and sighs and tremors. It was possibly more fearful than the 1906 Earthquake which woke me from my slumber. That was also a strange morning. In the cupola, figures of men—sentinels, paced back in forth, and hovered above the estate and the observational tower shortly after midnight. I always thought the Earthquake was caused by these sentry-spirits, now haunting my mansion, acting out the horrors of the war. In fact, for several night in a row, prior to the Earthquake, I saw a man on the cupola, frantically waving his arms. He was there three nights in a row. He stood, dressed in a blue coat and white pants, looking very pale, within the cupola, waving his hoary arms, back and forth. I called out to him, but he would not answer—just waving motion, back and forth, back and forth. Was he, rapped in more important duties, too busy to answer? Or what he trying to warn me? The thin veil between this life and the next one was sending me messages. And, one evening, there was witnessed an even more bizarre and unexplainable devotion to my estate. Astrid and I had just finished having tea on the 3rd floor. We entered the elevator to take us to the first floor. The lighted numerals in the elevator displayed their descent: “3…2…1…” and continued past the first floor. Absent-mindedly, I pushed the button for the first floor again, wondering why the elevator had not stopped, or perhaps, who in the basement had summoned the elevator. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The elevator stopped at the basement level. The doors opened to reveal not the area once cleaned up for storage, but a scene out of time and reason, the blood-stained doctors and orderlies of nearly half a century before, again performing their abhorrent and hideous tasks of slicing sinew and sawing bone and suturing artery and vein and tying ligaments; of carrying armloads of severed limbs to grisly, blood-dampened corners and dumping them there unceremoniously. We have fallen into a ghastly frozen moment, being held captive witness to the scene. One of the harried doctors turned toward us and began to look beseechingly into our eyes for help with the never-ending work, or perhaps for help to find some way out of the subterranean scene where he himself would not be heled in forced incarceration for eternity. As he took a step towards us, finally, slowly, the doors began to close. This latest encounter was a continuation. My mansion echoed with the cries and moans of torn men and boys. All of this tension and blood shed because many leaders were heavily involved in companies that raced to establish claims to millions of acres of western land. The Emancipation Proclamation was but another example of the war’s surprising consequences. On July 3, General Lee sent three divisions, about 15,000 men in all, against the Union center. The assault, known as Pickett’s Charge, was as futile as it was gallant. At 700 yards, the Union artillery opened fire. Pickett’s division just seemed to melt away in the blue musketry smoke which now covered my estate. Ghosts of soldiers straggling to my home, all these years later. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
Tracing its origins back to 1849, Winchester was the World’s oldest maker of lever-action repeating firearms in the World. I believe Winchester Rifles had been in the Civil War. Thousands of men and horses, dying, stripped and saddle and bridle were killed during the battle of Antietam. That is a reason this estate is also haunted by demonic horses. The Civil War put more men in the field than any previous engagement. On the morning of April 12, 1906, at 5.13 a.m., trapped in the Daisy Bedroom, I gazed out my window and could see a steady stream of men covered with mud, soaked through with rain…pouring irregularly, without any semblance of order, up 13 Palm Drive toward my home. I perceived they belonged to different regiments…mingled pell-mell together…a pale young man who looked exhausted to death and who had lost his sword appeared in my room and rescued me. Then he said, “I know I’m going home. I’ve had enough of fighting to last my lifetime.” More and more the cold unanswering silence of the house weighed me down. I had never thought of it as a big house, even though it had 600 rooms and expanded more than 250,000 square feet, but now, in this devastating moment, it seemed immense, and full of ominous corners around which I dared not look. Every step that I took was increasingly painful; but after being freed from my room, I walked slowly the whole length of the passage, and went down the front stair. I did not know why I did this; but at the moment I was past reasoning, and had to obey my instinct. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
More than once I explored the ground floor alone in the small hours, in search of unwonted midnight noises; but now it was not the idea of the noises that frightened me, but that inexorable and hostile silence, the sense that my mansion had retained in full daylight its nocturnal mystery, and was watching me as I was watching it; in entering those empty orderly rooms, I might be disturbing some unseen confabulation on which beings of flesh-and-blood had better not intrude. The broad mahogany stairs were beautifully polished, and so slippery that I had to cling to the rail and let myself down tread by tread. And as I descended, the silence descended with me—heavier, denser, more absolute. I felt its just behind me, softly keeping time with mine. It has a quality that I had never been aware of in any other silence, as though it were not merely an absence of sound, a thin barrier between the ear and the surging murmur of life just beyond, but an impenetrable substance made out of the World-wide cessation of all life and all movement. Yest, that is what laid a chill on me: the feeling that there was no limit to the silence. I was lost in time. There was no outer margin, nothing beyond this day. I had reached the foot of the stairs and was limping across the hall to the drawing room. What I found there, I was sure, would be mute and lifeless; but what would it be? The bodies of my dead caretakers, mown down by some attack that shook my mansion for day and days? And, was it my turn next—what if it were waiting for me behind the heavy drapes of the room I was about to enter? #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Well, I must find out—I must face whatever lay in wait. Not impelled by bravery—the last drop of courage had oozed out of me—but because anything, anything was better than to remain shut up in this house amongst debris, though most of the room were undamaged. “I must find out, I must find out,” I repeated to myself in a sort of meaningless singsong. The cold outer light flooded the drawing room. The shutters had not been closed, nor the curtain drawn. I looked about me. The room was empty, and every chair in its usual place. My armchair was pushed up by the chimney, and the cold hearth was piled with the ashes of the fire at which I had warmed myself before start on my ill-fated walk. Even my empty tea cup stood on the table near the armchair. It was evident that the caretakers had not been in the room since the explosion. And suddenly, an orb materialized, moved about, split into twin spheres, and re-formed in front of me. I was astounded. Then, candlesticks roe in midair and fell to the floor. A lead ball struck me on the chest but it did not harm me. The sound of footsteps began to pad about the room, and my tea cup jumped off the table and shattered against the floor. A hat was floating teasingly in front of me. The hat led me on a merry chase before it finally dropped at my feet. I was so exhausted from what seemed like months of sleep deprivation. I found a bed to lay in and gets some rest. As I drifted into a deep sleep, I was rudely awakened by a large quantity of water being dumped in my face. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
