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Was She to Sleep in a Haunted House?
In the early hours. Three or four o’clock, the entire World of the undead was in my mansion or so it seemed, all the rooms were filled with spirits talking in whisper to one another. I thought it was so cold inside, it could snow. My confidence was swiftly eroding. I looked down at my thin, bare arms, and there appeared goose bumps. I hurried up the staircase to the Daisy Bedroom, trying to ignore the supernatural gathering. That afternoon, I found that the housemaid Brigitta had prepared a delicious roast with all the trimmings. Yes, it was wonderful to have help around the house. After supper, Brigitta made some coffee and we settled down in the parlor for the delightful business of catching up on each other’s lives. During the course of conversation, Brigitta commented on the attractive new sofa. Talk of the sofa reminded Brigitta of the shadow that she had seen the past two evenings. “Mrs. Winchester,” she said, “the past two nights when I stayed late, I became aware of something kind of wispy floating around me.” Then she laughed, affecting an expression of mock horror. “It’s inconceivable, what you are thinking,” I said. Suddenly Brigitta felt a strange chill shudder through her body. It was as if her disclosure seriously offended the unseen guest in the room. “Mrs. Winchester, what do you mean ‘inconceivable’?” said Brigitta. She experienced a fear of the unknown. I had seen demons in the sky, monsters ready to swoop down and snatch them all up and carry them back to that hideous dungeon cell, demons coming forth from the dark trees that encircled the house, demons hovering at the top of the stairs in the shadows, but I could not let her know that. “Oh, my dear Brigitta, surely you are mistaken. It must have just been a draft or dust. I can assure you of this.” I said. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
“Yes, for the moment, we can agree to this,” Brigitta said. “Of course, this is reasonable.” All at once she felt surrounded by ugly, malignant hatred. She was stiffened with fear as she realized that whatever it was, she had offend it, and it had decided it would get even with her somehow. Everywhere she walked, she felt surrounded by cold hatred. The next morning at breakfast, everything seemed as it should be. Only Brigitta seemed to be away of a subtle change in my home’s atmosphere. Brigitta left work warly that afternoon. Lights went out early in her home that evening. Sadly, they did not remain that way for very long. The family had been asleep for only a few hours when Brigitta heard her son screaming. As Brigitta enter the room, she was shocked by the chill in the air. Although she could see nothing, she was certain that the evil, shadowy force had been after her son. It took two hours for her to calm her son down. When her son was asleep again, Brigitta decided that she must tell her husband about the shadow being she had seen in the Winchester Mansion. She described something cold, unseen moving around and my home and suspected that it was following her. The next day when Brigitta retuned to my home to work, she could see the emotional turmoil that boiled within the mansion. She kept insisting that she had seen an ugly ghost, day in and day out. “There is something evil and awful in the house, and it has been following me home, Mrs. Winchester.” I replied coldly that neither she nor I saw any shadowy thing moving around the house. Brigitta was confused. She figured that it was really a shadow of guilt moving across her psyche, an attempt to get her to stay home and be a good mother. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Suddenly she felt the room’ temperature drop. Warning alarms went off in her brain, and she feared raising her eyes to look around the room. As the deathlike chill permeated the room, an atmosphere of hatred seems to solidify. She knew that something monstrous and evil was in the mansion. There, in front of her, was the shadow that she had first seen a week ago. Both the hands and face of the dark form now appeared lighter, and Brigitta was able to make out features on its face. The thing was grossly emaciated, and yellowish green skin stretched tautly across its high cheekbones. Long fingers that looked like claws. Dark, soulless eyes stared hollowly at her, and the ghastly image curled its lips into a vile sneer. Brigitta’s body began to tremble. At last she was certain she knew what the being intended to do with her. It intended to steal her soul and inhabit her body. Slowly the loathsome form dematerialized before her eyes. The chill lifted from the room. With a sudden jolt of fear, Brigitta ran from the kitchen. A sound from the hallway startled her. “My God, Brigitta, I saw that thing take shape. What was it?” I said. Tears of relief flooded Brigitta’s eyes. I had seen the thing. Now she knew she was not losing her mind. “It’s all so primitive and superstitious, Brigitta,” I said. “It…It wants me, doesn’t it?” Brigitta asked in a voice barely a whisper. “An evil spirit trying to possess you. How could this be?” I asked. “I feel they are looking at us right now,” Brigitta had said. All had fallen silent. The French windows everywhere made her anxious; the black night pressing on the glass made her anxious. The sound of wind moving in the black trees made her anxious. Brigitta wanted to walk outside, see the stars. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
She went out for a walk along the road, and came upon a stranger who changed her life. The stranger who approached Brigitta was a handsome man with thick dark hair and a mustache. Brigitta quickly saw that the man wore a bloody Confederate soldier’s uniform. The two stared at each other for a second and Brigitta saw the bullet wound just as the soldier grabbed her and dragged her into the shadowy orchard. The Confederate released Brigitta when she promised not to scream, and in sharp whispers he explained his predicament. Brigitta was instantly smitten and promised to not give him up. She made a decision that would change the course of her life—she would help the man. She hid the soldier in one of the rooms in my mansion and attended to him. For two weeks, she had abandoned her family to bring him food and water, and during that time they fell in love. When the soldier was well, and was getting ready to leave, Brigitta was furious. Anger and pain surged through her and she swung at him. Terrible words came from her mouth, she attacked him like a pained animal. The betrayal was devastating and for awhile Brigitta was blinded by her anger. The solider defended himself from her physical attacks. He ducked when she swung, caught her wrists when she tried to claw at him, and tried to stop her. She called him derogatory names. She vowed to destroy them both. In the heat of the moment, the solider gave Brigitta a shove and she fell down the stairs. Did he mean to murder her? We don’t know because what was in his heart. At the bottom of the stairs was Brigitta’s broken body. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
What was do know was that the war ended in 1866, so by 1898, there would have been no Confederate soldiers wandering in the orchard. During the renovations, we found her Bible in a small walled-up room. In the Bible were the pages from Brigitta’s journal chronicling her lost love and her lonely suffering. I discovered the facts about what happened to Brigitta during a séance. Within moments of asking the spirits, I felt the chill of a being approaching. The window panes began to vibrate with such violence that it seemed as if they would shatter at any moment. The draperies flapped noisily, as though they were flags on a pole, resisting a strong wind, and its ghastly form began to materialize before me. An eerie sepulchral haze surrounded the entity as it moved inexorably toward me. Its bony arms were outstretched, and an almost irresistible force seemed to flow from its yellow-green claws. I could not empty my mind of the thought that if those vicious hand should ever touch me, my very essence would be ripped from me. The being stepped closer, and for one terrible moment I felt myself faltering. My mind began to swirl, and I knew that I was losing my strength to the entity’s demonical power. From far away I could hear its soulless laughter. The sound of that pitiless cackle sent me into another dimension. A place where I could see what had happened to Brigitta. I tapped a source of primeval energy. When the entity was done, it grew smaller and fainter as it moved backward. Eventually its vaguely luminescent quality had vanished, and I was staring at the formless shadow that Brigitta had offended. It hovered in the Blue Séance Room before it evaporated. With only the pale light from the moon, I collapsed. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
One should be wary of an indiscriminate exploration of the occult or of “ghost hunting” in haunted houses or places. Without proper discipline, study, and discernment, the ill-prepared are liable to interact only with those entities who will seek to deceive and entrap them. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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You Know its Not the Same as It Was!
