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Los Angeles Will be Two and a Half Hours from Tokyo
Given that burglars are disproportionately young, poor, city-dweller, they tend to have frequent contact with other habitual offenders. There are various structures and processes that go along with the “stolen property system”—the underground market through which in-demand goods are stolen, housed, marketed, and resold on the street of America. Burglary is a crime that is marked by varied levels of social organization. Only on rare occasions do we find burglars who work as loners or within formal organizations. More often, burglars will operate as colleagues—the offender commits the crime along but relies on other members of the criminal subculture to supply him or her with inside information or to assist in converting stolen property into cash. Burglars who take the situation to the next level and enlist help in the actual break-in follow a more peerlike existence. Here, loose partnerships are maintained and invoked when a burglary opportunity presents itself. A primitive example of the peer model would be two or three drug users who randomly stumble upon an unlocked home or unsupervised business and decide to work together to take it down. In some cases, burglary offenders will align themselves in a teamlike format. These offenders invoke a division of labor with each participant serving an owned predetermined role and duties. One person might be assigned to lookout/driver role. Another might serve as the entry specialist, defeating any lock and alarms that are confronted. Still another person can take on the “muscle” role, responsible for doing the heavy lifting. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
Socialization scripts play an important part in how and why burglars commit their crimes. Interview-based research suggests that novice or occasional burglars often rely on the tutelage of more seasoned offenders as a way of learning the proverbial ropes of burglary. Novices receive advice and instructions on issues such as target selection, how to foster informants, how to defeat burglary countermeasures, and how to best convert stolen goods into cash. This socialization generally takes shape as informal street corner conversations or jailhouse bravado. On paper, burglary appears to receive serious treatment from the criminal justice system. The Model Penal Code classifies burglary as a felony in the third degree. In most jurisdictions, such as offense is subject to 1 to 5 years in prison. If the burglar is armed or threatens or inflicts bodily harm on another while unlawfully within a dwelling, that individual might see the charges elevated to second degree felony. In practice, however, burglary receives mixed levels of formal response from the various components of the criminal justice system. First, let us consider the response of law enforcement authorities. Police agencies were able to effect an arrest for only 13 percent of the nearly 2.1 million burglaries that were reported to them in 2022. No other form of index crime yields such a dismal clearance rate. Some of this slippage can be attributed to the covert nature of the crime—police often have no witnesses and minimal clues to guide the investigation. However, these low clearance rates are also impacted by the fact that many police officers and police agencies afford a low priority to burglary cases. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Court data reveal a different trend in terms of the veracity with which burglary cases are adjudicated. U.S.A. courts produced nearly 90,000 felony burglary cases in 2022. This figure represents 10 percent of all felony convictions that year. In fact, 68 percent of the burglary cases that were tried resulted in a conviction for the same offense and only 24 percent avoided some sort of conviction. The researchers found that burglary defendants do not receive a reprieve from the courts when it comes time for sentencing. A full 74 percent of the convicted burglars were sentenced to time behind bars. This rate was surpassed only by murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and driving-related offenses. While the median prison sentence for a convicted burglar was 41 months, nearly 10 percent received sentences in excess of 10 years. Our correctional system does not appear to be particularly forgiving to persons who are convicted of burglary. On average, burglary offenders can expect to serve almost half of their sentence—roughly two years. These time-served figures are on par with those of other property offenses (theft, fraud, and motor vehicle theft) but somewhat lower than that observed for violent (54 percent) and weapon-related offenses (60 percent). Accounts from known burglars clearly suggest that informal social control efforts go as long way to deter and/or displace burglary activity. A minimal amount of vigilance on the part of homeowners can go a long way. Measures designed to combat the relatively small population of high incidence “professional” burglars tends to overemphasize the skill and determination of most burglars. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
Burglaries are expensive, complex, and require long term commitment at many levels. In fact, most burglars are young, unskilled, and opportunistic. This suggests that emphasis should be directed at such factors as surveillability, occupancy, and accessibility. More specifically, dogs, good locks, and alarm systems deter most burglars. Community-level informal social control can also play an important role in burglary prevention. When it comes to surveillability cues, burglars tend to avoid neighborhoods with a lot of foot traffic or active neighborhood watches. This implies that observant or even nosy neighbors can have a measurable impact on burglary. However, these types of collective efforts are difficult to enact and maintain in the areas that burglars most prefer—urban neighborhoods. If nothing else, tenants of “crime prevention through environmental design” should be considered at a neighborhood level. Simple environmental characteristics such as cul-de-sac street design, high levels of lightening, and well pruned landscaping that minimizes unobservable entry and exit points can have a significant impact on burglary victimization levels in a given community. The aforementioned informal social control efforts represent examples of target hardening strategies aimed at deterring would-be burglars from victimizing a given house or displacing offenders from a given community. Also, measures should be designed that aim to undermine offenders’ strong attachment to street culture. Expanded employment opportunities are one possible, but foreboding avenue to lure offenders out of street life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
There exist even more simple and realistic measures that might effect change in this area. For example, a coordinated burglary prevention program that was implemented in a midsize U.S.A. city during the early 1980s. Community activism and community involvement (id est, block meetings, neighborhood cleanups, and raised awareness of vulnerabilities and potential offenders) showed promise for reducing burglary. If community members care about the condition of their neighborhood and are willing to take steps to clean it up and exercise vigilance over problem people and places, there is hope for reducing burglary and other forms of street crime. Most crime occurs during the nighttime. A close examination of NCVS and UCR data suggests that 50 percent to 60 percent of all residential burglaries go unreported. The figure reported here was derived by adding the NCVS data on residential burglaries to an adjusted estimate of nonresidential burglaries that were reported in the UCR—one that factors a 60 percent nonreporting rate. These data must be viewed with caution because 50 to 60 percent of all burglaries go unreported to police and only 14 percent of these lead to arrest. Over time, the crime of burglary has slowly slipped down the list of crime fighting priorities. At present, less than half of all burglaries get reported to police, and only 13 percent of those result in an arrest. What kinds of social and legal factors have contributed to this present level of empathy when it comes to the formal and informal society control of burglary? #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Adjudication data suggest that accused burglars face a high certainty of being convicted and sentenced to prison. This should send a message to