May people are prepared to dismiss the occult World as insignificant and ignore the possibility that there could well be an element of truth in certain of the allegations. This “otherworld” has never been far beneath the surface in the Winchester Mansion. The gods are everywhere, not only in the garden, where they might take the forms of living creatures, but in the mansion as well. Communication with the otherworld was therefore relatively for Mrs. Winchester and her warps through time and space. The human mind has consciousness that occupies a position between two Worlds: the material and the spiritual. At any time, the spiritual might intrude; it could also be summoned at will, demons and all. The Winchester Mansion operated with many skirmishes with the estate’s sorcerers. The pagan demons were not prepared to go quietly. Some of them were heroes. In Mrs. Winchester’s day, surviving manuscripts suggest that she received extraordinary visions. Mrs. Winchester saw angels who battled demons for possession of her soul. Good triumphed, but not before the saint, Mrs. Winchester, had a vision of the fires of hell. On her return to consciousness, her caretakers observed that she had developed actual burn marks over much of her body—scars that shortly after disappeared. On her death 5 September 1923, her body lay unburied for thirty-eight days and was visited by thousands of pilgrims. Many of whom claimed that Mrs. Winchester showed no decay. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
A werewolf is typically seen as a noble and honorable warrior. They are of a royal class in their species. Legend had it that Mrs. Winchester had a pack of vicious werewolf guarding her estate. After the death of Mrs. Winchester, a Bloodline Blade with a birch handle and silver blade. The knife had been passed down for a millennium in her family, and was sold at auction. Too bad. It was a priceless artifact and carried withing it the soul of a divine wolf.
I conjure thee, Spirits of the Winchester Mansion, by the great living God, the Sovereign Creator of all things, to please appear under comely human forms, without noise and without terror, to answer truly all questions we shall ask three. Hereunto I conjure thee by the virtue of these Holy and Sacred Names, O SURMY, DELMUSAN, ATALSLOYM, CHURUSIHOA, MELANY, OMOT, and VERMIAS. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Angels and Demons, Gargoyles and Ghostly Apparitions
Except for William, the idea of love to me always seemed a question of submission. Of giving in to some powerful emotion, of losing control. Poor souls. However, with my beloved William, love seemed a natural thing, something one did not even need to remark upon, like breathing or raising one’s face to the sun on a summer’s day. It is no matter now, for he passed away years ago, and all I ask is to be left alone in my chair. Money has been an armor, you see; and there are few cracks in it. But William had a loving nature, if only others had show him love. He was a delicate boy when he was little, so his mother could curl him up, and put him into black velvet pants, like that boy in the book—little Lord Something. However, when his legs grew out of the pants, and they sent him to school, she said he was not her own little cuddly baby any more; and it riles a growing boy to hear himself talked about like that. It was like being pushed out of an illuminated ballroom, all flowers and chandeliers, into the winter night and snow. Yet, Mr. Winchester grew up into a fine man and that is why I married him. He used to go over and see his mother now and again; or she would come home for the holidays. And he used to take her out for lunch, or to dance at those cabaret places; and when the headwaiters adore his mother’s beauty and charm, he would talk about it for a week. For a time she used to get some comfort out of telling me about her early triumphs; and I used to listen to her patiently, taking notes on how to be a good wife and mother. You must not think of her as an unkind woman. She was friendly to her husband, and friendly to her children, but she knew she had to raise William to be tough and strong. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
There were always people prowling about in the background that she did not like the look of; people, you understand, who live on weak people. There is nothing more I can say. Reflecting of these memories was nice. It allowed me to sleep all day and into the evening. Or, rather, I drifted in and out of twilight state. I was aware of the housemaids and the parlor maids coming and going, shapes, blurred faces, the sound of kindlin and a striking match, the maid laying a fire. I work fully only twice. First, when Ersula placed a bowl of soup and bread beside the bed and waited until I had eaten it all. The second time, when she returned to administer a second draft of the bitter white medicine, a sleeping draft or some kind of traditional remedy, I never knew and hardly cared. My skin was alternatively burning and clammy with sweat. I tossed and turned in bed, like a ship on a storm-wracked sea, plagued by dreams and delusions. Angels and demons, gargoyles and ghostly apparitions, long-since deserted friends waltzed in and out of my head. For hours, so Ersula later told me, things hung in the balance as my temperature climbed as high as the nine-story observational tower. Certainly, I oscillated between beauty and horror. A skeletal hand pushing up from beneath freshly turned Earth, blossoms dying on the bough. The back of Annie’s heads, impassive and deaf to my consoling up her upset tummy. William smiling at me, in the orchard and by the stream, but then stepping just out of reach and turning away when I called out to him. Barbed wire and mud and blood, chlorine gas, a World of unimaginable pain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Nearly 175,000 men—jamming the streets and roads and field of my estate, attempting to tear each other apart, and in doing so, leaving anywhere from 44,000 to 51,000 casualties behind, to be cared for immediately after the battle by a handful of doctors, orderlies, and the servants of my estate, and my mansion metamorphosing into one vast charnel-house. To day the least, my tidy rooms, barns, and farmhouses, and Victorian gardens were overflowing with men who were seriously hurt and badly needed shelter from the elements. These horrors seemed to last for weeks. The fever broke at about three o’clock in the morning. My temperature dropped. I stopped shaking and my skin, sticky with fever, returned to normal. For the first time in hours, I was able to get out of bed. In the still and sleeping house, I could hear the whirring and chiming of the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs. A ribbon of moonlight made its way between the shutters and painted a line across