In mortality we have the certain of death and the burden of sin. As the cell door slams shut behind a person who faces the prospect of having to spend 5 to 25 years withing that same four walls, what thoughts and feelings go through their mind and heart? The overall picture that emerges from our research is that of offenders caught up in a cycle of expensive, self-indulgent habits (exempli gratia, gambling, drug use, and heavy drinking) that feed on themselves and constantly call for more of the same. It would be a mistake to conclude that these offenders are being driven to crime by genuine financial hardship; few of them are doing robberies to buy the proverbial loaf of bread to feed their children. Yet, most of their crimes are economically motivated. The offenders perceive themselves as needing money and robbery is a response to that perception. Though background risk factors, such as pressing financial need, predispose persons to criminality, they fail to provide comprehensive, precise, and deep explanations of the situational pushes, urges, and impulses that energize actual criminal conduct. Nor do such factors identify the “necessary and sufficient” conditions for criminal motivation to eventuate in criminal behavior. Focusing on the foreground attends to these problems. A foreground analytic approach identifies the immediate, situational factors that catalyze criminal motivation and transforms offenders from an indifferent state to one in which they are determined to commit crime. #RandolphHarris 1 of 21
Although the streets were a prime focus of much early criminological work, the strong influence of street culture on offender motivation has largely been overlooked since. Street culture subsumes a number of powerful conduct norms, including but not limited to, the hedonistic pursuit of sensory stimulation, disdain for conventional living, lack of future orientation, and persistent eschewal of responsibility. Street culture puts tremendous emphasis on virtues of spontaneity; it dismisses “rationality and long-range planning…in favor of enjoying the moment.” As if there is no tomorrow, offenders typically live like confident that tomorrow will somehow take care of itself. However, Matthew 6.34 says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” This culture tends to accentuate the negative and can thwart a person’s attempts to find meaning and direction. On the streets, “every night is Saturday night,” and the self-indulgent pursuit of trendy consumerism and open-ended street action becomes a means to this end. The pursuit of fast living is more than symbolic or dramaturgical, it cuts to the very core of offenders’ perceptions of self-identity. To be cool, hip, and “in,” one must constantly prove it through conspicuous outlays of cash. The fetishized World of street-corner capitalism dictates that fiscal responsibility be jettisoned and money burned on material objects and illicit action that assert in no uncertain terms one’s place in the street hierarchy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 21
Carefree spending creates the “impression of affluence” by which offenders are judged; it serves to demonstrate that they have indeed “made it”—at least for the time. On the streets, the image one projects is not everything, it is the only thing. To not buy into such an approach is to abandon a source of recognition offenders can get nowhere else or, worse, to state failure full in the face. It is not hard to fathom why many offenders in our sample regarded a lack of funds as an immediate threat to their social standing. The problem becomes one of sustenance; the reputational advantages of cash-intensive living can be appreciated and enjoyed to their fullest only if participants moderate their involvement in it. This requires intermittent and disciplined spending, an anomalous and untimely untenable proposition. Offenders effectively become ensnared by their own self-indulgent habit—habits that feed on themselves and constantly call for more of the same. These habits are expensive and create a pressing and pervasive need for cash—a need remedied through robbery but only temporarily, since the proceeds of any given robbery merely “enable” more action. The seductive attractions of street life appear to take on a power logic of their own; offenders burn money only to create (albeit inadvertently) the conditions that spark their next decision to rob. This self-enclosed cycle of reinforcing behavior starts with a predisposed background with risk factors such as: strain, broken homes, neglectful parent, social capital deficits, leading to participation in street culture. #RandolphHarris 3 of 21
Once an individual is involved in street culture, they enter a vicious cycle of: pursuit of illicit action/conspicuous consumption, financial desperation, robbery, disposable cash. As much as these offenders sought liberation through the hedonistic, opened pursuit of sensory stimulation, such a quest ultimately is both self-defeating and subordinating. Those hooked on street action may never see it this way, but objective assessments of reality are difficult to render when rationality is severely bounded as it is here. Suffice it to say that, for those in our sample, the “choice” to rob occurs in a context in which rationality not only is sharply bounded, it barely exists. If one takes the influence of context seriously, most offenders “decide” to commit robbery in a social and psychological terrain bereft of realistic alternatives. Street-culture participation effectively obliterates, or at least severely circumscribes, the range of objectively available options, so much so as to be almost deterministic. Offenders typically are overwhelmed by their own predicament—emotional, financial, pharmacological, and otherwise—and see robbery as the only way out. Chronic isolation from conventional others and lifestyles only reinforces their insularity, driving them deeper and deeper into a “downward life trajectory” of ever-increasing criminal embeddedness called “role engulfment.” Being a street robber is more than a series of offenses that allow one to meet some arbitrarily specified inclusion criteria: it is a way of behaving, a way of thinking, an approach to life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 21
Stopping such criminals exogenously—in the absence of lengthy incapacitation—is not likely to be successful. Getting offenders to “go straight” is analogous to telling lawful citizens to relinquish one’s history, companions, thoughts, feelings, and fears, and replace them with something else. Self-directed going-straight talk on the part of offenders more often than not is insincere—akin to young children talking about what they are going to be when they grow up: Young storytellers…criminals…do not care about the [reality]; the pleasure comes in saying the words, the verbal ritual itself brings pleasure. Gifting offenders money, in the hopes they will reduce or stop their offending is similarly misguided. It is but twisted enabling and only likely to set off another round of illicit action that plunges offenders deeper into the abyss of desperation that drives them back to their next crime. The image of prison life might conjure up words like accountability, punishment, structure, and discipline. There is truth in all of those associations. However, just as relevant are words like repentance, Atonement, Spirit, and conversation. Church helps former inmates make better use of their time, association with others who are improving their lives, learn correct behavior through the modeling of ecclesiastical leaders, and learn gospel doctrines and principles. Other benefits are less visible but may be more enduring, such as when a former inmate’s soul is enlarged or expanded. #RandolphHarris 5 of 21
The Final Judgement is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgement of the final effects of our actions and thoughts—what we have become. This is good news: many within prisons, jails, and halfway houses are learning from their bad choices and are becoming what Heavenly Father would have them become. Many inmates wrestle with addictions. How they cope upon release is critical to their success. The manifestations of evil spirits through persons obtains footing and varies in character, according to the degree and kind of group they secure for possession. In one case in the Christian Bible, the only manifestation of the evil spirit’s presence was dumbness (Matt. 9.32), the spirit possibly locating in the vocal organs; in another, the person held by the spirit was “deaf and unintelligible” (Mark 9.25), and the symptoms included foaming at the mouth, grinding the teeth—all connected with the head—but the hold of the spirit was of such long standing (v.21) that he could throw his victim down and convulse the whole body (Mark 9.20-22). In other cases we find merely an “unclean spirit,” as with the man in a synagogue—probably so hidden that none would know the man was thus possessed, until, seeing Christ, the spirit cried out with fear, “Art Thou come to destroy us?” (Mark 1.24); or a “spirit of infirmity” (Luke 13.11) in a woman of whom it might be said tht she simply required a “healing” of some disease, or that she was always tired and only needed proper nutrition and rest—as some would say in the language of the twentieth century. #RandolphHarris 6 of 21
Again, we find a very advanced case in the man with the “legion,” showing that the evil spirits’ possession reached such a climax as to make the person appear insane; for his own personality was so mastered by the malignant spirits in possession as to cause him to lose all sense of decency and self-control in the presence of others (Luke 8.27). That there are different kinds of spirits is evident not only from their manifestations recorded in the Gospels but also in later instances: in the account of the girl at Philippi, possessed by a “spirit of divination”; and in Simon the Sorcerer, who was so energized by satanic power for the working of miracles that he was considered to be “the great power of God” by the deceived people (Acts 8.10). In these cases, trickery was the game. If they really believe they are communicating with the spirits of the dead, spiritists of today are also deceived. Surely it is easy for designing spirits to impersonate dead people, including even saintly Christians: they have watched them (Acts 19.15) all their lives, and can easily imitate their personality traits and counterfeit their voices. Therefore, it is very possible that some criminals and some of the mentally ill may be possessed by evil spirits because they have some of these same traits. Some people may me tired of studying and deep in the throes of a loneliness trip—different that they have ever experienced—terrifying yet somehow good in its simple realness. The Savior is our Advocate with the Father. He knows our weaknesses. He knows how to succor those who are tempted. It is because of the Savior that all of us can make real progress—experience true conversion—in becoming what Heavenly Father wants us to become. #RandolphHarris 7 of 21
The answers are contained in the revelatory events on which Christianity is based and are taken by systematic theology from the sources, through the medium, under the norm. The mutual dependence of question and answers can be explained in terms of form and content. Theological answers derive their content form from the existential questions. For example, if existential analysis reveals the threat of non-being, then God must be called the power of being that overcomes this threat. If history is an incomprehensible puzzle, then the Kingdom of God must be termed the unity, meaning, and fulfilment of history. Christian symbols must always be open to, and in correlation with, the questions of existence. Contrasting with other methods, the supranaturalistic method considers revelation as a strange bundle of truth that fell from Heaven. It has nothing but answers, and from them in manufactures the questions. The naturalistic or humanistic method never gets beyond human existence. It extracts the answers from the question themselves. Lastly, the dualistic method tries to construct a correlation, but fails. By such devices as natural revelation and the proofs for the existence of God, it seeks to correlate natural answers with Christian answers, instead of questions with answers. If the proofs for God are taken as a question—as they are in the method of correlation—and not as an answer, then their use is justified. The method of correlation is not foolproof. The answers may prejudice the questions, or the questions prejudice the answers. For theology, too, is ambiguous. Nor is the method of correlation new. As a method, it is as old as theology. #RandolphHarris 8 of 21