police that burglary is a high priority for our nation’s prosecutors and judges. Still, burglary investigation and arrest efforts remain lukewarm at best. What kinds of factors contribute to police officers’ attitudes and behaviors regarding burglary patrol and enforcement? Considerable evidence suggests that burglars refine strategies and cues that help them identify soft and potentially lucrative targets. Does this mean that burglars are more rational and planful than other types of criminals? The Lord has declared that “no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of Heaven,” reports Alma 11.37. Our sins make us unclean—unworthy to return and dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father. They also bring anguish to our soul in this life. Repentance is sometimes a painful process, but it leads to forgiveness and lasting peace. The power of sin is great. To become free from it, we must turn to your Heavenly Father, pray in faith, and act as He asks us to. The Holy Spirit should never become the center and object of thought and worship, place which He Himself does not desire, and which it is not the purpose of the Father in Heaven that He should have or occupy. “He shall not speak from Himself,” reports John 16.13, said that Lod Jesus before Calvary, as He foretold the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. He would act as Teacher (John 14.26), but teaching the words of Another, not to Himself (John 15.26); He would only glorify Another, not His own; He would bear witness to Another, not Himself (John 16.14); He would only speak what was given Him to spear by Another (John 16.13). #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The Spirit’s entire work would be to lead souls into union with the Son and give proper knowledge of the Father in Heaven, while He Himself directed and worked in the background. If a man who is untaught in the scriptural statements about the work of the Triune God makes “obeying the Spirit” his supreme purpose, the deceiver will aim to counterfeit the guidance of the Spirit, and even the presence of the Spirit Himself. It is just here that the ignorance of the seeker about the spiritual Word now opened to one, the working of evil powers in that realm, and the conditions upon which God works in and through one, gives the enemy his opportunity. It becomes the time of greatest peril for anyone unless one is instructed and prepared by the Lord, as the disciples were for three whole years. The danger lies in the area of supernatural “guidance,” for one must know the conditions of cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the cooperation with the Holy Spirit in order to discern the will of God and be able to recognize counterfeit manifestations. The “discerning of spirits” is required to detect the workings of the false angel of light, for he is able to bring about counterfeit gifts of prophecy, tongues, healing, and other spiritual experiences connected with the work of the Holy Ghost. Those who have their eyes opened to the opposing forces of the metaphysical realm understand that very few believers can guarantee that they are obeying God and God only, in directly supernatural guidance, because there are so many factors liable to intervene, such as the believer’s own mind, spirit, or will and the deceptive intrusion of the powers of darkness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
Knowledge is essential here. Scripture teaches that there is a God-given gift of “discerning of spirits” (1 Cor. 12.10) which enables one to detect that an unwelcome spirit is at work, but there is also a test of spirits which is doctrinal (1 John 4.1-6). In the former, a believer can discern in his spirit that lying spirits are at work in a meeting, or in a person, but one may not have the understanding needed for testing the doctrines being set forth by the teacher. One needs a level of knowledge in both cases: knowledge to read one’s spirit with assurance in the face of all contrary appearances, that the supernatural workings are not “of God,” and knowledge to detect the subtlety of “teachings” bearing certain infallible indications that they emanate from the pit, even while appearing to be from God. As to personal obedience to God, the believer can detect whether or not one is obeying God in some “command” by judging its fruits, and by being aware of the character of God—such as the truth that God has always a purpose in His commands, and He will give no command out of harmony with His character and Word. Often times people wait for something to happen, for some sure way to nurture oneself, to live from within. Music, art, poetry, hot baths, savory foods, wind, rain—nothing affects them. In the past, within days after a solitary retreat, many had found solace and strength in their loneliness. They had always found a way, at least a beginning that would lead to action and to life with others. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
However, it is impossible to find what one is looking for, and one is still on a lonely journey, waiting from a spark from within. Because some people feel empty and eroded inside, they avoid all significant communication. More than anything else the interpersonal aspects of living exhaust some and move them to withdraw from real meetings with others. This leaves an individual certain that one does not want to struggle anymore. Doubt, risk and anxiety—inherent elements of faith—can be overcome only by another of its elements, courage. Courage is an ontological concept, the self-affirmation of being in spite of non-being. Faith is the experience of the holy; it is the state of being grasped by the power of being-itself. From this experience flows the power to assert oneself in the face of anxiety. Faith is participation in the object of faith, and yet is the separation from it. In spite of separation, courage expresses participation in the power of being and meaning. This in spite of element is the courage that takes all doubt, risk, and anxiety into itself and overcomes them without removing them. Faith, then, is the basis of courage, and courage is the manifestation of faith. In the extreme situation of a person seized by radical doubt and confronted with the specter of universal meaninglessness, the question arises: Is there such a thing as the courage of despair? Such a courage is entirely possible, for that act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
The courage of despair enables one, even while in the grip of meaninglessness, to declare one’s situation, and this declaration has meaning. In other words, there cannot be an infinite regression of negatives—in this case, negativity of meaning. At least, one has to admit, negation of meaning is meaningful, or meaninglessness will have lost all meaning. The faith which feeds the courage of despair is called “absolute faith,” for it can have no specific content. Its content is indefinable, since everything defined is dissolved by doubt and meaninglessness. However, certain elements that constitute absolute faith can be discerned. There is an experience of the power of being in the face of nonbeing, an awareness of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning. There is the dependence of nonbeing upon being, of meaninglessness upon meaning, of the negative upon the positive. And, lastly, there is the acceptance of the power to accept meaninglessness. Thus, absolute faith is faith which has been deprived by doubt of any concrete content, which nevertheless is faith and the source of the most paradoxical manifestation of the courage to be. Faith is without a special content, yet it is not without content. The content of absolute faith is the “God above God.” When people speak of God, they usually refer to the God of theism. Now theism can mean either a vague, unspecified affirmation of God, or a divine-human encounter of persons, or theological theism which makes God a being beside other beings. However, the God of absolute faith is above and beyond the God of any theism, for the God above God is the power of absolute faith as experience of the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The morning traffic from Oakland to San Francisco across the Bay Bridge gets backed up from 7.30 to 11.00 A.M. Until the jam clears at 11.00, each additional car that enters the traffic makes all those who come later wait just a little longer. The right way to measure this cost is to sum up the additional waiting-times across everyone who is delayed. What is the total waiting-time cost imposed by one additional car that crosses the bridge at 9.00 A.M.? You may be thinking you do not know enough information. A remarkable feature to this problem is that the externality can be calculated based on the little amount you have been told. You do not need to know how long it takes the cars to cross the toll plaza, nor the distribution of cars that arrive after 9.00. The answer is that same whether the length of the traffic jam stays constant or varies widely until it cleans. The trick is to see that all that matters is the sum of the waiting time. We are not concerned with who waits. (In other circumstances, we might want to weigh the waiting times by the monetary value of time for those caught in the jam.) The simplest way to figure out the total extra waiting time is to shuffle around who waits, putting all the burden on one person. Imagine that the extra driver, instead of crossing the bridge at 9.00 A.M., pulls his car over to the side and lets all the other drivers pass. If he passes up his turn in this way, the other drivers are no longer delayed by the extra car. Of course, he has to wait two hours before the traffic clears and the road is clear. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