the floor. I watched the moonbeams dance, slowly shifting, as the hours passed and the World continued to turn. I walked through the hallway, looking through a couple of doorways and back into the original section of the house when I noticed a fresh-countenanced young man standing and watching the goings-on with a peculiar look on his face. The more I watched him, the more I saw it was a look of wanting to come out of the Grand Ball Room. Catching his eye, I motioned for the young man to come join me for a cup of tea. He just stood there and stared, the expression on his face becoming even more painted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Then it dawned on me that he was a ghost, and he was stuck in the old part of the house and could not leave the Grand Ball Room. With an understanding shrug, he turned away from the door and walked further into the room to join the other apparitions. I stood back with my eyes closed, and a quiet smile on my face. By this time, the sky was a mass of teal and fuchsia. At first it looked like a kite-flying contest, the could over my mansion obstructed by swooping streaks of color that danced on the air currents, trailing multi-hued streamers behind them. Then I heard the chirping cacophonous twittering like an orchestra of xylophones. As I looked further through the skylights, I realized that the kites’ long tails were really feathers, and they were not tethered to the ground by strings. A flock of birds, what seemed like hundreds of them, painted the air with wings the color of the rainbow, dipping and soaring on air currents visible only to them. I could barely take my eyes off the flock. I wished the birds would stay forever: They were like an elaborately painted scene on a China teacup, and their chirping filled me with the kind of inexplicable joy that I had felt as a child, climbing onto my mother’s lap and smelling the faint scent of her jasmine perfume after a long day of play. The birds, as if acting on an invisible signal from above, formed two loose lines and soared higher, heading towards Heaven. I wished I could fly with them, borne along on whatever invisible breeze they had ridden in on. The birds had stirred something powerful in me, mysterious symphony of joy and emotion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
It must have been some kind of European sorcery and magic. And, there seemed to be something else in the atmosphere. Around 5.45 a.m., I heard what sounded like for all the World, a small child. It came from further down the hallway, and I walked curiously down towards where the sound seemed to be coming from, the sound moved into the living room. I followed, and it kept moving and cooing at a distance of what I estimated was about six feet in front of me. As I got to the living room, the cooing baby moved on into the next room, the kitchen. I stood in the living room and rationalized for a moment. The lights from outside the mansion were spilling into the room, and it slowly occurred to me that if the baby had been playing, I would surely have seen her cross the room between the hall and the kitchen. I listened to the cute baby sounds in the next room, and a chill went down my spine. I now had no idea what I was dealing with. The cooing faded within the next moment, and I backed down the hall, ducking into the Alice in Wonderland room and, of course, there was no one in the room, but the tiny rocking chair was swaying back and forth. A few nights later, I was up in the middle of the night. I was in complete darkness. No windows in the room, no light, just darkness. Suddenly, from the area to my left, which would have been the bathtub, I heard very clearly—sharp and loud enough to make me jump—a voice shout, “Belly Ache!” The voice was that of a little girl, but there was something sweet and warm about the voice, like the voice of an angel. I pushed the button to turn on the light. Nothing. Not that I found the matter unfathomable. Quite frequently, I saw the figure of a little girl moving up and down the hall past my bedroom door during the night. She has a soft, blue glow. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
For week, I lie awake at night, thinking this could be my beloved Annie. I waited and waited, night after night to see her again and perhaps talk with her, but she did not return. However, the bathtub faucet leaked and dripped fairly on occasion. I lay in bed, listening to the drip. It had developed a steady rhythm, as drips will. Suddenly, the rhythm changed. The drip sound changed in pitch, and it literally played a tune. It was the Highland Fairy Lullaby. The temperature in the room dropped, and I could clearly hear the sound of a little girl playing with her doll. She was singing a tuneless little song, the kind of melodic chat that was common among young children, especially little girls at play. From time to time, she would interrupt the humming of her sing-song to speak lovingly to her doll, and then she would call rather loudly to her mother that she had a tummy ache. However, there was no response from the mother, and she would return to playing with her doll and singing. I could almost see the little girl dressing her doll, combing its beautiful hair. From that night on, I would awake in the middle of the night or in the morning and hear the little girl calling for her mother. Once I had thoroughly searched the house and determined that it must be the sound of some lost and confused spirit-child, eternally singing and occasionally calling for her mother, or perhaps it was some kind of ethereal phonograph, eternally reproducing the sounds of a little girl. For some, this haunting might be considered a nightmare, but for me, it reminded me of the death of my six-week-old daughter, and it gave me hope that she was still near me, in my house growing and aging, even if she were only a spirit. I took these as signs from the spirit World and had a bird aviary constructed with exotic birds from all over the World, and invited my niece Daisy to live with me. Someone I could be a mother to. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I invoke, conjure, and command thee, Spirit Botis, and your 60 Legions of Spirits to bring with you power armed from the Supreme Majesty, I do strongly command thee, by BERALANENSIS, BALDACHINENSIS, PAUMACHIA, and APOLOGIAE SEDES; by the most Powerful Princes, Genii, Liachide, and Ministers of the Tartarean Abode; and by the Chief Prince of the Seat of Apologia in the Ninth Legion, I do invoke thee, and by invocating conjure thee. Magic forces, black and white, reaching out through space and light, be he far or be he near, brings us the demon Balthazar here. Ancient powers, we summon thee, we the power of three and seek your help in finding the demons who are in the Winchester Mansion. Come thou peaceably, visibly, and affably, now, and without delay, manifesting that magic running through this estate, help us see with clarity, power that we have summoned here, protect us and we will have no fear. Throne having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Mighty Wisdom of God; by the Seal of Basdathea, by this name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou make faithful answers unto all our demands and perform all our desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which we desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice, that we may understand. TETRAGRAMMATON IEHOVAH, do I command three, at which being heard the elements are overthrown, the air is shaken, the sea runneth back, the fire is quenched, the Earth trembleth, and all the hosts of the celestials, terrestrials, and infernals do tremble together, and are troubled and confounded. Wherefore come thou, O Spirits Sarah, William, and Annie Winchester, forthwith, and without delay, from any or all parts of the World wherever thou mayest be, and make rational answers unto all things that we shall demand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