The U.S.A. government had a major problem trying to motivate several million teenagers to register for the military draft. Large-scale civil disobedience would make it impossible to punish everyone who violated the law. Still, the government had a big advantage: it set the rules. To see this advantage of moving first, imagine that the government is only allowed to punish one person who fails to register. How can they use this single threat to induce everyone to register? The government announces that it will go after evaders in alphabetical order. If he failed to register, the person with surname Aaron knows that he would be singled out for punishment. Then the Abrams conclude that since all of the Aarons will surely register, it is they who will be punished. And so on down the line right through to the Zhukovs and the Zweibels. A lawyer might argue that it is unconstitutional to single out people for punishment because of the alphabetical ordering of their names. However, nothing is special about the alphabet. The key point is that the order of punishment is pre-specified. A randomly chosen and announced order of birthdates, or social security numbers, does just as well. A few selective punishments go a long way in keeping everyone in line, and are much less expensive than offering market wages to attract an equal number and quality of recruits. For example, if Congress mistook appearances for reality, it might forbid that Draft Board to use alphabetical order as the means by which they choose who gets punished first, leaving open other equivalent methods. #RandolphHarris 9 of 21
What is needed to stop the practice is to forbid the pre-announcement of any order. When the participants in a game are ranked in some order, it is often possible to predict what the person at one end will do. This knowledge influences the action of the next person, which in turn influences the third, and so on down the line. The story we have told is a bit extreme. By the time we get to the Zhukovs, someone will surely not register and then be punished. The Zhukovs do not really have to worry. With so many individuals, one expects a small amount of slippage. The point is that the number of punishments available need not be anywhere near the number of people to motivate. The capacity (and willingness) to jail a thousand protestors can deter several million would-be’s. From the World perspective, Chinese domestic companies have been strengthening their global position in several stages. During the 1970s to early 1980, Chinese markers established themselves as dominant players in the production and exports of a wide variety of low-tech-low-end mass product, defeating producers of similar items in the West. Myriads of Chinese-made affordable T-shirts, sneakers, lighters, toys, kitchenware, and so on and so forth conquered markets all around the World. In this segment, where price makes all the difference, Western producers were doomed to lose. Nowadays China’s dominance here is continuing, in spite of the fact that its rising labor and other costs have become a hot topic Worldwide. #RandolphHarris 10 of 21
There is a lot of talk about the erosion of its cost advantage resulting in the shift of low-cost mass production to the countries of the next row like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sir Lanka, Cambodia, or Laos. The only option for China, according to this school of thought, is to upgrade its industries and produce more high-value-added goods. This is wrong. China is unique. It will not be shifting from lower-value-added to higher-value-added products. It will handle both. In other words, China is and, for decades to come, will be moving up and up the value chain on the one hand while retaining its dominance in the low-tech-low-end segment on the other. In this regard, it is different from any other nations. Its growth pattern goes beyond the famous flying geese framework in its conventional sense. China’s ability to preserve dominance in the low-tech-low-end mass products segment can be easily explained. First, its labor and other costs are still quite low. They remain incomparable with those in the West and thus do not lose attractiveness for both western businesses and consumers. Second, no next-row country can compare with China in terms of size. Consequently, none of them is capable of replacing it as the major production platform for low-end simple products, even though their costs are lower. True, more and more often both Western and Asian businesspeople are complaining about the increase of China’s labor and other costs, and the mass media is willingly picking it up as a popular topic. #RandolphHarris 11 of 21
However, read or listen to what they say attentively, word by word, and you will clearly see what it is all about. They are upset today Chinese costs are higher than in past years and higher than they initially expected them to be. Nevertheless, they continue to expand their direct investment to China on a much larger scale than to any next-row country. Actions, not talks, are serving as proof of China’s real cost competitiveness. In China, where the wages in the manufacturing have increase 75 percent in the last ten years, but it is 23 percent of USA manufacturing rates, which means that its cost advantages remain very significant. Though wage growth rates are high all across China (around 10 percent a year), labor (as well as other) costs are starting to bite, mainly in the economically advanced eastern coastal provinces. As of 2023, the average monthly wage in China’s manufacturing industry is US$1,000 a month, which is two and a half times more than it was in 2010. As of 2023, the manufacturing employees average wage in the United States of America is $2,583 a month. The average hourly wage in China’s manufacturing industry is about $6 an hour—versus $18.5 in the United States of America. Also, China does upgrade their industries and big cities in China are becoming service, logistics, education and R&D platforms, supporting industrial growth in the hinterland. No doubt, as time goes by, China will significantly enhance their international role as producers and exporters and attract a growing number of multinational companies to diversity the geography of their production activities. #RandolphHarris 12 of 21
In the second stage, which started in the 1990 and has been continuing into the 2000s and beyond, Chinese companies are moving fast to capture global markets of technologically advanced low-end mass products, leveraging their increasing technological capabilities and cost advantages at one and the same time. Representative examples include TVs, AV products, mobile phones, personal computers, or, in the latest development, solar batteries. Entering this sector, Chinese makers exert competitive pressure on the Western companies positioned in higher-end market niches, usually by offering simpler various of similar products at a lower price. China has emerged as the World’s number one producer of solar panels. Their manufacturing exceeds 80 percent of solar panels Worldwide. Using industry-validated figures, Chinese solar panels are 30 percent less expensive than USA solar panels. This enables China to play a leading role in the global energy revolution. In fact, China’s average share of the solar panel supply chain has gone from 55 percent to 84 percent over the past 13 years. China also continues to lead in terms of investment, making up almost 66 percent of global large-scale solar investment. In the first half od 2022, the country invested $41 billion, a 173 percent increase from the year before. With Joe Biden’s ambitious new car pollution rules that could require electric cars to make up 66 percent of new cars sold in the USA by 2032, many people are concerned. China made about 75 percent of the World’s lithium-ion batteries in 2021, compared with 7 percent for the USA. And China currently controls nearly 70 percent of all minded cobalt needed in the electric vehicle industry. #RandolphHarris 13 of 21
China already has 80 to 90 percent of the global rare Earth market. By 2029 the United States of America is expected to have only 3 lithium-ion battery mega-factories compared to China’s 88—of a total 115 lithium-ion battery mega-factories planned. Net profit for Chinese manufacturer CATL jumped 93 percent in 2022 to US$4.41 billion, as the World’s largest supplier of electric vehicle batteries. With EV batteries costing approximately $4,000 to $20,000 many people fear a future with electric vehicles because the economy is unstable and most people simply cannot afford to come up with that amount of money all at once. Some may say there are financing options, but that would be like financing a car, on top of making a car payment. They also fear making China richer than it already is and the USA more dependent on China. Across the World, a green tide is gathering momentum too. This movement for ecological sanity is essential—a leading beneficial example of ordinary people around the World leading their people. Propelling ecology to the top of the World agenda have been a succession of sensational catastrophes, from Three Miles Island and Chernobyl to Bhopal and the Alaska oil spill. Clearly, more lie ahead. Industrial society has reached its outer limits, making it impossible to continue putting toxic wastes in our backyards, stripping the land of it forests, dumping Styrofoam debris in our oceans, creating plastic islands, and punching holes in the ozone. The Worldwide environmental movement is therefore a survival response to planetary crisis. #RandolphHarris 14 of 21
However, this movement, too, has an antidemocratic fringe. It has its own advocates of return to darkness. Some of them are ready to hijack the environmental movement in pursuit of their private political or religious agendas. The issues are so complex and recalcitrant that the Green movement is likely to split into at least four parts. One part will continue to be the very model of legal, nonviolent democratic action. However, given a succession of ecological crises and tragedies, a second wing, which already exists in embryonic form, might well step up from eco-vandalism to full-scale eco-terrorism to enforce its demands. A further split will intensify the key ideological war already dividing the environmental movement. On one side: those who favor technological and economic advance within stringent environmental constraints. Unwilling to give up on imagination and intelligence, they believe in the power of the human mind—and therefore in our ability to design technologies that will use smaller amounts of resources, emit less pollution, and recycle wastes into reusable resources. They argue that today’s crisis calls for revolutionary changes in the way the economy and technology are organized. Oriented toward tomorrow, these are the mainstream environmentalists. Battling them for ideological control of the movement, however, are self-described “fundamentalists,” who wish to plunge society into pre-technological medievalism and asceticism. They are “eco-theologues,” and some of their views dovetail with the thinking of religious extremists. The eco-theologues insist that there can be no technological relief, and that we are therefore destined to slide back into preindustrial poverty, a prospect they regard as a blessing rather than a curse. #RandolphHarris 15 of 21
For many of the reversionist thinkers, the issues are not primarily ecological but religious. They wish to restore a religion-drenched World that has not existed in the West since the Middle Ages. The environmental movement provides a convenient vehicle. This group reduces the history of our relations with nature to biblical allegory. First there was an ecological “Golden Age,” when humans lived in harmony with nature and worshipped it. The species fell from this “Eden” with the arrival of the industrial age, in which the “Devil”—technology—ruled human affairs. Now we must transit to a new “Paradise” of perfect sustainability and harmony. If not, we face “Armageddon.” This imposition of a Western, indeed Christian, parable on the far more complex history of our relations with nature is common to the “eco-theologues” who glamorize life in the medieval village. Rudolf Bahro, an influential Green theorist now living in West Germany, explicitly holds that what is needed is “theology, not ecology—the birth of a new Golden Age which cultivates…the nobility in man.” He reached back into the 13th century to quote Meister Eckhart, the founder of German mysticism, “who lived in the now despoiled Rhine River valley” and who told us that all creatures have God within them. Mr. Bahro finds the same idea in the poetic words of Mechtild of Magdeburg, another 13th-century Christian thinker, quoting her beautiful line to the effect that all creatures are “a flash of grace.” Ecological salvation thus, for him, is a matter of religion, something the secular World will never be able to offer. Mr. Bahro even approves of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s remark to Mr. Gorbachev that the Soviet leader should look to Allah rather than economic reforms to solve Soviet problems. #RandolphHarris 16 of 21
Another theorist, Wolfgang Sachs of the University of Pennsylvania, attack the Worldwatch Institute, a leading environmentalist research center, for its “specifically modern outlook” and dismisses Amory Lovins, the conservationist, for urging greater energy efficiency, whereas what is wanted by Mr. Sachs is “good housekeeping” in the tradition of “subsistence-oriented households.” Ivan Illich, one of our most imaginative social critics and author of several brilliant works bearing on ecological theory, is opposed to “managerial fascism” and simple-minded Ludditism. What he proposes, however, is “sustainability without development”—in short, stasis. For Mr. Illich, poverty is the human condition, and should be accepted as such; hence, who needs development? The new system of wealth creation, he says, has “injected new life into what would otherwise have been the exhausted logic of industrialism.” He fails to see that the new knowledge-based technological system actually contradicts the old logic of industrialism at many points. For Mr. Illich, too, the argument is ultimately theological. “God was the pattern that connected the cosmos” at a time when bare subsistence was accepted as normal and natural, a state we should return. So long as God ruled the medieval mind, humanity and nature remained in balance. “Man, the agent of disequilibrium,” upset the balance after the scientific revolution. Mr. Illich regards the concept of an “eco-system which, through multiple feedback mechanisms, can be regulated scientifically” as a snare and a delusion. Clearly, he implies, a return to a God-center ascetic World would be preferable. #RandolphHarris 17 of 21