However, these two hours exactly equal the total waiting time imposed on all the other drivers if he were to cross the bridge rather than wait on the sidelines. The reason is straightforward. The total waiting time is the time it takes for everyone to cross the bridge. Any solution that involves everyone crossing the bridge gives the same total waiting time, but distributed differently. Looking at the solution in which the extra car does all the extra waiting is the easiest way to add up the new total waiting time. Looming on the horizon is a dangerous de-coupling of the fast economies from the slow, an event that would spark enormous power shifts throughout the so-called South-with big impacts on the planet as a whole. The new wealth-creation system holds the possibility of a far better future for vast populations who are now among the planet’s poor. Unless the leaders of the less developed countries (LCDs) anticipate these changes, however, they will condemn their people to perpetuated misery—and themselves to impotence. For even as Chinese manufacturers wait for their steel, and traditional economies around the World to crawl slowly through their paces, the United States of America, Japan, Europe, and in this case the Soviets, too, are pressing forward with plans to build hypersonic jets capable of moving 250 tons of people and cargo at Mach 5, meaning that cities like New York, Sydney, London, and Los Angeles will be two and a half hours from Tokyo. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Jiro Tokuyama, former head of the prestigious Nomura Research Institute, and now a senior adviser to the Mitsui Research Institute, heads a fifteen-nation study of what are called the “three T’s:” telecommunications, transportation, and tourism. Sponsored by the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, the study focuses on three key factors likely to accelerate the pace of economic processes in the region still further. According to Tokuyama, Pacific air-passenger traffic is likely to reach 134 million…at the turn of the century. The Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Tokuyama adds, estimates that five hundred to one thousand hypersonic jets must be built. Many of these will ply Pacific routes, speeding further the economic development of the region, and promoting faster telecommunications as well. In a paper prepared for the Three T’s study, Tokuyama spells out the commercial, social, and political implications of this development. He also describes a proposal by Taisei, the Japanese construction firm, to build an artificial island five kilometers in length to serve as a “VAA,” or “value added airport,” capable of handling hypersonics and providing an interactional conference center, shops, and other facilities to be linked by high-speed linear trains to a densely populated area. In Texas, meanwhile, billionaire H. Ross Perot is building an airport to be surrounded by advanced manufacturing facilities. As conceived by him, planes could roar in a day and night bearing components for overnight processing or assembly in facilities at the airport. The next morning the jets would carry them to all parts of the World. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
Simultaneously, on the telecommunications front, the advanced economies are investing billions in the electronic infrastructure essential to operations in the super-fast economy. The spread of extra-intelligence nets is moving swiftly, and there are now proposals afoot to create special higher-speed fiber optic networks linking supercomputer all across the United States of America with thousands of laboratories and research groups. (Existing networks are regarded as too slow. The proposed new nets would send 319 Terabits per second streaming across the country). The new network is needed because the existing slower nets are already choked and overloaded. They argue that the project merits government backing because it would help the United States of America keep ahead of Europe and Japan in a field it now leads. This, however, is only a special case of a more general clamor. In the words of Mitch Kapor, a founder of Lotus Development Corporation, the software giant, “We need to build a national infrastructure that will be the information equivalent of the national highway-building of the ‘50s and ‘60s.” An even more appropriate analogy would compare today’s computerized telecom infrastructures with the rail and road networks needed at the beginning of the industrial revolution. What is happening, therefore, is the emergence of an electronic neural system for the economy—without which any nation, no matter how many smokestacks it has, will be domed to backwardness. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
In its commercial service trade, in 2021, India trade balance for 2021 USD$-79.19, a 665.96 percent increase from 2020. The United States of America is the largest services exporter in the World. In 2019, U.S.A. exports of service were USD $875.8 billion, up 1.6 percent (USD $13 billion) from 2018. U.S.A. exports of services account for 35 percent of over all U.S.A. exports in 2019. Germany World Development Indicators (WDI) 2020: trade balance in USD$221,534 million. Trade services as a percentage of GDP is 5.82 percent. Trade in services with the United Kingdom (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $140.7 billion in 2019. Services exports were USD $78.3 billion; services imports were USD $62.3 billion. The U.S.A. services trade surplus with United Kingdom was USD $16.0 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $56.0 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $40.4 billion; services imports were USD $15.6 billion. The U.S.A. service trade surplus with China was USD $24.8 billion in 2020. Trade in services with Japan (exports and imports) totaled an estimated USD $68.6 billion in 2020. Services exports were USD $38.0 billion; services imports were USD $30.6 billion. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
The U.S.A. services trade surplus with Japan was USD $7.4 billion in 2020. Japan was the United States of Americas’ 4th largest goods export market in 2020. As for the services, France exported around USD $303 billion worth of services in 2021, while it imported services for the total value of USD $258.3 billion. Service trade in Italy in 2020, Italy exported $73.1B worth of services. The outsized U.S.A.-Ireland commercial relationship, which exceeded USD $1 trillion in 2021 is significant by international standards and is particularly impressive relative to the country’s population of five million people. In 2021, U.S.A. good exported to Ireland exceeded USD $13.8 billion. The statistics for services from 2012 record the value of U.S.A. service exports to Ireland at $74.8 billion. In 2021, global services exports were valued at USD $6.1 trillion, representing 6.3 percent of total World trade in both goods and services. Overall, as far as the nations’ trade balances are concerned, the picture in the services sector is almost the opposite of the one in the merchandise trade. In services, the West has a significant competitive edge versus China and is in a good position to establish a much wider presence in the Chinese market. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
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.