A thin door indeed it is between life and death: one moment young and full of future, the next lying wounded in some stranger’s house in a small farm-town, the following instant forever lost and wandering in eternity. Could it be the vital spark, the spirit of not only souls killed by the Winchester rifle, but also members of the Winchester family that still search for the youth they lost, roaming the miles of hallways in the Winchester Mansion for all of eternity? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Good-by; You’ll Never Know What This Has Cost Me
Mr. Hansen had never been able to understand why there was any harm in giving people a little encouragement when they needed it. Sitting back in my comfortable armchair by the fire, I thought to myself, “You would be surprised to find how discouraged the grand people get, in these big houses with all the help, and silver dinner plates, and a bell always handy if the fire wants poking, or the pet dog asks for a drink.” It was then that I first became aware of a disturbance in the air. A kind of restlessness. I looked sharply around the front parlor, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was deserted. No one had come along for some time. Yet there was a suggestion of movement nonetheless, a shifting of the light from the chandelier. The drapes loomed more menacingly and the fire appeared even closer, as I glanced out of window, my yard looked like an ancient forest of evergreen. What secrets did they contain within their shadows? My heart skipped a beat. I opened the window. The silence surged around me. Again, nothing. And inside—no telltale footsteps or voices. Only later, did it occur to me that the silence was peculiar. I should have been able to hear something. The roar of the furnaces, or the belching chimneys. The sound of the carpenters hammering. The servants washing dishes in one of the kitchens. However, I was only aware of the silence. Silence, as if I were the only one left alive on my estate. Then I heard it. No, not heard. I sensed it. A whispering, almost like a singing. The others have slipped away into darkness. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I heard the ghost of Mr. Winchester’s voice inside my head, though it was growing fainter with the passing years. However, this was different, a lighter sound, gentle and exquisite, carried on the cold air. A reverberation, and echo of words once spoken in this place? And what of the crimson mist on arising from the floor? On these cold winter nights, it was not unusual to hear the clanking like a bucket, and the shuffling of feet. When I looked over toward the kitchen, there was a man—or something—dressed in a long white coat, all bent over like he was tired or something, slowly walking toward the door-to-nowhere. He was filling up the buckets using the exterior water faucets on the second floor that were used to water my flower boxes. He seemed to walk right out the door and to the front of the house, but there was nothing supporting him. Then he watered the flowers and walked slowly back into the house, real tired- like. And almost suddenly vanished. There were spirits caught forever in the never-ending labor to keep this estate operating. Perhaps these were visions out of time making their journey into the eternal flame as well as into Eternity itself. However, every July 2, officers could be frequently seen in the dim moonlight, in the Victorian garden, dressed in their gray tunics and gold stars and wreath, gathering around the fountains, mixing fine bourbon with the clear water, and toasting to the next day’s victory or death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Summer nights always tended to be a little eerie. In the dark, the estate at best, is an uncomfortable place to be. The tragic memories and sorrows of a nation’s struggle defending the hour of the country with their Winchester Rifle’s hanged heavily and seemed magnified in the night. There is always something moving in the fruit orchards or the grass just off the unlighted portions of the estate. It all makes the Other World all that much closer. Sometimes one could even hear the strange military noises emanating from the 740 acres of land I own, and the fallen faces of the slaughtered. Desperate orders shouted…steel rammers ringing in muskets…the clicking of hammers cocked…the hoarse trill of a bugle…the clacking of artillery chains…a roar…shrieks…men gagging, crying, screaming, moaning, moaning, moaning….and there is often heard the funeral call, mounrful apologies of a heartsick, dying warrior to a lost friend bemoaning a fateful decision to be regretted down the ages. Although we had transitioned into summer, there was just an endless expanse of cold on these nights. Memories would seep into my mind. My Daisy Bedroom. Candles burned out. Me crying in the dark, jolted awake by bad dreams and calling out for my infant daughter who passed away long too soon. Then Mr. Winchester, sitting at the end of my bed, opening the curtains to let the silver moon in, saying there was nothing to be afraid of. How nothing could hard me. Not even a curse. How I was a Winchester, invincible and courageous. Nothing could get me as long as I kept building. And with William by my side, I believed it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
So I talked to myself to keep my spirit up. I was in no actual physical danger, I said. It was just a matter holding on to my nerved. Still, fragments of life flashed into my mind and out. Broken images of my husband and daughter, photographs of our happy days. Memories of Mr. Winchester. And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow coming to meet him. Had he recognized the moment for what it was? Whispering, I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the walls. “She is the last, the last, the heiress.” Heard howling from the walls. Sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching on the floors, and a terrible weeping. I worked hard to turn this mansion into something beautiful. Having evergreen trees planted and a variety of flowers. I even remodeled a room with attractive redwood walls, and another with floor to ceiling glass panels that provided a 180-degree view of the estate. I smiled when I saw the perennials that I had planted. However, a number of other peculiar incidents began to convince me that I was being visited by discarnate entities. I always knew I was being haunted. But now I was catching fleeting glimpses of fast-moving shadows from time to time when I would least expect to see such a thing. There would often be smells of delicate perfume. Mr. Hansen thought it was closer to a man’s cologne. Sometimes we encountered the scent together, but in every instance it came and drifted away after only a few minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once, when I was outside tending the flowers growing under the front windows, and I was suddenly enveloped in an invisible puff of strong cigar smoke. Then I was choking, coughing. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the smoke away from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, I saw the daisies with drops of blood on them, glittering and yet dull at the same time. I propelled myself into a standing position, and walked towards the front doors. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get those doors shut. When I looked in the mirror, I was not injured at all. That night while I was falling asleep, I sensed a large, dark presence in the bedroom. It glided over me and seemed to hover just over my head, and I was the recipient of a telepathic command: “I want to know your thoughts!” After I fell asleep, I experienced horrific nightmares. I was awakened by the sounds of terrific crashes, as though something huge had fallen over somewhere in the house, causing terrible damage. Thanks to the stocks I owned and the ones I bought in Con Edison, I was able to keep building rooms to evade the ghosts. Do you know how it is, sometimes when you are doing a bit of fine darning, sitting by the window in the afternoon; and one minute it is full daylight, and your needle seems to find the way of itself; and the next minute you say: “Is it my eyes? because the work seems blurred; and presently you see it is the daylight going, stealing away, softlike, from your corner, though there is plenty left overheard. Well—it is the way it is with these ghosts around.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Most nights, screaks could be heard emanating from within the walls. Then everything would be stripped of color, an absence and shade. Fog hovered motionless from the ceiling. And it would come again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want from me?” But the fog, the apparition, had vanished. After the Spanish-America War, all the fine ladies took to running to the mediums and the clairvoyants, or whatever the stylish folk call them. The women had to have news of their men; and they were maid to pay high enough for it…Oh, the stories I used to hear—and the price paid was not only money, either! There was a fair lot of swindlers and blackmailers in the business, there was. I always had a way of seeing things; from the cradle, even. I do not mean reading the tea leaves, or dealing the cards. No, no; I mean, feeling there are things about you, behind you, whispering over your shoulder. I felt more and more sorry for those women that the soothsaying swindlers were dragging the money out of for a pack of lies; and one day I could not stand it any longer, and though I knew the Church was against it, when I saw one lady nearly crazy, because for months she had no news of her boy at the front, I said to her: “If you will come over to my place tomorrow, I might have a word for you.” And the wonder of it was that I had! For that night I dreamt a message came saying there was good news for her, and the next day, sure enough, she had a telegram telling her her son was coming home. And that August, the war ended. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
One is confronted finally with the metaphysics of time: is it merely linear; are we moving along it like riding a train on a track and all that happens, once it occurs, is forever gone? Or can that time be bent, as some prominent theoretical physicists of the late 19th and 20th centuries have said, so that we may run into it again? Or, can an event go out in more directions than just backward, carried on time like ripples from a stone throw in a pond, occasionally under very special circumstances in very special places, returning like a faint echo? Is it possible that the bigger the event the larger the ripples and the more likely they are to return? Or perhaps is it possible, if time can be bent, or the ripples move slowly enough, to catch up with events again, and again, and again? Come tour the Winchester Mystery House and perhaps you will find some hidden clues. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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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/
Fear of the Engulfing Darkness
Somethings as old as the World, as mysterious as life. As she looked at the silent Victorian garden, Sarah L. Winchester sat on the western balcony for hours, letting the sun warm her, as illuminating thoughts whirled in her imagination. But there the apprehension was; and on this particular afternoon—perhaps because she was more tired than usual, or because of the trouble of finding a new cook or, for some other reason, moral or physical—she found herself unable to react against the feeling. The desolate widow, of whom her nearest friends said that only her absorbing interest in building one of the largest mansions in California, at the time, kept her from suicide after the death of her husband and new born daughter. There were days when she would stand there cold and shivering with the premonition of something inexplicable, intolerable, to be faced on the other side of the curtained panes; and when she opened the door and went in, there would be nothing; and on other days when she felt the same premonitory chill, it was justified by the sight of confused and betrayed spirts haunting her mansion. So that every morning she opened her eyes, she would take to feeling cold and premonitory because she never got out of bed without thinking a ghoul, ghost, or demon would be there. With her the strain had become chronic, and the reason was not far to seek. However, that coldly beautiful face was often penetrated by the secret she hardly acknowledged to her own heart—her passion for architecture. It allowed her to shut out the dark with graceful turrets, bay windows with fanciful cornices, intricate pillars, gently sloping cupolas and iconic towers with witch’s caps. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
However, the fields around the Winchester Mansion, once the summer sun would, always bred mist that seemed to hand head-high in long, silver lines. Apparently, some of these mists out of the fruit orchards were a little more animated than others. Mrs. Winchester would hear the famers talking about the “orchards” and refusing to work the area after the sun began to sink behind the estate. They were not just frightened—it was terror she recognized in their simple eyes. The trees grew in long rows, and one of the farmers, Joakim, made a statement saying that this was the only fruit orchard in the World where he saw blood and gore run in actual rivulets. Mrs. Winchester assured hum that when the orchard was planted in the area, the trees flourished on a unique fertilizer. Others reported hearing the frantic calls of panic-stricken men, seeing a unique mist, and could hear low moaning of the wounded, calling in a soft southern drawl for a wife or mother. Along with the hideous, soft thud of leaf into flesh, over and over and over, more than six hundred times. Surveying her home early one morning, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it another day!” Mrs. Winchester exclaimed aloud, as she put her key in the lock. She turned the key and went in; there was something about the day that made her uneasy. It was not just the cold spots—the front parlor had always been colder than the rest of the house. She had gotten used to that. There was something else. Ominous signs that something was not right, and it was not her imagination; there were physical, concrete signs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