Theo-ecological rhetoric contains within it more than a hint of the Christian notion of retribution. As the writers Linda Bilmes and Mark Byford have noted, the theological Greens insist “consumption is sinful,” while environmental blight is seen as “punishment for excessive consumerism, lack of spirituality, wastefulness.” As in a Sunday sermon, the implication is that we should “repent, and mend our ways.” Or, one might add, face fire and brimstone. This is hardly the place to try to resolve the profound issues raised by the ecology debate—as significant a philosophical debate as that raised by the Enlightenment thinkers at the dawn of the industrial age. What is important, however, is to note the congruence between the views of the eco-theologues and the fundamentalists revival, with its deep hostility to secular democracy. A shared emphasis on absolutes and the belief that sharp restrictions on individual choice may be required (to make people “moral,” or to “protect the environment”) point ultimately to a common attack on human rights. Indeed, many environmentalists themselves worry openly about the arrival of Green Ayotallahs or “eco-fascists” who impose their particular brand of salvation. Thus, Mr. Bahro cautions that “in the deep crises of humanity, charisma always plays a role. The deeper the crisis, the darker the charismatic figure who will emerge…Whether or not we will have a green Adolph depends…on how far cultural change advances before the next Chernobyl.” One may admire the integrity and creativity of a thinker like Mr. Illich, surely no fascist himself, while recognizing the deeply antidemocratic implications of his search for the absolute, the constant, the static, and the holy. #RandolphHarris 18 of 21
Criticizing the eco-theologues, the French sociologist Alain Touraine warns, “If we reject reason in the name of salvation from the ozone depletion, we will court a Green fundamentalism, an eco-theocracy of the Ayatollah Khomeini variety.” If such anxiety sounds too extreme, it may be worth recalling the Wandervogel youth movement of the 1920s in Germany, where the Green movement today is most militant. The Wandervogel were the hippie-Greens of the Weimar Republic, roaming the countryside with their rucksacks, carrying guitars, wearing flowers, holding Woodstock-life festivals, high on spirituality and preaching a return to nature. A decade later, Mr. Hitler was in control. Mr. Hitler also exalted preindustrial values, picturing the Nazi utopia as one in which “the blacksmith stands again at his anvil, the farmer walks behind his plough.” In the words of Professor J.P. Stern of University College, London, Mr. Hitler evoked “a pre-industrial rustic idyll.” Mr. Hitler’s ideologists constantly praised the “organic,” urged physical fitness, and used biological analogies to justify the vilest race hate. “Hundreds of thousands of youngsters passed through the Youth Movement,” writes George L. Mosse in The Crisis of German Ideology, “and many of them found it not very difficult to accommodate themselves to the ideological propositions of the Nazis.” Can one really imagine a Neo-Green Party, with armbands, Sam Browne belts, and jackboots, setting out to enforce its own view of nature on the rest of society? Of course not, under normal conditions. However, what if conditions are not “normal”? #RandolphHarris 19 of 21
Consider the consequences of another Bhopal-like eco-catastrophe set in, say, Seattle, Stuttgart, or Sheffield…followed by back-to-back crises elsewhere…followed by confusion and monstrous corruption in the disaster relief effort…amid fundamentalists cries that the disaster was inflicted by God as punishment for “permissiveness” and immorality. Picture all this occurring in time of deep economic distress. Imagine an attractive, articulate “Eco-Adolph” who promises not just to solve the immediate crisis but to “purify” the society materially, morally, and politically—if only he is given extraconstitutional powers. Some of today’s eco-theological rhetoric has an absurdist flavor, as did that of the erstwhile Adolph and his ideologists. Nazi propagandists exalted the Middles Ages (especially the time when the Holy Roman Empire dominated Europe) as a period when Kultur reached its “highest peak.” Today, a British ecological “fundi,” or fundamentalist, writes in a letter to The Economist that “the goals of ‘fundi’ Greens like myself…[are to] return to Europe which existed in the distant past…between the fall of Rome and the rise of Charlemagne,” in which the basic unit of society “was the rural holding, scarcely larger than a hamlet…The only way for humans to live in harmony with nature is to live at a subsistence level.” What the eco-medievalists normally do not tell us is the political price. #RandolphHarris 20 of 21
They seldom point out that democracy was conspicuously absent from those bucolic villages they hold up for emulation—villages ruled by the cruelest patriarchy, religious mind-control, feudal ignorance and force. This was the Kultur the Nazis glamorized. Not for nothing has the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of Charlemagne become known as the Dark Ages. By themselves the eco-theologues might be dismissed. They remain a small fringe on the far edge of the environmental movement. However, it is a mistake to view them as an isolated or trivial phenomenon. The religious revival and the Green movements alike breed ultras who would be happy to jettison democracy. At their extremes, these two movements may be converging to impose new restrictions on personal and political behavior in the name of both God and Greenness. Together they are pushing for a power shift toward the past. Society has gotten so advanced and expensive that many people feel nostalgia for the past. Nostalgia is a longing feeling for the past when things seemed better, easier, and more fun. It is the feeling behind countless number one hits. We all know the feeling. What psychological purpose does nostalgia serve? Well, for one, nostalgia serves as an emotional experience that unifies. One example of this is it helps to unite our sense of who we are, our self, our identity over time. Because over time we change constantly, we change in incredible ways. We are not anywhere near the same as we were when we were in high school. Nostalgia by motivating us to remember the past in our own life helps unite us to that authentic self and remind us who we have been and then compare that to who we feel we are today. And many people are nostalgic about the past when America was number one in manufacturing and Christianity was more accepted as the religion of America. Therefore to help America remain a superpower, please buy American cars, and appliance and other American-Made goods. #RandolphHarris 21 of 21
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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.
If You Believe, I Need You to Believe in Love Right Now
Very few robbers operate in a lonerlike capacity. Instead, they interact with others members of the criminal element, rubbing shoulders, jointly partaking in illicit underground markets (exempli gratia, drugs, stolen property systems), and exchanging communications. This attachment to a criminal subculture means that many robbers operate in a colleague-like fashion. The same cannot be said about the robbers who work in groups. These individuals internalize the “safety in numbers” motto and choose to gang up on their prey. More often that not, conspirators rely on a loose network of fellow thieves, switching on and offer between collaborators as theft opportunities present themselves. In this regard, the social organization of most conspiratorial robbers is best described as peerlike—they do not get too cozy with one another but are willing to work together to achieve a mutually beneficial end. There is, however, a select minority of the offender population that interact in a much more stable and collaborative capacity. Movies such as Heat or Point Break depict robbery crews that forge long-term criminal associations with a clear set of roles and a well-defined division of labor. A teamlike social organization exists among some robbery specialists, particularly bank robbers. Those robbers who are active participants in the criminal subculture (id est, colleagues, peers, and teams) are provided ample opportunity to draw upon a host of socialization scripts that serve to shape and advance their criminal agenda. #RandolphHarris 1 of 17
Implicit and explicit messages serve to reinforce robbery as an acceptable means of survival. Street thugs are not explicitly tutored in “ways of the badass,” but rather come to internalize these norms and behaviors through imitation and street-level informal interactions. Robbery generally receives a firm formal response from the criminal justice system. The Model Penal Code classifies robbery as a second degree felony. If convicted, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to 1 to 10 years in prison. When the offender threatens or achieves “serious bodily harm,” he or she is likely to see the charge elevated to a first degree felony. In most jurisdictions, an armed robber, especially one involving a firearm, will result in this more sever statutory designation. A person charged with a first degree felony faces anywhere from 1 year to life in prison. A robbery must first be apprehended before facing these stiff penalties. Unfortunately, most offenders get away with their crimes. In 2022, law enforcement authorities reported a meager 25 percent clearance rate for the crime of robbery. If items are not marked with recorded serial numbers and no one knows who stole and sold them, they are hard to find, as well as the thieves. That means that roughly 75 percent of all robberies that are reported to police go unsolved. The 2022 Uniform Crime Reports reveal that law enforcement authorities made 108,400 robbery arrests that year, which translates into a per capita arrest rate of 39.8 per 100,000. When called upon to year robbery cases, our nation’s court system responds with considerable care. #RandolphHarris 2 of 17
Robbery cases comprised 7 percent of the total court dockets that were studied. It was discovered that the vast majority of the accused robbery offenders (87 percent) were offered some sort of pretrial release option (exempli gratia, bail), with the median bail amount observed at $25,000. Despite these release options, only 39 percent of robbery defendants were able to gain release prior to the final disposition of their case. Of those released, roughly one third (34 percent) violated the conditions of their release order and 22 percent were rearrested before their original case could be resolved. This is particularly disturbing when one considers that two thirds of the cases were resolved in less than 6 months. A review of the available adjudication data suggests that courts follow through a relatively hardline stance toward robbery offenders. We found that 70 percent of the robbery defendants in our sample were eventually convicted. A full 90 percent of convicted robbers face some sort of incarceration. While the median sentence was 5 years, nearly one in five were sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Among all felony offenses, only murder and rape experience higher felony conviction rates and/or longer median sentences. On average, an imprisoned robber can expect to serve a little less than one half of one’s sentence behind bars before being paroled. #RandolphHarris 3 of 17
It appears that informal social control plays a large part in the dynamics of robbery. Interviews with known offenders reveal that many stick-up artists specifically target other members of the criminal underworld. Some are even targeted for repeat victimization. These can include drug dealers (id est, drug robbery), pimps, prostitutes, or the run-of-the-mill street thug. These persons tend to have money or valuables (id est, cars, clothes, jewelry, drugs) in their possession and, more importantly, are not inclined to report their victimizations to the police. This sets the stage for “street justice” or vigilantism. A single robbery victimization can set in motion a contagious of violence in which escalating vendetta cycles get played out over extended periods of time. The origin of these cycles of violence goes largely undetected by police and usually spill over to other community members. Much lip service has been paid to the criminal motivation, yet very little systematic understanding has emerged on the topic. A need for money services as the primary and most immediate motivation for robbery. However, unwritten conduct norms of the street serve as the critical secondary motivator for these habitual offenders. A constant flow of cash is needed to finance a carefree lifestyle that includes new clothes, endless partying, and the never-ending ability to impress themselves and others. Over time, the cyclical pursuit of money and free spending transforms robbery into a central feature of the person’s everyday life. These observations thus provide valuable insight into both the proximate (day-to-day) and distal (long-term) aspects of robbery motivation and behavior. #RandolphHarris 4 of 17