Haunting Phenomena and Unsolved Winchester Mysteries
As we made our way through the hall, the cold outdoor light flooded the drawing room. The shutters had not been closed, nor the curtains drawn. I looked about me. The room was empty and every chair was 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. My home was filled with ancient artifacts and historic pieces. It also housed several spirits. One night, as I sat in my armchair, my fear seemed to take on a new quality. It was like an icy liquid running through every vein, and lying in a pool about my heart. I discovered that there was something wrong with the chair when I felt someone grab my arm in a painful grip while I was resting in. Whatever it was left fingerprint bruises on my arm. I was convinced that a vengeful spirit had grabbed me. It absorbed me so completely that I was not aware how long I rained there. But suddenly a new impulse pushed me forward, and I walk on toward the scullery. I went there first because there was a service slide in the wall, through which I might peep into the kitchen without being seen; and some indefinable instinct told me that this particular kitchen held the clue to the mystery. I still felt strongly that whatever had happened in parlor must have its source and center in this kitchen. In the scullery, as I have expected, everything was clean and tidy. However, a voice was speaking in the kitchen—a man’s voice, low but empathic, and which I had never heard before. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I stood there, cold with fear. But this fear was again a different one. As I turned to retreat across the smooth slippery floor, halfway through I crashed down on the tiles. The noise seemed to echo on and on through the emptiness, and I stood still, aghast. Now that I had betrayed my presence, flight was useless. Whoever was beyond the kitchen door would be upon me in a second. But to my astonishment the voice went on speaking. It was as though neither the speaker nor his listener had heard me. The invisible stranger spoke so ow that I could not make out what he was saying, but the tone was passionately earnest, almost threatening. The next moment I realized that he was speaking in a foreign language, a language unknown to me. Once more my terror was surmounted by the urgent desire to know what was going on, so close to me yet unseen. I crept to the slide, peered cautiously through into the kitchen, and saw tht it was as orderly empty as the other rooms. I froze when I saw a blue mist coming down their stairs. The mist dispersed before reaching me. I must have fainted them, I supposed; at any rate I felt so weak and dizzy that my memory of what happened remained indistinct. But in the course of time, I walked through the deserted ground floor, up the stairs, and down the corridor to my room. There, apparently, I feel across the threshold, again unconscious. When I came to, I saw a specter wandering the halls and hurrying along through the bookshelves. He literally knocked me out of his way. He plowed over me as he hurried toward the bookshelves. I was a bit flustered by his ungentlemanly behavior. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
I got up and crept silently down the stairs, walked through the hallways. It was a beautiful night, and a full moon was riding high in the sky. I felt quite exhilarated and not at all afraid. All the caretakers on the estate were fast asleep, so there was little chance of meeting anyone on my stroll through my mansion. Enjoying the solitude of my walk, I did not notice how far I had gone. It must have been two or three miles. As I realized that, I start my way back. Looking out the windows, I noticed that sky became overcast, covering the moon and making the night darker and darker. My mood changed to an eerie sort of fear and I kept walking faster and faster. Soon it was so dark that my fear almost became panic, for I could hardly in front of me anymore. At last, I could a candle and lit it. Suddenly I turned my head and looked over my shoulder. There, just a few yards behind me, floating about three feet above the ground, was a boy with blonde hair, following me at the same pace I was walking. He was glowing dully, but shed no light around him or on the ground. Almost as soon as I had seen him, he veered towards the wall, roe a bit, then sailed into the wall and disappeared. This strange boy behaved as if he were intelligent, for he had been following me in a straight line. But as soon as he was discovered, he swerved aside an went into the wall, as if hiding. And had not there been something unnatural about the sudden darkness? #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Deep within the 600 rooms of my home, the imagination can be filled with bright colors of love and joy and the somber hues of tragic death and heartbreak. Then it came, the next morning while the famers were plowing and planting and caring for the young crops, the estate exploded in a scarlet haze. It was very odd. The sleep field and fruit orchards were littered with pieces of human flesh and cadavers of men and horses. In a few days, the famers found themselves planting quite a different crop around the estate and through the fertile fields. I had never seen anything worse than this vast sea of anguish. The spirits must have been upset. Although I had inherited $20,000,000 and $1,000 a day, I paid for this with my heart’s blood. Later that evening, my home was pelted by a shower of limestone and other debris as I sat reading in the front parlor on the first floor. Believing my mansion was crumbling, I jumped to my feet. Glancing warily toward the ceiling, there were no cracks in the ceiling. How could lime and debris fall on me from the ceiling if there was no hole from which they might drop? I stood up on a chair so that I might better inspect the ceiling. I was unable to detect one single sign of damage, but as I searched the area above me, lime once again began to rain down. I picked up a number of pieces from the fresh fall and they felt very cold to the touch, as if they had come from an outside wall. I continued studying the ceiling for some kind of opening through which the lime might have dropped. When I awakened the next morning, I was greatly disturbed to find the room carpeted by the mysterious lime, but there seemed to be no gaping cracks in the walls or ceiling that would have caused so much lime to fall. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
The following night, I was awakened by the sounds of what sounded like feet slipping across the floor. Then I clear heard a man say, “pardon me.” I lit got out of bed, lit a candle, proceeded down the hallway, and heard what sounded like voices in deep conversation, but no one was insight. I got the feeling of not being alone. As if someone invisible was with me. Walking down to the front parlor, I notice the picture William’s mother had given to us for a wedding present was no longer hanging over the fireplace, but learning against the fireplace screen. Moment later in levitated and hung itself back over the fireplace. The candles in the dining rooms appeared to be lighting themselves. The lights seemed to have a mind of their own. Walking through the house to inspect more rooms, I caught a glimpse of a man coming down toward me. Instinctively, I stepped back at the landing so the man could pass. No one came by and when I turned, I saw that I was alone. Who had been following me down the stairs? This was only one of many encounters with a man on their stairs or in the parlor. Before I removed the mansion, guests would have to go up to the second floor to use the rest room. Several guests were quite startled to see the face of a skeleton looking at them in the mirror rather than their own reflections. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
By the next evening, I had conducted an exhaustive search of all the possible “natural causes” for the disturbances. As the activity began to intensify, it became very apparent that the spirits were angry. Candlesticks flew from one corner of the room to another. When the I sat down to dinner, knives, forks, plates, and food became animated and airborne. Anything movable seemed to be possessed and have the ability to levitate about the room. Later that evening, I retired to the Daisy Bedroom and managed to start a fire in my grate, and after warming myself, got back into bed. The evening passed in a haze of pain, out of which there emerged now and then a dim shape of fear—the fear that I might lie here alone and untended still I died of cold, and of the terror of my solitude. For I was sure by the time that the house was empty—completely empty, from garret to cellar. I knew it was so, I could not tell why; but again I felt that it must be because of the peculiar quality of the silence—the silence which had followed my steps wherever I sent, and was now folded down on me like a pall. I was sure that the nearness of any other human being, however queer and secret, would have made a faint crack in the texture of that silence, flawed it as a sheet of glass is flawed by a pebble through against it. The lovely decorated walls of my gentle home was splattered with crimson residue; the wooden, oiled floors smeared umber from the writhings of the wounded. Innumerable bloated forms and traumatic horrors appeared. Putrefying human gore, and light hovered over the Grand Ball Room from perturbed spirits. And ectoplasm ascended upon the windows. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
O thou great and powerful King AMAYMON, who rulest by the power of the Supreme God, El, over all Spirits, superior and inferior, but especially over the Infernal Order in the Dominion of the East, I invoke and command three by the particular and true Name of God, and by the God whom thou dost worship, by the Seal of thy creation, by the most mighty and powerful name of God, JEHOVAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, who cast thee out of Heaven with the rest of the Infernal Spirits, by all the other potent and great names of God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and Hell, of all contained therein, by their powers and virtues, and by the Name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whole host of Heaven. Do thou force and compel the Spirit Sarah L. Winchester here before this mansion, in a fair and comely shape, without injury to myself or to any other creature, that she may give us true and faithful answers, so that we may accomplish our 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. Welcome, Spirits, welcome art thou unto us; we have called three through Him who created Heaven, Earth, and Hell, with all contained therein, and thou hast obeyed also by the like power. We bind three to remain affably and visibly before this mansion, within the mansion, so long as we need thee, and to depart not without or license, till thou hast truly and faithfully fulfilled all that we shall require. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
While there may be many instances in which the outbreak of poltergeist phenomena might be associated with the dramatic changes that adolescence brings to a child’s psyche, many of the classic cases of noisy ghosts throwing objects and severely disrupting the normal flow of things occurred where no adolescent was present. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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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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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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The Mystery Has Never Been Solved!