In one of the bedrooms on the first floor, she had sealed up. However, she decided to have the foremen open the room back up and decorate it. When the removed the slate stones used to seal up the room, they noticed an odd site. The windowsill and the floor below it were covered with dead black files. This was puzzling. After all, the room had been sealed off. On closer examination, Mrs. Winchester saw some that some of the flies were incomplete. It was as if they had been chopped in two or—more worryingly—bitten in two. A shiver ran through her. She just could not understand it; there was no rational explanations she could think of. She simply felt as if she were fighting her way through a stifling fog that she must at all costs get out of. The blood rushed from Mrs. Winchester’s heart to her temples. She felt tears rushing to her eyes. “Ah, that’s worse, then—that’s hopeless!” She immediately had the room torn down. Afterwards, there was a long interval of suspense, during which she felt her heart beating against her ribs in quick admonitory knocks, as if warning her of the danger she was incurring. Suddenly, there came a loud rapping at the front door. She went to answer it, but there was nobody in sight. Later the night when Mrs. Winchester went to bed, she awoke dripping with sweat. The fireplace had a roar fire blazing. Since it was not winter, no one would have lit a fire. Mrs. Winchester stood breathing rapidly, her hands against her breast. She felt as if she had run a hard race and missed the goal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
She continued to feel the beauty of a great love for her home, even though the spirits made her feel as if she was unable to bear the burden of her legacy. She heard a tired step on the stairs and closing a bedroom door above. Then she dropped into a chair and buried her face in her folded arms. The footsteps came down the stairs, walked down the hall, entered the bathroom, flushed the toilet, the walked into Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom. She sat up in her chair, unable to move because she could feel a dark presence as the invisible spirit paced through her bedroom. This intensified her fear as the fire was doused by engulfing darkness. The next evening Mrs. Winchester was still reflecting on this when the surprised parlormaid came in and found her. No, Mrs. Winchester said, she was not going to dress for dinner. However, she eventually mounted the stairs to her dressing room. Her dinner dress was lying on the bed, and at the sight the quiet routine of her daily life took hold of her and she began to feel that the events she had been experiencing must have taken place in another World, projecting by phantoms of her fevered imagination. Only, how strange, how unbearable for other people to witness these events, and feel herself at the end of the World! Mrs. Winchester started to think of the mystery as something conscious, malevolent: a secret persecution before which she quailed, yet from which she could not free herself from. There was a flash in the corner of her eyes. The fireplace began to flicker on and off. As soon as she would put the fire out, it would spark itself right back up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Kasper, the butler, was called by Mrs. Winchester through the servant call system. He distinguished the fire, but before he walked out of the room, it was violently ablaze, as if it was spiteful. While Mrs. Winchester was in the dining room enjoying fricandeau of veal with spinach, she saw the dark shadow of a child form between the kitchen and the hallway. When Kasper walked in the dining room, it filled up with some kind of fog, and slowly drifted out of the room. She was brooding over the problem, when she said to Kasper, “You must go to bed early; you look terribly tired.” “I am sure we all overwork at times.” She rose and stood before him with sudden resolution. “Well, I am not going to have you use up your strength slaving in that way. It is absurd. I can see you are ill.” She bent over him and laid her hand on his forehead. “Poor old Kasper. Prepare to be taken away soon on a long holiday.” He looked up at her, started. “A holiday?” Then out of nowhere, there was such a pounding on the house that they ran outside to see what could be the source of the racket. However, whatever it was, it could not be seen, and the pounding just kept hammering away, circling and circling the mansion until it finally quieted down. Mrs. Winchester felt resentfulness rising with her fears. Kasper continued his troubled pacing of the room; then he stopped short, dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. From the shaking of his shoulders, Mrs. Winchester saw that he was weeping. She has never seen a man cry, expect Mr. William Winchester, after the death of their infant. She was frightened now’ she felt that the butler was being dragged away into some spiritual bondage, and that she must use her last atom of strength in the struggle for his freedom, and for hers. I conure Thee, O Mrs. Winchester of this instrument, by the authority of Hod the Father Almighty, by the virtue of Heaven and the stars, by the virtue of the Angels, by that of the elements, by that of stones and herbs, and in like manner by the virtue of snowstorms, thunder, and winds, that thou receive all power unto the performance of those things in the perfection of which we are concerned, the whole without trickery, falsehood, or deception, by the command of God. Creator of the ages and Emperor of the Angels. Amen. Domine, Deus meus, in te speravi; Confitetor tibi, Domine, int toto corde meo: Wuemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes acquorum. DAMAHIL, LUMECH, GADAL, PANCIA, VELOAS, MEOROD, LAMIDOCH, BALDACH, ANERETHON, MITATRON. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mansion is an ancient maze of rooms and twisted hallways that ramble on for miles. After having lost themselves in the catacomb, some tour guides find their way out with the held of an odd and slightly ominous-looking stranger who leads them to a familiar path then vanishes. “Are there any ghosts here at the Winchester Mystery House?” many visitors ask. Of course, the staff cannot encompass the spirit-World. However, the memories in the hundreds of rooms still standing in side of the mansion have been haunted for over a century. The door-to-nowhere, on the second floor, got its name not only because it seems the balcony was never attached to it to support visitors when they open the door, but also because when Mrs. Winchester built that portion of the house, the door would not stay closed. One foreman even nailed it shut with a small wire nail after the house was opened for tours (so as not to destroy too much of the historic door.) Sure enough, the next morning when he opened the house, the door was ajar. Over the years, tour guides never tried keeping the door closed. They figure whatever it was that wanted to get out (or in) of that room—either a draft or a ghost—would do so anyway. It usually occurs when the moon is in conjunction with the sun.