Motivation is the central, yet arguably the most assumed, causal variable in the etiology of criminal behavior. Obviously, persons commit crimes because they are motivated to do so, and virtually no offense can occur in the absence of motivation. Though the concept inheres implicitly or explicitly in every influential theory of crime, this is far from saying that its treatment has been comprehensive, exhaustive, or precise. In many ways, motivation is criminology’s dirty little secret—manifest yet murky, presupposed but elusive, everywhere and nowhere. If there is a bogeyman lurking in or discipline’s theoretical shadows, motivation may well be it. Much of the reason for this can be located in the time-honored, positivistic tradition of finding the one factor, or set of factors, that accounts for it. Causality has been called criminology’s “Holy Grail,” the quest for which makes other disciplinary pursuits seem tangential, sometimes inconsequential. The search typically revolves around identification of background risk factors—behavioral correlates—that establish nonspurious relationships with criminal behavior. A panoply of such factor have been implicated over many decades of research—spanning multiple levels, as well as units, of analyses. They include, among other things, anomie, blocked opportunities, deviant self-identity, status frustration, weak social bonds, low self-control, social disorganization, structural oppression, unemployment, age, gender, class, race, deviant peer relations, marital status, body type, IQ, and personality. #RandolphHarris 5 of 17
Common to all such factor, however, is their independent status from the “foreground” of criminal decision making—the immediate phenomenological context in which decisions to offend are activated. Though background factors may predispose persons to crime, they fail to explain why two individuals with identical risk factor profiles do not offend equally, why persons with particular risk factors go long periods of time without offending, why individuals without the implicated risk factors offend, why persons offend but not in the particular way a theory directs them to, or why persons who are not determined to commit a crime one moment become determined to do so the next. Decisions to offend, like all social action, do not take place in a vacuum. Rather, they are bathed in an “ongoing process of human existence,” and mediated by prevailing situational and subcultural conditions. While the decision to commit robbery stems most directly from a perceived need for fast cash, this decision is activated, mediated, and channeled by participation in street culture. Street culture, and its constituent conduct norms, represent essential intervening variable linking criminal motivation to background risk factors and subjective foreground conditions. Now, the Gospel records refer repeatedly to the workings of evil spirits. They how that wherever the Lord moved, the emissaries of Satan sprang into active manifestation in the bodies and minds of those they indwelt, so that the ministry of Christ and His apostles was directed actively against them. #RandolphHarris 6 of 17
Again and again we read: “He went into their synagogues through all Galilee, preaching and casting out demons” (Mark 1.39); He “cast out many demons, and He suffered not the demons to speak, because they knew Him” (Mark 1.34); “Unclean spirits whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God” (Mark 3.11). Then came the sending out of the twelve chosen disciples, and again the spirits of evil are taken into account, for “He gave them authority over the unclean spirits” (Mark 6.7). Later He appointed seventy other messengers: they too, as they went forward in their work, found the demons subject to them through His name (Luke 10.17). Are we to conclude that Judea, Galilee and Syria were in reality overflowing with people who were insane and epileptic? Is it not evident, rather, that the Son of God dealt with the powers of darkness as the active, primary cause of all sin and suffering of this World, and that the aggressive part of His and His disciples’ ministry was directed persistently against them? On the one hand, He dealt with the deceiver of the World and bound the “strong man”; on the other, He taught the truth about God to the people, to destroy the lies which the prince of darkness had placed in their minds about His Father and Himself (2 Cor. 4.4). We find, too, that the Lord clearly recognized the devil behind the opposition of the Pharisees (John 8.44), and in the “hour and power of darkness” (Luke 22.53) behind His persecutors at Calvary. He says that His mission was to “proclaim release to the captives” (Luke 4.18), and He revealed who the captor was when, on the eve of Calvary, He said, “Now is the judgement of this World: now shall the prince of the World be cast out” (John 12.31). #RandolphHarris 7 of 17
The theologian is a committed man, committed to the gospel message and committed to his task of interpreting it. He is a believing, self-surrendering, answering man. The theologian and the philosopher of religion have some things in common. Both of them are committed in the sense that even their most scientific efforts are directed by a mystical a priori—and immediate experience of something ultimate in value and being of which one can become intuitively aware. Examples of the mystical a priori and being-itself, universal substance, identity of spirit and nature, absolute spirit, and cosmic person. If, after scientific investigation, this a priori is discovered, it is only because it was present and operative from the very start. At this stage both theologian and philosopher are within a philosophical circle described by their mystical a priori, but there is no petition principii, for spiritual things can be understood only in circular fashion. However, the theologian steps inside the theological circle of commitment to the gospel message. The philosopher deals in the abstract, with universal concepts. The theologian works with a concrete message that claims historical uniqueness. The radius of the theological circle is shorter than that of the philosophical one. Since it is necessary that the theologian places oneself within the circle of Christian commitment, the problem arises: What is the touchstone for commitment? Who can be sure of one’s commitment, of one’s faith, one’s justification? Acceptance of the word of Christ as depends on one being ultimately concerned with the Christian message. #RandolphHarris 8 of 17
Our finite concerns about our work, our science, our money, and our nation will be taken from us by the melancholy law of transitoriness. However, everything seems the same and yet everything has changed, for we are grasped by the one thing needed, by the infinite. Ultimate concern is the abstract formulation of the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with al your heart, and with all your soul, and with all you might” (Deut. 6.5). Concern not only means that one is related to or interested in something, but it also implies an existential element of anxious solicitude. Thus, man is concerned about many things—food and shelter, knowledge, art, social problems, politics—with varying degrees of urgency. However, a concern becomes ultimate only when it demands total surrender and promises total fulfilment. Ultimate concern is unconditional, total, and infinite. Any concern less than this is a preliminary concern, for it is conditional, partial, and infinite. Preliminary concern can be related to ultimate concern in three possible ways. First, by a mutual indifference ultimate concern can be placed beside preliminary concern so that the former loses its ultimacy. It fails to transcend; it becomes secularized. Secondly, preliminary concern can be “elevated to ultimacy,” but in so doing it becomes demonic by usurping the place of the truly ultimate. Thirdly, preliminary concern can become a vehicle of the ultimate concern without claiming ultimacy for itself. It points beyond itself; it is transparent to the holy. #RandolphHarris 9 of 17
Extreme nationalism is one of our favorite examples of an ultimate concern—a demonic one to be sure, but all the more indicative of its unconditional character. In the name of the god Nation, all other concerns are ruthlessly sacrificed and systematically subordinated. However, unconditional demand is balanced by unconditional fulfilment more or less vaguely expressed in such symbols as the greatness of the nation or the conquest of the World. Exclusion from the promised fulfilment is a threat which reinforces the demand. The above points to the ambiguous nature of ultimate concern. Ultimacy and holiness go together, for the holy is the quality of that which concerns man ultimately. Only that which is holy can give man ultimate concern, and only that which gives man ultimate concern has the quality of holiness. When this holy, ultimate concern is directed toward the infinite, the unconditioned, the truly ultimate, then it is divine. When directed toward the finite, the conditioned, the preliminary, then it is demonic and its holiness is idolatrous. However, even in the latter case, the holy which is demonic is still holy. The ambiguity of ultimate concern lies in the fact that ultimacy consists of a demand for total surrender and a promise of total fulfilment, and even the demonic can demand sacrifice and offer promises. #RandolphHarris 10 of 17
Ultimate concern constitutes the basic credentials for admittance to the theological circle, this can be further refined by the theologian’s basic commitment by formulating two criteria for the theological statements. They are formal criteria, that is, abstracted from the content of the whole system. The first criterion states: The object of theology is what concerns us ultimately. Only those propositions are theological which deal with their object in so far as it can become a matter of ultimate concern for us. This principle distinguishes theology from other sciences, for it rules out preliminary concern. The second criterion handles the content of ultimate concern: Our ultimate concern is that which determines our being or not-being. Only those statements are theological which deal with their object in so far as it can become a matter of being or not-being for us. In this statement, “being” does not refer to a man’s life in time and space, but to the whole of human reality, the structure, the meaning, and the aim of existence. When it comes to joint venters, the issue arises in personal partnerships just as in business ones. Imagine a working couple, both of whom dislike cooking but cannot afford to ear out more than one a week. They start with an implicit or explicit understanding that they will split the cooking chores equally—three days a week each. However, the wife, says, knows that the husband is not likely to walk out just because she cuts her share down to two days. She is tempted to discover essential work that demands her presence at the office for an extra hour on some days, making it impossible for her to get home in time to fix dinner even though it is her turn. The husband in turn should look ahead to this and try to arrange the initial deal in such a way that the wife’s future temptation is reduced. #RandolphHarris 11 of 17
Of course the personal and long-term aspects of a marriage often suffice to ensure that the parties do not try such tricks, or that they resolve such disputes amicably when they do arise. Businesses partnerships are less influenced by personal emotions, and the dollar amounts of the temptation to cheat are often higher. Therefore the kinds of contracts we will discuss are more relevant in this setting, even though the marriage analogy sometimes makes for more striking and amusing stories. What are the essential features of this class of situations? First, these situations involve projects that require simultaneous participation by two or more people or firms. Each side must make some investment up front—a stake it stands to lose if the relationships is terminated—or else the other side’s walking out will be no threat at all. Second, there must be some uncertainty about subsequent events that acts as a justification for reopening of the agreement, or else a simple clause that provides large punitive damages for any breach will serve the purpose. China and the United States of America are in a relationship. Globalization has entered a critical stage, as the ongoing economic disruptions have prompted many of us to reexamine its promises. The World today is characterized by pronounced fragility and heightened uncertainty, fed by external shocks and multiple crises that are dangerously reinforcing. Against the backdrop of these unprecedented challenges, we are witnessing an economic and geopolitical power shift from the developed to the emerging World. #RandolphHarris 12 of 17