Much of the ceremonial rituals that took place in The Winchester Mansion goes back to the Knights Templar. The Order of the Knights Templar can be traced in part to the Templars. And yet, the Knights Templar are also the claimed ancestors of satanists, a fact which is decidedly hard to prove, though within an organization so large there may well have been diverse groups who followed their own calling. The knights, largely from France and England, joined the order over a period of many years. They had a system of leadership with a Grand Master, knights, chaplains, sergeants, craftsmen, seneschals and commanders. The order had its own clergy and its meetings were held in the strictest secrecy. Unmarried knights wore a white mantle with a red cross while others wore a black mantle with a red cross. Membership was mostly male, and established orders in virtually every Latin country, drawing people from all over Europe. It also became a great trading agency and though originally the Roman Catholic Church actually supported a number of secret societies who were Christian-based, the power of the Templars began to wield became the fear of successive popes and of European noblemen. Philip IV of France began a series of attacks against the Knights Templar and his campaign was given official blessing by the election of Pope Clement V (1305-1314) who renounced the Templars as immoral heretics. Many people know that Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester had a Famous Blue Séance Room where she carried on her rituals and had a series of colourful robes she wore. However, the mystery has never been solved as to why she built the strangest mansion in the World? #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
Stories were already circulating that Mrs. Winchester, behind the closely guarded doors of her mansion, indulged in the most offensively blasphemous rituals said to be directed totally towards the reversal of Christianity itself. She was said to worship a goat-like idol, the Baphomet, anointing it with the fat of pigs, while the Knights used the fat of murdered children, roasting children and eating them, laying women across their altars for the most violent forms of indecencies to satisfy their lust for life-blood; they were said to have indulged in homosexual rites and other various claims alleged they stamped the Holy Cross under foot, spat and urinated upon it and used the Mass as the basis for their own worship—later to be known universally as the Black Mass. Actual proof of these events is largely contained in the confessions received under torture which followed the arrest of Mrs. Winchester’s butler Albert Pike. He and 140 of his brethren were imprisoned in Santa Clara Valley, tortured and then executed en masse. Algernon Blackwood, under extreme torture, confessed to speaking against Christianity but denied depravity. In 1890, he was brough out on to the nine-story tower of The Winchester Mansion and ordered to repeat his confession in front of the villagers and accept a sentence of life imprisonment. On the balcony of the tower, he burst into a rage of anger and protested innocence of all charges and thus signed his own death warrant. The order was given that he should be taken into the fruit orchard and burned at the stake. As the flames licked his body, he summoned Mrs. Winchester and, in his dying, breathe to meet him at the Bar of Heaven. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Diocesan priest, Father Peter Yorke, who was then editor of the Archiocesan newspaper, The Monitor, emerged sending orders to every village where the Templars operated, instructing that they should be arrested and charges of heresy and sorcery brought against them. He published a series of exposes, and hundreds of knights were brought to trail, tortured, and executed. The vast wealth of the Templars working at The Winchester Mansion were accused of devil worship. What remained to be handed down and revived, especially in the twenty-first century, were the rumors of ritual and dastardly happenings which many of today’s extremist followers of the Knights Templar seem prepared to believe and accept with some enthusiasm. One of the more important traditions handed down by Mrs. Winchester concerns an instruction for future secret societies. On the day the Knights planned to burn to death Father Yorke, a pact was made and communicated to all surviving Knights who had now gone to ground. The instruction was clear—that the Order of the Knight Templar should be continued in perpetuity. It is said that the surviving Templars should thereafter fight for the destruction of the papacy and prevent Mrs. Winchester from being stripped of her wealth and murdered. These orders, it was said, were handed on to descendants of the order and the Winchester family, who at various points in history have included satanists and a diverse calling of occultists. What remained of the Winchester family and the Knights went into the deepest secrecy, surfacing occasionally and surrounded constantly by rumour, but little discernible fact. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
The Illuminati came to fortify The Winchester Mansion, which had reached seven-stories high, with 600 rooms, after the 1906 Earthquake. While it was true that Mrs. Winchester left her mansion, there are more reasons as to the why. The avowed spiritualist, Mrs. Winchester, had constructed a boathouse and erected a huge mountain of Earth upon which a new mansion she had planned to build would be erected. It was to overlook the bay, an immense seawall and costly cannel system, with proper floodgates, through which the Winchester private fleet of launches and yachts were to wend their way. It was said that Mrs. Winchester was being haunted by vicious spirits and that death would be her penalty for leaving her home. Her existence was mythical because only half a dozen people had seen her. A sheriff had been striving for the past three months to serve upon her a summons to appear in court in proceedings that a real estate dealer had brought upon her. Bloodhounds roamed the grounds of the mansion and polite Asian staff answered telephone calls. Mrs. Winchester was always alone save for a bodyguard. She was wealth as few women were and found her pleasure in superintending a half dozen workmen, who for seven years had gone from wing to wing of the mansion, constructing one month what they were called to destroy on the following month. Her mansion was considered the pride of the county and the basis for mysterious legends. The Illuminati came were concerned about a group of subversives who were discovered to be using occult practices and rituals to attack Mrs. Winchester and her mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
E.W. McClellan of Burlingame, the contractor of 98 acres of land purchased by Mrs. Winchester, was holding it and refused to give it up because he believed she was the lead of a secret society working to “establish Satan’s kingdom on Earth,” an accusation which was a direct throw-back to the age of the Knights Templar; and that dictum still exists today. The Psychosophical Society stated that The Winchester Mansion had existed since the sixteenth century and comprised the World League of Illuminati. They wanted to prevent Mrs. Winchester from passing on her palatial estates in all their purity to the next generation. The hotbed of intrigue, rumour and gossip directed at The Winchester Mansion supposedly involved the death/assassination of some, the suicide/murder of others over the scandals invariably linked to Propaganda 2 (P2) Lodge and various Intelligence agencies like the KGB and the CIA with a scandal which is too immense to expound here, nor is it suitably for this part of the report. What can be said, however, is that occult groups working within the traditions of the Illuminati represent a definite consideration of these events. Mrs. Winchester’s husband, William Wirt Winchester, was a master of mathematics and the possessor of certain secret occult knowledge. He gathered seven disciples around him and went into the World of the brotherhood to perform good works. Staff have described that 120 years after his death, his perfectly preserved corpse was found in one of the many buildings of The Winchester Mansion. Because of the secrecy and the mystery that surround The Winchester Mansion, thousand want to know more and are desperate to visit it. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