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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/
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A Collection of the Most Rare Secrets
The rites of Transcendental Magic are divine and religious rites, and the counsels, spiritual and moral, which are found in its instructions are, in their way, the counsels of perfection, whatever element of puerility may radically obtain in its experiments. It is not to do outrage to God in the interests of diabolism, but to derive power and virtue from above for more successful control of Evil Spirits, and this obtains indifferently whether the purpose of the operator be otherwise lawful or not. One should put all one’s hopes in God before one makes pact with Satan; that, in a word, one should be good in order to do evil. Demons of the Solitudes stand guard over the Winchester Mansion and its secrets even when human ghosts have ceased to walk in the neighbourhood. And little do people know, that the habitual practice of Black Magic at the Vatican can be easily proved. Seemingly insignificant decisions in our lives set us on irreversible courses; that we were born when and where were, that we choose to live here or there, seem to set us on a track from which there is only one detour, only one escape. Sarah L. Winchester paused on her doorstep. Dark had descended on the brilliancy of the afternoon of April in 1888, and the grinding and building of the mansion was at its highest. She turned her back on it, standing for a moment in the old fashioned, marble-flagged vestibule before she inserted her key in the lock. The sash curtain drawn across the panes of the inner door softened the light within to a warm blur through which no details showed. It was an hour when she had most liked to return to that quiet beautiful house. The contrast between the soulful stillness of Santa Clara Valley, and the mansion with its devouring blaze of lights, always stirred Mrs. Winchester profoundly. In the very heart of this 600 room labyrinth she found her joy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
In the hall hung Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, Artemisia Gentilechi, Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, Sanford R. Gifford, October in the Catskills, Georges de La Tour, Joseph the Carpenter, Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas and other fine works of art. There was also the grand staircase, and on the right her library, full of books and inviting Victorian Renaissance Revival arms chairs. How Mrs. Winchester loved that room! Then, upstairs, her own drawing room, in which her niece Daisy loved to sit and soak up the sun. The Hall-of-Fires was one of Mrs. Winchester’s favourite rooms because had five fireplaces, and three connecting rooms. In fact, this is where she hastened back at dusk on winter days, where she sat reading by the fire, or answering notes at the pleasant roomy desk. Sometime friends dropped in; sometime—oftener—she was alone; and she liked that best. The housemaid, Hilda, tried her best to ignore the eerie noises that she heard coming from the room that possessed the door-to-nowhere. Each night when she was left alone to mop the floors, she would hear the sounds—dull, heavy treading, like someone slowly pacing back and forth and the door opening and closing. Finally she decided that she had enough of the strange sounds thar so disturbed her. She was convinced that a ghost occupied that room. In a state of nervous agitation, she asked to be discharged from her service in the Winchester Mansion. Mrs. Winchester saw no reason why she should attempt to talk the woman into saying with her. She was obviously a highly imaginative woman who had frightened herself by supposing that she was being visited by supernatural beings. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Through it all, Mrs. Winchester heard Hilda’s soul weeping in agony; it was an echo of her own, soul broken from a course of great hope. It was not before long, however, before Mrs. Winchester and the other servants also heard the sound of heavy feet in the room with the door-to-nowhere. Although puzzled by the treading of invisible feet, Mrs. Winchester and the servants convinced themselves that there was undoubtedly a natural explanation for the strange sounds. In spite of their refusal to believe that there was a supernatural element to the noise, Mrs. Winchester purposely omitted any mention of the disturbed room when she hired a new housemaid. However, it was not before long that Magda realized something was wrong. In addition to the sounds of thudding feet, the ghost has soon acquired fists with which to pound on walls and added bed-lifting to it repertoire of supernatural phenomena. The invisible force manifested under the bed of the Magda and began to raise the mattress higher and higher, until she finally cried out. Next, the thing hoisted the mattress of the bed. Magda described the sensation as feeling as if a large man were underneath the bed, pushing it up with his back. Later, the haunting developed an ability to whistle, talk, and materialize into a number of grotesque phantoms. Mrs. Winchester was awakened one night by a loud shriek that emanated from under her bed. Upon investigating, heard an odd moan coming from somewhere in the room. The bed began to move. Mrs. Winchester switched bedrooms, but her relocation did not spare her the torment of having her bed levitated. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The phenomen had begun to leave its domain on the upper floor, venturing to the lower floors during the night. One of the kitchens seemed to be a favorite targe for its nightly forays, and on several mornings the cook would find the kitchen chairs heaped in a disorderly pile, the shutters thrown open, and utensils scattered about the room. One night Daisy was terrified to hear the bolt in her door slide back, the handle turn, and the door open. As an invisible entity moved across the bed, the curtains began to rustle, and the bedcovers were suddenly lifted and thrown off the bed, revealing Daisy trembling in fear. She saw a distinctly dark shadow against the curtains that hung from the bed frame. Mrs. Winchester was disturbed nearly every night, so much so that she would sleep in a different room frequently. She reported hearing the words “never mind” and “come and get” being repeated over and over, without any apparent meaningful application. As she attempted to sleep, she constantly heard footsteps shuffling around her bed, and felt forceful thumps to her pillow and other bedclothes. She must have blacked out. She came to, after what seemed like hours but could surely have only been seconds, brought around by an urgent rapping on her window. The face she saw through the glass startled her. It was a man’s face—a man with eyes so dark and penetrating that her immediate impulse was to close her eyes. The next morning at breakfast, Mrs. Winchester sat down at the table, buried her face in her hands, and wept. Her tears flowed freely. “I should be happy,” she signed to herself. “By rights I should be happy.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Bang! The furnace in the basement made such a loud noise, its note reverberating through the house like a bell and sending Mrs. Winchester’s nerves a-twitching. Bang! Again. Words of the haunts got around. The house received few visitors. No neighbours dropped by for a chat. From one end of the week to another she only saw Daisy and her servants. Jim Hansen, the foreman of the estate, told Mrs. Winchester that he had heard a peculiar noise moving across the lawn in darkness. At first, Mr. Hansen thought it came from the belfry; he suspected that some prankster were ringing it. However, upon pursuing the noise with a lantern in hand, he found that the bell had not moved. Mr. Hansen also told Mrs. Winchester in the strictest confidence that even before this peculiar disturbance, he had on several occasion heard a sound as if someone were walking on a gravel path, but there was nothing but emerald green grass for yards, and when he went to see who it was, he saw no one. Shortly after Mrs. Winchester’s confidential conversation with Mr. Hansen, both Mr. Hansen and a housemaid observed the luminous image of a woman in a tower window of the Winchester Mansion; both parties saw the ghost independently of each other. Mr. Hansen gathered the entire staff to witness the phantasm, which was fully visible for more than 10 minutes. One evening, a few minutes before midnight, Daisy was awakened by a noise very much like that of someone winding a large clock. After this bizarre noise, her bed began to shake, and she clearly heard a sound like that of a heavy sack falling on the floor above. Several strong knocks sounded about her bedstead, and the unmistakable sound of shuffling feet surrounded her bed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