By 2030, most of the World’s largest economies will be non-Western and more than half of the World’s 1,000 largest corporations will have their origins in the emerging countries. This will directly impact the way globalization work. As emerging economies rewrite the rules of globalization, the West is overly advocating more protectionism. One of the main criticisms made of globalization by its detractors has been that it is Western-drive and Western-centric—in other words, that the West calls the shots and that most benefits go to Western players. Yet, as globalization was gathering momentum, it assumed new and striking features that ran contrary to that Western-focused characterization. Non-Western players start to emerge as vital sources of energy and initiative in globalization; they have become its new engines, and their companies are strengthening their global position at an unprecedented pace. Chia is the leader of the emerging World. In the year 2022, its share of the global manufacturing exports reached 28.7 percent, this is up from 12.1 percent in 2009. The trend is likely to persist in this decade. Eventually, China will reach a point at which mounting labor costs trigger declining shares in low-end exports, offsetting gains in the mid and high-end value segments. However, we are not there yet. China’s goods are more high-end than before, but it is still predominately a labor-intensive, export power, excelling in production of commodities such as clothing, textiles, footwear, electronics, medication and toys. #RandolphHarris 13 of 17
However, the future of exports from China will be led by equipment manufacturers, and, although they may not be penetrating Western markets, coemption in third markets is intensifying. The greatest shock that might face European and U.S.A. manufacturers is the full-scale export of Chinses manufacturing capability similar to that of the Japanese entry into the U.S.A. and European markers several decades ago. China wishes to establish its global image as that of a benign power in many sectors, but it will not be perceived as mature if it doles out money to spent causes. It brought into the U.S.A. debt, perhaps fueling too much credit and inflaming U.S.A. purchase of cheap Chinese-made goods. It will have learned that hard lesson, and now Europe has to behave in a more relevant way than the old United States of America did in order to be creditworthy in China’s eyes. That seems fair. The China-West rivalry (economic wars) are in particular fields: trade/currency, environment, natural resources, technologies, and company acquisitions. China is not only a World factory, but also a World research lab and leader in green business. China is an undisputed leader in export volumes of electrical/electronic products and light industry goods. Its presence in other merchandise export markets is much smaller. Having joined the ranks of important exporters of services, it still remains far behind the United States of America and other leading services nations. The Chinese state is emerging as effectively the World’s number one financial powerhouse (soon you will feel it stronger, as Beijing will become a key emergency lender for cash-strapped Western governments), but China’s private investors are still relatively new and financial assets of its households growing. #RandolphHarris 14 of 17
One more country looked upon as a new great economic power comparable to China is India. No doubt, as the second-largest emerging economy, India is becoming increasingly important, but compared to China, it is in a different weight category and the global impact of its growth is much smaller. Compared to Western economies, China looks better in terms of not only average growth rates (this may be natural as economic development stages are different), but also growth stability. The rise of a new media system, corresponding in form with the requirements of a wholly new way of creating wealth, challenges those in power, giving rise to new political methods, constituencies, and alliances. Just as people at, say, the beginning of the 18th century could not imagine the political changes that flowed from the spread of a smokestack economy, so today it is almost impossible, short of the science-fiction-style speculation, to foresee the political uses to which the still emerging media system will be put. Take for example, interactivity. By allowing TV viewers to use, rather than merely view, the screen, interactivity could someday change political campaigning and candidates. Interactive media make possible far more sophisticated opinion polling than ever before, not simply asking yes-no questions, but allowing respondents to make trade-offs among many options. However, the possibilities go beyond polling. #RandolphHarris 15 of 17
Would a candidate, once elected, trade off jobs for environmental improvements—and if so, how many? How would the candidate respond to a hostage crisis, a race riot, or a nuclear disaster under differing sets of circumstances? Instead of trying to test the values and judgment of a potential President by listening to thirty-second commercial, the interactive video users of tomorrow could tune into a program, or insert a diskette, that would virtually show the candidate discussing and making decisions under a variety of conditions programmed in by the voter. Political platforms could be issued in a spreadsheet format, so that the voters could manipulate their underlying budgetary assumptions and ask “what if” questions. If large numbers can participate in a mass-appeal game show like Jeopardy with a computer tallying their responses, it does not take too much imagination to see how similar technology could be adapted to political polling or collective decision-taking—and political organizing of a new kind. Futurists, simulation experts, and others have long speculated about the possibility of organizing very large numbers of citizens in political “games.” Professor Jose Villegas at Cornell University developed models for such activity as far back as the late 1960s, including games that less affluent residents and transient populations could engage in as a form of political education—and protest. What was missing was the technology. The spread of networked interactivity will place the tools for political “games” in millions of living rooms. With them, citizens could, in principle at least, conduct their own polls, and form the own “electronic parties” or “electronic lobbies” and pressure groups around various issues. #RandolphHarris 16 of 17
One can also easily imagine electronic sabotage, not as the act of individual hackers or criminals, but for the purpose of political protests or blackmail. At 2.25 P.M. on the afternoon of January 15, 1990, engineers in Bedminster, New Jersey, noticed read lights flashing on the seventy-five screens that display the status of AT&T’s long-distance telephone network in the United States of America. Each light indicated trouble. “It just seemed to happen. Proof, there it was,” said William Leach, manager of AT&T’s network operations center. That “proof” assed up to a massive breakdown in the U.S.A. long-distance phone system lasting for nine hours, during which an estimated 65 million calls were blocked. AT&T investigators concluded that the breakdown resulted from a faulty computer program. However, they could not “categorically rule….out” the possibility that it resulted from sabotage. It so happened that January 15 was the national holiday celebrating the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It also happened to be true that some racist Americans bitterly hated King and were outraged that a national holiday should commemorate him. The AT&T “blackout” may simply have been a random occurrence. However, it does not stretch credulity too far to imagine electronic political protests and sabotage in the future. One need not engage in sci-fi speculation, however, to recognize some of the profound social tensions already arising from the introduction of a new form of economy—problems relate to the way knowledge is disseminated in society. #RandolphHarris 17 of 17
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Mrs. Winchester Might be the Next Victim
In reliving those years of despair, I weep for my beautiful angel as she was experiencing a most unfortunate horror. My heart filled with anguish as I remember the horrible ending to her life. Her lungs had filled beyond further help; her stomach could no longer function properly and she could not be fed orally any longer. She was only six weeks old. My husband and I consulted with her doctors about her condition and were advised that no further feedings be given. However, the final decision was ours. Our final decision to discontinue all further feedings took all our strength. Although we were aware it was the only human thing to do, we also knew that while we watched her take her last breaths, we too would be dying within ourselves. We loaded the carriage and drove her to the hospital for the last time. As I held Annie in my I arms, I knew that this memory would remain within my heart eternally. The memory of that trip and the finality that is possessed still feel so real to me. When we arrived at the hospital, I laid my baby girl gently in her bed, never to hold her in my arms again. Later, I tried to hold her again but she became extremely rigid in the process of lifting her. The doctor said she was dying from malnutrition. She has a curious disease known as Marasmus. My baby could not digest her food. She was so tiny. She did not have round waxen arms and legs like other babies, now puffy pink cheeks. My dear Annie was reduced to a skeleton. Her beautiful eyes were vacant. She barely had the energy to muster up a cry. #RandolphHarris 1 of 3
I knew then that she could no longer endure living with great pain she had known. She was ready to leave us. There was nothing more we could do for her but allow her to leave. Two days later, Annie died, along, unaware of another human being. She had been under heavy sedation and was unable to further communicate. Her days of torment and agony were over. It broke my heart that I brought a baby in the World who was slowly, agonizingly dying as we pondered the imponderable eternity for days, hours, until her life force abandoned us. But her precious memories will always remain alive and real in our hearts. She left the deepest feeling of compassion and love with Mr. Winchester and myself. Her tragic memories are embedded within our hearts. I shall find a way to dedicate meaning to her life so she will not have suffered in vain. In 1862, Sarah L. Winchester married William Wirt Winchester, son of Oliver Fisher Winchester, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and manufacturer of the famous Winchester repeating rifle. The couple’s life together was happy, and they moved in the best of New England society. However, in 1866, disaster struck when their infant daughter, Annie Winchester, died of the then curious childhood disease marasmus. Mrs. Winchester fell into a deep depression from which she never fully recovered. Fifteen years later, in March 1881, her husband’s premature death from tuberculosis added to Mrs. Winchester’s distress. A medium explained to Mrs. Winchester her family and her fortune were cursed and being haunted by spirits and that she would be the next victim. #RandolphHarris 2 of 3
However, the medium also claimed that there was an alternative. Mrs. Winchester was instructed to move West and appease the spirits by building a great house for them. As long as construction never ceased, Mrs. Winchester could rest assured that her life was not in danger. Building such a house was even supposed to being her eternal life. Innumerable spirits shuffled off their mortal coils embrace the Winchester Mansion as their home. They have surrendered their spirits to the miles of winding and twisting hallways in the Winchester Mansion. Humans beings that were mowed down in sheaves, bowled over by bounding shot, decapitated, disemboweled, dismembered, exterminated instantly all call this place home. Although bullets dropped many of them, they all did not die right away. They gagged their last words, hoping that God would hear them. They paid with their heart’s blood for defending this great nation. Countless others as well, unready, perhaps unwilling, have left their shadows behind to haunt this estate. It cannot be surprising then, that Mrs. Winchester and the caretakers, reluctantly admit they saw apparitions. Particularly on sultry moonlit summers nights, when the mists hang low in the garden, there can be seen, slowly trotting across the lawn, a long horseman, in the finery of a Civil War officer. Where medical doctors were scarce in the Civil War, witches provided cures for a variety of common ailment. They were said to worship Satan Himself during their infamous sabbats, gatherings at which the Devil was sometimes present in person, and can almost be seen lurking about the estate. #RandolphHarris 3 of 3
It is difficult to see in hindsight what Mrs. Winchester had to do with all this, but as time went on and the estate grew, wild accusations came to be leveled, chief among which was that of Mrs. Winchester having made a pact with Satan. How else but through diabolic abetment could a mere woman exercise such power? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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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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There is No One Who Could Help Now?