Sometimes the hysteria surrounding The Winchester Mansion morphed into such hysterical proportions that the authorities have had to shut the mansion down for a day or ban people from entering, even though many do not believe that it actually exists. Fans of The Winchester Mansion have sprouted up all over the World. Some people still regard the story of The Winchester Mansion as a fable, but most know it does actually exist and possesses esoteric knowledge of mystery and mysticism. Some the people who were involved in the construction of The Winchester Mansion were magicians, writers, statesmen and novelist. This mansion has quit a following and has collected members through the ages, in positions of far greater power and influence than the Illuminati. Legend has it that descendants from the founding fathers of the Middle Ages are on the board of trustees. The official secret society in control of the estate have connections throughout Europe and the United States of America, whose membership is an indication of the current revival in the mystery religions and semi-secret societies. The mansion alone boasts of some 60,000 members and operates from its headquarters in San Jose, California with affiliated lodges in Britain, France, Germany, Australia and South Africa. The caretakers are preserving the traditional beliefs of the 19th century. A cipher manuscript was found in one of the libraries of The Winchester Mansion. The author of the manuscript was not identified but it was obviously someone with a very intense knowledge of the supernatural, alchemy, astrology and the magical theories of Eliphas Levi. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
Mrs. Winchester’s mansion and gardens reflect her colourful and ornate rituals and its purpose was “to obtain control of the nature and power of my own being.” The might wings of the mansion outspread dove-like sitting brooding on the vast abyss. What is dark in Mrs. Winchester is to be illumined, what is lose raised and supported; the nine-story tower was constructed so that Heaven could hide nothing from Mrs. Winchester’s view, nor the deep tract of hell. Hell said to be a hideous flaming ruin and combustion in a bottomless perdition, there where Satan dwells in adamantine chains and penal fire. Nine times the space that measures day and night to mortal men, Satan and his horrid crew lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, confounded though immortal: but his doom reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought both of lost happiness and lasting pain torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes that witnessed huge affliction and dismay mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate: at once as far as angels ken he views the dismal situation waste and wild, a dungeon of horrible. Many leaders of the Church do not preach about Hell anymore because the Church has become a tax-free business and they do not want to hear about where they may go, nor do they want to scare their dirty money away from the Church. As a result of the loss of real churches who teach about Satan and demons, people are all wild and out of control and no longer fear anything and go around sinning like rain in Seattle. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
On a hot and dry Friday the 13th of June 1890, Mrs. Winchester drifted into an uneasy sleep, but not for long. Half an hour later she was wide awake again. Something was wrong; a change was coming over the bedroom. There was a sense of dread. Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, were peace and rest could not dwell entered. Her home started to feel like a place where hope could not come, and all that did come was torture without end. She sat up, fully alert, straining her ears for the slightest untoward sound, but all was silent except for the little trusted noises the home made during the evening. However, Mrs. Winchester noticed something odd: an unnatural coldness was stealing over the room. It had been a hot summer day. How could it be so cold? She shivered and ducked back under the covers, tugging them more snugly about her. It did not help; the cold kept increasing. She pulled the covers over her head, chiding herself for being silly and willing herself into sleep. However, the terrible dread kept gnawing at her. She tried to think pleasant thoughts, tried to ignore her thudding heart, and tried to pray. Her attempts brought little comfort; the fear continued to build. She sensed that something frightful was about to happen. She held her breath and waited, not knowing what to expect. Before too long, she heard a sound: the unmistakable creak of the doorknob. The spring bolt was sliding back with tiny clicks. Mrs. Winchester froze. Very slowly, the door began to open. Her fear quickened further as she heard the tread of heavy, booted feet approaching the bed. She wanted to call out for help, but was too afraid, as if some force was willing her to silence. Mrs. Winchester was helpless in the face of that power. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
When she tried to pray, a demon started to speak. “The force of hose dire arms has caused me to fall to a place with floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire. Fierce contention brought along innumerable force of Spirits armed with durst in a dubious battle of unconquerable will, revenge, immortal hate.” Mrs. Winchester was dying and she knew it. This demon had come to claim her soul. She was making gaps, with long spaces between. A perspective of stern and cruel memories stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness. Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with the present. Mrs. Winchester lit a candle. A little animal stood before her, forbidding, almost menacing: there was anger in his large brown eyes. He came no nearer. As she advanced, he gradually fell back, and she noticed another dog, a vague, rough, brindled thing. At the same moment a third dog, a long-haired white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and joined the others. All three stood looking at Mrs. Winchester with grave eyes; but not a sound came from them. Zip, had seemed to be observing them with a deeper intentness. Mrs. Winchester endured many long years of the company of many different creatures. They would return again and again. As she was in her morning room, the coldness came back. Her mind was alert but her body seemed paralyzed. The entity seemed to have the power to immobilize her from a distance. She heard the dull footfalls crossing her mahogany floors. There was an evil lurking in her home. Something started pounding on the table. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
The pounding was so fierce that her cup of tea bounced off the table and fell to the floor. Then it stopped. Mrs. Winchester thought maybe she was having delusions. But whatever it was did not want her to drink the tea. More odd things began to happen—occurrences no one could explain. A malignancy pervaded. Often, people would hear a horrible, mocking, evil laugh. Lights would slicker for no reasons; water taps would turn themselves on, then off. She would find her silverware mysteriously rearranged. On several occasions she discovered her solid gold dinner service hidden in a corner of the room. One night, she had a roaring fire in the fireplace of her bedroom, went to the bathroom, and returned the fireplace totally clean with nothing it in burning. The servants began to complain of hearing mice in the night, but Mrs. Winchester was certain there were no mice in the house. On several occasions, one could very clearly hear the floorboards creaking upstairs, as though somebody was walking about the house. The servants heard the creaking too but, as is often the case with servants, they got used to it, and to the other noises and unexplained presences. Mrs. Winchester urged them no to speak of those things outside of the house. It was bd enough that she was subjected to the disturbances and torment; the last thing she wanted was to attract undue attention to her home. People do not, as a rule, react compassionately to reports of supernatural infestations; many tend to suspect that the victim has somehow, whether by word or deed, “brought it on herself.” #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
At times, Mrs. Winchester felt that the entity was trying to crush the life out of her. She left her light burning all night. Through time, Mrs. Winchester was forced to accept her suffering. There was nothing else she could do. One winter night, one of the butlers was found dead at the head of a narrow flight of stairs leading down from his room. It was Mrs. Winchester who found him and gave the alarm, so distracted with fear and horror—for his blood was all over her—that at first roused household could not make out what she was saying, and thought she was waking from a nightmare. However, there, sure enough, at the top of the stairs lay the butler, stone dead, and head foremost, the blood from his wounds dripping down the steps below him. He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about the face and throat, as if with curious pointed weapons; and one of his legs had a deep tear in it which had cut an artery, and probably caused his death. Bu how did he come there, and who had murdered him? Mrs. Winchester declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and hearing his cry had rushed out to find him lying on the stairs; but this was immediately questioned. A shadow was rearing up from the body. Mrs. Winchester described it as “a blob, like smoking black cloud, not the shape of a person—just a thing, but a terrible thing. The absolute evil that came from it was overwhelming. I was so gripped with terror, I could not move, and I knew that if it came toward me, I would be swallowed up…destroyed, and that would be the end of me. Imagine what it feels like to know that you are going to be killed, and the specter that is torturing you is deliberately making you suffer beforehand. That is how it was. I felt a level of fear that is beyond words. Then I heard a voice and screamed.” #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