About 1am, Mrs. Winchester was awakened by a piercing scream of terror coming from the fourth floor. Daisy had come face to face with the ghost of a wizened old woman. Mrs. Winchester and Daisy spent the rest of the night drinking coffee in the kitchen. However, they were not alone. The knocking started again. Then an entity resembling a monkey came lurking into the kitchen. The woman screamed and ran upstairs locking themselves in the Blue Séance Room. Suddenly, the monkeylike creature appeared in the window outside of the Blue Séance Room and started banging on the bars covering the window. By The time Mr. Hansen came running to response to their excited cries, he saw what he thought was an oversized werewolf howling and banging on the house. However, no one in the neighbourhood owned a monkey. Mrs. Winchester stay up all night sketching the creature. When she was done, Daisy went down to the library and spent hours reading up on curious monsters in The Hudson Bay Diaries. When she stumbled upon The Windigo. These documents explained that Windigo’s are flesh-eating demons. They come from the Native American tribes in the northern United States of America and Canada. The Ojibwa, Cree, and Algonquian Indians explained that the Windigo were once humans. Somehow, they turned into possessed cannibals. People feared these demons most during the winter months when food was hard to find. The Windigo supposedly roams frozen northern areas looking for humans to eat. According to legend, the Windigo paralyzes its victims with a scream. Then it kills them and eats them. Blizzards swirl around this giant as it travels from victim to victim. It is said to be as tall as the trees of the forest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
As Mr. Hansen, Mrs. Winchester, and Ms. Daisy searched the mansion to make sure there were no more intruders, they did not find the Windigo. However, what they did discover was a floating head. It was a white face of a woman. As if that was not shocking enough, the constant sound of heavy thuds prevented their nerves from relaxing. The house echoed with the sounds of boxed being dragged down the stairs. The trio had no idea what to think of this. Obviously, it was the souls of the slain. Ghostly phenomena were a common occurrence in the Winchester Mansion. When a person dies the bioelectric energy is released from the body into the local environment where it may perform one of two actions. The unconscious energy may dissipate into the local environment and there will essentially be no manifestations thereafter or it may, through covalent bonding, remain in the local environment and attach itself to a certain place or object that the person was attached to in life, or any place that has an electron deficit (this is the theory being “repeat” hauntings). The energy may, upon rapid release from the physical body (such as in accidental death, tragic situations, or a rapid natural release, et cetera) coagulate within the local environment over a short period of time, maybe only a couple of minutes or so, and amass to such a degree that the greater portion that was originally in the body had now become self-aware outside the body. Psychological forces of conscious will may also trigger this type of reaction. When self-awareness occurs, there is generally a degree of confusion because of the new form that the person is in, one of pure energy rather than a physically manifested body. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I invoke and conjure, and command thee, O Spirit TETRAGRAMMATON, to appear and show thyself visibly before this circle, in fair and comely shape, without deformity or guile, by the Name of ON; by the Name Y and V, which Adam heard and spake; by the Name of JOTH, which Jacob learned from the Angels on the night of his wrestling, and was delivered from the hands of hi brother Esau; by the Name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; by the Name ANEHEXETON, which Aaron spake and was made wise; by the Name SCHEMES AMATHIA, which Joshua invoked and the Sun stayed upon his course; by the Name EMMANUEL, which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, chanted in the midst of the fiery furnace, and were delivered; by the Name ALPHA and OMEGA, which Daniel uttered, and destroyed Bel and the Dragon; by the Name ZEBAOTH, which Moses named, and all the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt brought forth frogs, which ascended into the houses of the Egyptians, destroying all things; by the Name ESCERCHIE ARISTON, which Moses named, and the rivers and waters in the land of Egypt were tuned into blood; by the Name ELION, on which Moses called, and there fell a great hall, such as never was seen since the creation of the World; by the Name AEONAI, which Moses named, and there came up locusts over all the land of Egypt, and devoured what the hail had left: by the Name HAGIOS, by the Seal of ADONAI, by those others which are JETROS, ATHENOROS, PARACLETUS; by the three Holy and Secret Names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATION; by the dreadful Day of Judgement; by the changing Sea of Glass which is before the face of the Divine Majesty, mighty and powerful; by the four bests before the Throne, having eyes before and behind, by the fire which is about the Throne, by the Holy Angels of Heaven, by the Might Wisdom of God; by the Seal of BADATHEA, by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which Moses named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named, and the Earth opened and swallowed Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; do thou named make faithful answers unto all my demands, and perform all my desires, so far as thine office shall permit. Come therefore peaceably and affably; come visibly and without delay; manifest that which I desire; speak with a clear and intelligible voice that I may understand thee. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
The Winchester Mystery House
Over many years, cases, and investigations, observers have documented hauntings in the Winchester Mansion that cannot be ignored. To those who wish to condemn these tales because they seem to document happenings after death, it must be remembered that a good 20 percent of the World’s population have built their religion specifically around life after death. They are called Christians. As well, most of the rest of the World’s major religions believe in another World, beyond, or perhaps parallel, with the one which is visible. Looking for a rainy day activity? Bring the family to the iconic Winchester Mystery House! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And be sure to check out the online gift shop: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 