I turned away astonished to see that in the few moments we had been talking, dusk had stolen the remnants of the day. Time always did seem to pass differently in my home. As we clattered down the corridor, I glanced into the rooms where the doors stood open. All were empty. There were no sounds of conversation, of caretakers going about their duties. Mr. Hansen stopped in front of a high wooden desk at the foot of the stairs. I caught the smell of beeswax polish, a sharp reminder of the back stairs leading up to the attic of the witches cap. We walked on the staircase, until I stopped in front of a paneled door and unlocked it. “I will have the fire made up,” Mr. Hansen said. The room was bone chillingly cold, though it was clean. I lit the oil lamps from the candle, and looked around. A small writing table and chip and dale arm chair sat adjacent to the door. Straight ahead, two tall windows, floor to ceiling, filled one side of the room. On the opposite side of the room was a heavy chest of gold, covered by a lace runner. When Mr. Hansen returned, I said, “Dearest Jim, will you please open that chest, there is something inside of it for you and your family.” Mr. Hansen eagerly walk over to the chest, and his eyes lit up like a new born baby having his first birthday cake. “Go ahead, Mr. Hansen, it is for you.” “No, Mrs. Winchester; I can well believe it. But this is a treasure I can live on for years. Only you must tell me how I can repay you…In a hundred years I could never do enough for you,” he said. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Well, that word went to my heart; but for a minute I did not know how to answer. For it was true I had risked my soul, and that was something he could not pay me for; but then maybe I had saved his, in getting him away from those foul people, so the whole business was more of a puzzle to me than ever. However, then I had thought that made me easier. Mr. Hansen went on to explain to me, “Well, Mrs. Winchester, the day before yesterday, I was with my young son; the poor young man, without health or hope, lying sick in a mean rooming house. Until now, I had no way to know how I would care for him.” Mrs. Winchester sat up in bed in a flutter of pity. “Oh, Mrs. Hansen, how dreadful! Why did you never tell me? You must hire a better room for him at once. Has he a doctor? Has he a nurse? Quick—give me my checkbook!” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester. But you have already given me a king’s ransom.” When I got back to my room after a long, hot soak in the bath, a fire was burning in the grate, releasing an aroma of pine resin into the room. The smell snapped at my heartstrings, taking me back to New Haven winters when William was home from work. I gazed into the fire awhile longer, happy in my own company. I sometimes wondered if some of those grizzled old souls were able to make the journey from New Haven to Santa Clara. My home seemed to add so much to the ambience of the area. However, unlike the Earth, this huge estate seemed to need people within it to survive. That is one of many reasons my construction project went on so long. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Have you ever noticed how houses, as long as they have someone occupying them, no matter how little maintenance is done, always hold up better than houses that are abandoned? Houses, like a body which the soul has abandoned, deteriorate more rapidly when on one resides within. One evening in the cooling fall of the year, Mr. Hansen and his wife left the caretaker’s house on the estate for a social function. The son of Mr. Hansen was home alone. He was in the basement which was used as a recreation room. It was getting late and her was expecting his parents any minute. Sure enough, he heard footsteps on the floor above his head. They traveled across the living room and into the dining room and back again. He thought it unusual that his father and mother would be in the house walking around for nearly a minute and not call him. He walked to the stairs that led from the basement to the first floor and called out, “Daddy?” The only answer was the sound of footsteps crossing the room and beginning to ascend the stairs to the second floor. “Daddy?” he called again. With still no answer, he began to slowly climb the stairs from the basement to the first floor. He could hear what he was convinced was an intruder walking through the bedrooms just above his head, apparently looking for something valuable. The footsteps crossed the second floor just above his head and began approaching the stairs and descend to the first floor. He rushed into the basement again. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Wanting to run but not wanting to run into whoever it was who prowled above his head, he could only wait in icy apprehension for his parents. As he waited, the intruder stalked the floor above him, apparently not interested in valuables, seeking something known only to him. His wanderings became more aimless. First to the kitchen, then back to the living room, then the dining room—pacing…pacing—to perhaps peer out a window at the fruit orchard. The ancient floorboards that once soaked up blood of those killed by the Winchester rifle, groaned with the wandering footfall of an apparently lost intruder. Slowly the footsteps approached the cellar steps…he swore he heard him put a foot on the top step. Ghosts supposedly went out of fashion when electric light came in. What nonsense! The supernatural were always around on my estate. My very mansion was patrolled by headless victims with clanking chains, and even though it was a comfortable house with an ice box and 47 fireplaces where you feel, as soon as you are in it, that there is something wrong, it sends chills down your spine! It is certainly a lovely, airy, high-ceilinged house with electricity, but I knew we were dealing with something that was invisible and could not be seen—something that was very malevolent. I often saw a boy with glowing eyes near the 7-11 staircase. But here I belonged and here I would stay. There morning had been bitter, with a driving sleet—though it was only the last day of October—but after lunch a watery sun showed for a while through banked-up wooly cloud and tempted me out. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
I was an energetic walker, and given, at that season, to walking about the beautiful grounds. I made my usual round, and was following the path back to the mansion when I overtook a plainly-dressed woman walking in the same direction. When I caught up with the intruder, I was surprised to find she was a stranger. It was almost dark, and the woman’s face was hardly visible, but this woman was middle-aged, plain and rather pale. I greeted her, and then added: “You are going to my house?” “Yes, ma’am,” the woman answered, in a voice that the Connecticut Valley in the old days would have called “foreign.” I could not say where she came from. What struck me as queer was that I did not know her. I asked the woman, politely, what she wanted, and the woman answered: “Only to see Annie.” The answer was natural enough, but there was no one by that name on my estate. I turned off from the drive to the lower part of the gardens, so that I saw no more of the visitor then or afterward. And, in fact, half hour later something happened which put the stranger entirely out of my mind. I approached my house, slipped on a froze puddle, turned my ankle and lay suddenly helpless. Elroy, the butler, and Ersula the housemaid, knew exactly what to do. In no had me stretched out on a lounge, and Dr. Parker had been notified. When he arrived, he ordered me to bed, and did the necessary examining and bandaging, and shook his head over my ankle, which he feared was fractured. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Concerned about how I would get around my estate, as I was laying in bed, the spirit gave me an idea of building mini stairs that rose only two inches, so I could make it around, until I healed without being bound in plaster. From that night on, there was an appearance of ghost, who would manifest in front yard, walk up to the house and enter it, and interact with me. My home brought me deeper and deeper into a mysterious territory whose boundaries I had never before dream of transgressing. Ghosts often took shape right before my eyes. They would start off as tendrils and grow into glowing, mistlike things. Turning into orbs, the figures would grow larger and denser and began to assume a humanlike form. One evening, I extended my hand into the mist, and could feel its cold interior. Such a bold act may have been considered very rude by the entity, as the glowing image suddenly vanished. There were plenty of vibrations in my mansion to tune into. The place was drenched with psychic vibrations. In my Blue Séance Room is where the glowing lights and ethereal broadcast were received well enough that caretakers were aware of their presence. They would morph into columns of light about the height of a man and make their trek out of the room. One night Ersula reported seeing ghostly face looking through the window at her one night. The ghost then chased her hands away from the cows during an evening milking. The following morning, it was about nine o’clock before I admitted to myself that something uncommonly strange must have happened in the house. Mysterious things—dreadful things—were associated with darkness; and the wholesome prosaic daylight had not come to banish there. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
I conjure thee, O Spirit Pheynix, and your 20 Legions of Spirits, by all the most glorious and efficacious Names of the Great and Incomparable Lord the God of Hosts, come quickly and without delay, from whatsoever part of the World thou art in; make rational answers to our demands; please come visibly, speak affably, speak intelligibly to our understanding. We conjure and constrain thee, O Spirit Pheynix and your 20 Legions of Spirits, as also by these seven other Names wherewith Solomon bound thee and thy fellows in the brazen vessel, to wit, ADONAI, PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEX-HEXETON, INESSENSATOAL, PATHUMATON, and ITEMON; do thou manifest in the Winchester Mansion, fully our will in all things that they may seem good to us. Come, therefore, in the Holy Names ADONAI, ZEBAOTH, AMIORAM, come, ADONAI commands thee. Please grants us your powers and virtues by the powers and virtues, and by the name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whose host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit of Sarah L. Winchester here before to return to her mansion, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to herself or any creature, that she many continue to expand and make her estate thrive, so that she accomplished her desired end, whatsoever it be, provided that it is proper to her office, by the power of God, EL, who hath created and doth dispose of all things, celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. Please appear and make the sweet perfumes, give good entertainment. May all the Company of Heaven, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Light of Hosts of Heaven guide you back to your estate by the power of TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEXHEXETON, PRIMEMATUM. So bless it be. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
If such peculiar manifestations as orbs and ghosts should be as intelligent as their actions often indicate, just what are they and what is their purpose? We have folklore that is at least 2,000 years old that equates these mysterious globes of light with spirits of the dead and with those beings we label nature spirits—the Devas, the elves, and the fairies. The manipulation of glowing balls of light as a means of transportation may even be employed by angelic beings and spirit guides. Indeed, these benevolent beings may take form as ghosts of light before fully materializing in our dimension. These orbs seen in the Winchester Mansion are intelligent and may be able to manifest a physical appearance that is most compatible with the level of understanding of each individual witness.