The male voice was hoarse, stertorous, angry almost. “You have left us this our spirit and strength entire strongly to suffer our pains that we my so suffice his vengeful ire, or do him mightier services as his thralls by right of war, whatever his business be here in the heart of hell to work in fire, or do his errands in the gloomy deep; what can it then avail though yet we feel strength undiminished, or eternal being to undergo eternal punishment?” Mrs. Winchester instantly went to sleep—chilling testimony to the control the demon had over her. When she awoke, she was clean, in her sleeping gown, and in her bed. However, it was with the possibility, and the hope, that the end of her long ordeal might well be in sight. Little of the fast-fading sunlight entered the house through the windows, many of which were partly or entirely covered with drapes. However, it was bright enough for Mrs. Winchester to see that the French Provincial sofa’s upholstery was slashed. Shredded wool spilled onto the floor. A solid oak bookcase had been hammered to pieces against the wall, gouging holes in the lath and plaster walls, running the Lincrusta-Walton Wallcovering. Her silver tea service has been smashed, along with a floor lamp. Books had been taken off the shelves, torn apart, and scattered across the living room. Mrs. Winchester lit a candle. It did not shed much light, just enough to reveal more details of the rubble. Looks like somebody went through here with a wrecking ball and scissors, she thought. The house remained silent. Leaving the door open behind her, she took a couple of steps into the room, and the crumpled pages of the ruined books crunched crispy underfoot. She noticed the dark, rusty stains on some of the paper and on the bone-white foam wool stuffing, and suddenly she stopped, realizing the stains were blood. A moment later, Mrs. Winchester spotted the corpse. It was that of a big man, lying on his side on the floor near the sofa, half-covered by gore-smeared book pages, book boards, and dust jackets. Zip’s growling grew louder, meaner. Moving closer to the body, which was just a few feet from the dining-room archway. Mrs. Winchester remembered that John Hansen had lately been making repairs, including a leak faucet and a broken door lock. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
However, Mrs. Winchester thought because of the way the room looked, he had been killed weeks ago. Her house was so big that it would often take weeks, months, and sometimes years to get around it. Yet, on closer inspection, the corpse proved to be neither bloated with the gas of decomposition nor marked by any signs of decay, so it could not have been there for very long. Perhaps only a day or less. The body had been disemboweled. Zip’s low growling gave wat to ugly snarling punctuated with hard, sharp barks. With a nervous twitch and a sudden pounding of her heart, Mrs. Winchester turned from the corpse and saw that zip was facing into the nearby dining room. The shadows were deep in there because the drapes were drawn shut over all the windows, and only a thin gray light passed through from the kitchen beyond. “Go, get out, leave!” an evil voice told her. It was certainly not the voice of Mr. Hansen. Something in the dining room was moving. There was no doubt of its presence, because it rushed out onto the dining-room tables, and came straight at Mrs. Winchester, emitting a blood-freeze shriek. She saw lantern eyes in the gloom, and nearly a man-sized figure that—in spite of poor light—gave an impression of deformity. Then the demon was coming off the table, straight at her. I Do conjure thee, O Spirit Focalor and your legion of thirty spirits to manifest your spiritual weapon in this corporeal World through my will and might! Empower it so that it may serve me here upon the corporeal plane! May it serve as a key to the realms above and below unlocking power and wisdom for my glory and ascent! Fill this weapon with your powers of wrath and fury that it may seek out spiritual attacks made toward me rendering them useless and impotent! I DO conjure thee Spirit Vephar, pierce the Heavens and cause the seas to be right stormy to cleanse the Earth of sin. Spirit Vizaresh, I DO conjure thee to drag sinful souls into hell, noosing them with the power of their own sins. May the snare be the power of their own evil, words, thoughts, and deeds and let this be you will to drag unwilling souls into Hell. May this cord gain its power through one’s practical application of evil principles. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Winchester Mystery House
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Mrs. Winchester never recovered from the 1906 earthquake. Staff said she grew weaker and weaker as the years went by, and that she was often heard talking to her dead husband. The house was already large, but it morphed to be as long as several city blocks and was taller than the tallest trees on the green lawn. I suppose, ultimately, it was the spirits who kept her in this estate by not allowing her to build another one of this magnitude. When Mrs. Winchester passed away in 1922, she left $5,000,000.00 to charity. The mansion is truly special and a national treasure.
Through His Demon Ambassadors His Tactics May Capture Individuals
In the winter of 1864, twenty-four-year-old Sarah L. Winchester and her husband William Wirt Winchester were living in a mansion in New Haven, Connecticut USA. It was a small town and Mr. Winchester worked at Winchester Factory Castle, which was, believe or not, 3.2 million square feet. There were 1,200 employees employed in the castle. They produced rifles. To the town’s people, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester were the average affluent couple, outwardly no different from their friends or neighbors. However, outward appearances can be deceptive. Although she was part of a successful business, and married to the son of the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and manufacture of the famous Winchester repeating rifle, inside Mrs. Winchester carried the scars of being haunted. The couple’s life together was happy, and they moved in the best of New England society. However, in 1866, disaster struck when their infant daughter, Annie, died of the then mysterious childhood disease marasmus. Mrs. Winchester fell into a place of utmost suffering, horror, and excruciating terror, with no inkling of pity or mercy. Fifteen years later, in March of 1881, her husband’s premature death from tuberculosis added to Mrs. Winchester’s distress. She was living in a place of torment, evoking the quality of sinister wilderness. It was a dismal situation of waste and wild, as if Satan was surveying on the suite to which he had fallen. Life had become an infernal World of horror, a horrible dungeon burning like a huge furnace. Yet, from the burning flames came no light which was needed to make the darkness visible. Mrs. Winchester felt that she was damned and deprived of the sight of God who is light. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
It did not end here. Mrs. Winchester found herself having to flee her New Haven mansion frequently—often in the middle of the night–because her home had become a sorrowful place which had only doleful shades to droop down. At night, she would hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and when she went to inspect, she could see two balls of fire walking up the stairs. When investigated the following day, there were hoof marks scorched in the mahogany floors and stairs. It was a land of darkness. Mrs. Winchester decided to move to Santa Clara, California USA. This village presented sweeping vistas of rural open space. It was a serene setting for Mrs. Winchester to begin her building project, which she did with steadfast determination. She immediately hired carpenters to work in shifts around the clock to build a Grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion. However, there was one strange thing. There was never an architect employed, but Mrs. Winchester often had plans for the construction of her mansion that were truly out of this World and luxurious. By the turn of the century, the eighteen-room farmhouse has grown into a nine-story mansion. The estate eventually grew to around 740 acres of farmland, which included orchards of apricots, plums, and walnut trees to supplement Mrs. Winchester’s income. However, all was not well. Given the family background and the horrors they had endure from the beginning, one could assume that Mrs. Winchester’s day-to-day reality continued to be one of fear. She had been initiated into a World of evil—an evil that was to pursue her for the remainder of her life, and if she stopped construction of her home, that would immediately prove to be fatal for her. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