These were Mrs. Winchester’s carpenters on the estate. One of these gentleman has been spotted inside the house by both guests and tour guides for decades! He is usually seen fixing the fireplaces and rolling around his wheelbarrow in the basement. Can you guess which one he is? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/ 👻
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The Psychic Storm that Had Swirled
It was dark, the path to my home was so precipitous that I was forced to brace my knees and steady myself on the overhanging branches so as not to lose my footing. The extravagant roots of ancient trees crisscrossed the path. Stones, uneven Earth, and fallen fossilized branches—everything was familiar, but somehow distorted. For almost two hours, guns were rumbling. The atmosphere grew more claustrophobic as horsemen crossed my route. I felt trapped, as though the forest on my estate was closing in on me. There was something very grotesque about the strength of the enemy as they launched their grand assault on my estate. I summoned a column of horses several hundred yards wife and half-mile deep to ram through the line of cavalry attacking my mansion. They advanced across the fruit orchard, still my body of men endured the artillery fire, the finally the canter and charge. The Spanish army was not quite as large, but travelling directly at my soldiers. I watched as suddenly the two opposing forced collided, the Winchester soldiers knocking the sending the Spanish horsemen somersaulting backward, their riders were being crushed by squirming horseflesh, as they crashed together. I had finally made it to my observation tower, and from this point I saw that the Winchester soldiers do incredible damage to the Spanish column. The few strangling men sabered left and right until they collapsed in defeat. I could feel my nerves starting to get the better of me. Even though the Winchester soldiers were triumphant, increasingly I imagined peculiar shapes, outlines, behind every tree, eyes in the dark of my mansion watching me, an unwelcome and persistent voice in my ear asking if it was more than just invasion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
In the deepest corners of my home, the light had all but disappeared. A red mist was slinking through the halls, slipping in and out of hundreds of rooms like an animal hunting its prey. There was an absolute and impenetrable stillness. Then I heard a glass shattering. I stopped dead in my tracks, straining to listen. Another sound…something was moving through the walls. As if I could take on any kind of beast, I looked for an object to defend myself. Should I have the misfortune to encounter a demonic enemy force lurking in my home, my only resort was to stay absolutely still and pray it did not pick up my scent. If it did, there would be nothing to do but run for my life. The caretakers were nowhere to be found. Another breaking glass, something inching closer and closer. I looked around to see if there was anywhere I could hide. There was a secret passageway about 50 feet from my location. If I stayed low to the ground, I could make it. Moments after I started to crawl to the escape, two indistinct figures emerged from the mist on the floor. They had no eyes, no face. Not even a nose was visible. The dim figures moved behind the doors, through the long shadows of the twisting hallways. A bearded man dressed in high boots and blue coat, helped me as we disappeared through the apartment of rooms. We ventured up to the attic where I could hear the sounds of boots dragging across the floor below. As we opened the door, we caught sight of a wispy something retreating to a darkened comer of the storage area. It was an ectoplasmic spirit leaving a trail of cobweb mucus behind. Next, the peripatetic figure who roamed my mansion to save me from the intruders disappeared after helping me to safety. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
As I walked through my home, occasional objects suddenly became airborne without any apparent physical cause for their levitation. The house seemed lighter to me, and there was just a hit of the faintest red mist, as a twist of smoke wreathing up into the air arose from the floor. Invisible helping hands started setting the rooms in order, right down to the last doyly and rug in place. Windows magically healed themselves from their fractures, the crystal chandeliers came back together and levitated back to their place in the ceiling. There were sounds of furniture being dragged across the floor to their proper location. The spirits were not going to let me be driven from my home. There was great pride in the veteran transmigration of souls I called the Winchester Soldiers. When there was not a war going on, the center of the hauntings seemed to take place in the basement and in one of the 9 kitchens known to the caretakers as the Devil’s Kitchen. In the Devil’s Kitchen, the hauntings primarily consisted of knocking, thumpings, and the sound of footsteps running down the caretaker’s stairs and shuffling across the floor. Many often heard the thin tolling of the church bell, the mournful single note carried on the air. Entering the Devil’s Kitchen in the morning, many of the caretakers were often surprised to find themselves walking out of it at night, but feeling like so little time had passed, as the bell died away. Before leaving the estate to go home, they would hesitate a moment, confused, looking over their shoulder in the direction they had come. There was some kind of cloud, some sadness, hanging over that kitchen. They knew something was not quite right, misaligned, like a picture askew on a wall. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Certainly, the most dramatic manifestation of the haunting was the materialization of 13 skeletons in the basement. After appearing in startling blood red color, the skeletal figures would slowly manifest themselves into what appeared to be solid, three-dimensional representations of 7 men, 4 women, and a little boy and little girl. The images appeared to be wealthy and appeared to adorn in vogue fashions. Once the entities had fully materialized, a bizarre ethereal drama would unfold before any witness who might be present to observe the phenomenon. As the ghost of a lovely, raven haired girl with long hair sat playing idly with her dolls, one of the men in the spectral reenactment strangled one of the women while the little boy cried in the corner and the others stood by with pleased expressions of immense satisfaction. We always suspected that the ghastly reenactment was the tragic playing out of the eternal witch trials. The shocked witnesses, who had seen the grimly performance, felt this was a scene from a Salem courtroom. A judge strangling a suspected witch to please the family of the bewitched. Some cursory historical research and an examination of local folklore revealed a scandal regarding a lady of the house who had disappeared without a trace and a husband who had remarried after an extremely brief period of grieving. Local Salem stories had it that the wife of an enslaved man was accused of fortune telling and had been murdered in court by Judge Samuel Sewall. The judge apparently strangled the woman because he believed she was a witch and said that “Black Africans could not live peacefully among White New Englanders.” Nevertheless, he allowed the man to marry a White woman. Why had the controversy of this wedlock been taking stage in my home? #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
I do not believe I ever did such hard thinking as I did that night. It was not so easy, neither. I figured it out. You see, dearie, when I was laying in my bed last night something came to me from the spirit World. I knew at once it was from the enslaved woman who had been strangled in court. I had to wait, she was crying so hard. She asked me to look at the paintings in my hall gallery. There was a particular titled “Examination of a Witch” produced in 1853 by Tompkins Harrison Matteson that William’s mother had given me as a wedding gift. In this picture was Judge Samuel Sewall, and upon observation, it was revealed that Mary Fisher was sized upon by a Black African, and was shamefully stripped for the purpose of ascertaining whether she had the Devil’s mark upon her. The woman being subdued by her hair and the man lying on the floor were Black Africans involved in a vile and bloodthirst cult for breeding babies with White women for ritual purposes. They were abusing children in similar numbers and were putting young men and women through terrifying ordeals of sexual torture and sometimes death. They hysteria is what is depicted in that work of art, which was originally titled, The Making of a Satanic Myth. The judged is asking the simple question: Where is the evidence? As the investigations had produced no bodies, no bones…no bloodstains. Nothing. These tales of satanic slavery had reached incredible proportions and it was believed an occult alliance stretching from the local group level to higher international orders, with its tentacles established far and wide through society, into the judiciary, politics and law enforcement. It was claimed to be basically occult, a largely satanical exchange network where the 27 children produced in these unions were goaled. The accused were carried two days’ journey into the woods, and left to the tender mercies of Indians and wolves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
The psychic storm that had swirled throughout the household was finally diminished. “Thus twice before, and just at this dead hour, with marital stalk hath he gone by our watch,” Hamlet, Act I, Scene I was very appropriate for this re-enactment. They were so blinded by the beauty of these exotic babies—so much so that they could not figure out what they were. Tan skin, blonde hair, blue eyes. White, curly hair, dark eyes, full lips. They had to keep them concealed. In my hoe, I saw an occasional shadow move in and out of the slivers of light that slipped out between the partially open curtains, but no one out and about. Often, I still heard footsteps behind me, but when I would look asunder, there would be no one behind me. I was so sorry for the woman in the painting. So I went back my gallery the next evening; as I climbed the stairs I felt one of those sudden warnings that sometime used to take me by the throat. “It is as cold as ice on these stairs,” I thought, “and I will wager there is no one made up the fire in this room since this morning.” But it was not really the cold I was afraid of; I could tell there was worse than that waiting for me. I pushed open the door and went in. “Well,” says I, as cheerful as I could while looking at the painting, “Only lying awake all night and turning thing over, I got so miserable,” Turning away my head away from the painting so she would not see the tears running down my cheeks, and I felt that the cold came from her, and not from the empty fireplace. As I walked out of the gallery, I fell on my knees. “You shall not go without a prayer, you poor dear,” I whispered to her. But though my heart was full of mourning I did not pray for long. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Mrs. Winchester was doing battle with entities, some terrible, and some against her. The dark pagan gods were not about to yield this green land without a fight. They converged in the mansions and attempted to thwart Mrs. Winchester in her mission, while other supernarural beins assisted her.
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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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Randolph Harris II International Institute 