Mrs. Winchester was cursed and the demons gave her precise instructions on how to stay alive. Evil has the uncanny knack of seeking out the vulnerable. Given such circumstances, Mrs. Winchester stood little chance of ever leading a normal, well-adjusted life. She developed an eating disorder, and allegedly tried to kill herself twice and suffered prolonged periods of depression. She was caught in a recalcitrant World of darkness and danger. One night at the dinner table, the butler Gavin Dorchester, had not wished to leave without paying his respects to Mrs. Winchester. However, when he approached Mrs. Winchester, she sat staring at him with a look of terror. He seemed to her like the indifferent emissary of some evil power. Mrs. Winchester then said, “has your wife decided to drop her lawsuit against my estate?” “Oh, yes,” he replied. “My lawyers knew we had not a leg to stand on. You see, she borrowed most of the money lost in the fruit orchard from you without your knowledge, and she was up a tree. That is why she shot herself with your model 1886 rifle with the sterling silver buttplate mount.” The horror was sweeping over Mrs. Winchester in great deafening waves. “She shot herself? She killed herself because of that?” “Well, she did not kill herself, exactly. She dragged on two months before she died.” Mr. Dorchester emitted the statement as unemotionally as a cotton gin plucking cotton from the fields. “You mean that she tried to kill herself, and failed? And tried again?” “Oh, she did not have to try again,” said Mr. Dorchester grimly. They sat opposite each other in silence, he swinging his eyeglasses thoughtfully about his finger, she, motionless, her arms stretched along her knees in an attitude of tension. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Mrs. Dorchester had been a housemaid who apparently mishandled hundred of thousands of Mrs. Winchester’s money, which caused crops to fail and several farmers to lose their jobs. “But if you knew all of this,” Mrs. Winchester began at length, hardly able to force her voice above a whisper, “how is it that when I wrote you at the time of your wife’s disappearance you said you did not understand the letter?” Mr. Dorchester received this without perceptible embarrassment: “Why, I did not understand it—strictly speaking. And it was not the time to talk about it, if I had. The Winchester business was settled when the suit was withdrawn. Nothing I could have told you would have helped you to find my wife.” Mrs. Winchester continued to scrutinize him. “Then why are you telling me now?” Still Mr. Dorchester did not hesitate. “Well, to begin with, I suppose you knew more than you appear to—I mean about the circumstances of my wife’s death. And then people are talking of it now; the whole matter has been raked up again. And I though if you did not know you ought to.” Mrs. Winchester remain silent, and he continued: “You see, it has only come out lately what a bad state your affairs were in because of my wife. She is a proud woman, and she fought on as long as she could, going out to work, and taking on sewing at home when she got too sick—something with the heart, I believe. But having to admit what she had done with your money was too much for her. She knew you would never forgive her.” Chocking back her tears. “Dead, dead, dead,” she whispered. “But she was alive yesterday and the day before and the day before that, and I was here, and I did nothing! Dead! Dead! Dead!” #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
And then the bizarre scene shifted, as if the tragedy of her rage were passing into another act. Mrs. Winchester saw herself beating with her fists on all the walls of wood and glass around her, beating with her fists until the blood ran from her bruised hands. She sat down on the chair at the kitchen corner, her body crumpling, hand up to shield her face, and she began to sob aloud in the labyrinth of a house she had built, the images passing through her mind. Finally she laid her head down on her folded arms, and she cried and cried, until she was choked and exhausted with it, and all she could do was whisper over and over: “I told you all if you ever needed anything to come to me. Never to still. Do you not understand this blood money is cursed? These objects in my home are cursed! If you steal them, you bring that curse into your family!” At last, she wiped her face with her napkin, and she went to the Hall of Fires to lay down. Her head hurt and all the World seemed empty to her and hostile and without the slightest promise of warmth or light. It would pass. It has to. She felt this misery on the day Mr. Winchester was buried. She had felt it before, standing in the hospital corridor as her new born baby girl Annie cried in pain. Yet it seemed impossible now that things could get better. And her thoughts continued, abysmal and miserable, sapping her spirit and her belief in herself. It must have been an hour that she lay there, the floors hot from the fire fireplaces in the room. Mrs. Winchester was ashamed and lonely. She was ashamed of being the victim of this anguish. Her heart hammering in her ears. She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting till she could trust her voice; then she said, “I bet she died in October, on the 22nd, when the crops failed and many of the farm hands went missing.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
“Oh, my God!” Mrs. Winchester said. “They will not know till afterward. They will not know till long, long afterward.” Mrs. Winchester thought of the torments which her employees who stole would have to endure in contrast to the bliss and joy of being honest workers; she knew her mansion must have infused a feeling of horror in their minds, but they were paid well. This mansion can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven. Mrs. Winchester struggled to her feet—and surprised herself when she discovered that the act of getting up made her immediately feel better. A calm was enveloping her whole body. She was no longer afraid. Wind murmured and moan in the mansion’s eaves. Now and then the house creaked with ordinary middle-of-the-night settling noises. Exhausted from the emotional as well as the physical exertions of the day, Mrs. Winchester was soon asleep in her Daisy Bedroom. Near dawn, she came half awake and realized that Zip was at the bedroom window again, keeping watch. She murmured the dog’s name and wearily patted the wool mattress. However, Zip remained on guard, and Mrs. Winchester drifted off to sleep once more. A disturbance occurred awakening Mrs. Winchester. From directly overhead, she heard a series of thuds; it was as if someone was jumping from one part of the room to another. The thuds were loud, so heavy that the crystal chandelier trembled. Mrs. Winchester took Zip with her to investigate. However, Zip was having none of it; he would not venture up the stairs. He stood with his front paws on the bottom step, barking up at something unseen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
Mrs. Winchester’s blood ran cold. She walked up the stairs, flung open the door, and pushed the light button, but nothing happened. The bulb was blown. She glanced up at the bedroom window and saw what looked like a figure standing just beyond the open drapes. She could swear she saw the drapes move. That was enough for her, she immediately left the room, shut and locked the door. The next morning, the light in the bedroom where the noise was coming from was working perfectly. However, something rosed her. She had the distinct feeling that someone had just ran fingers through her hair. She could still feel her scalp tingling from the touch. It happened a second time. The fingers of a spectral hand pressed themselves deep into the nape of her neck and raked swiftly through her hair, right to the crown of her head. All she remembered when she came to was her uncontrollable screaming. These physical anomalies were not, in themselves, as troubling as Mrs. Winchester’s deteriorating relationship with her beloved Zip. He refused to go near her. This was very unusual. Mrs. Winchester and Zip had been inseparable. Now Zip was unwilling to share the same room with her. Mrs. Winchester looked around the room to see what could be the matter. At the foot of the bed was a woman. Possibly Mrs. Dorchester. She was wearing a green ballgown. Her hands were extended in a beckoning gesture and she had a grin on her face. The grin was not a mirthful one; it seemed utterly malevolent. Mrs. Winchester was terrified. Then she started howling with terror. At that, the ghost raised its hands to its throat and made a throttling gesture that had so frightened Mrs. Winchester. Then is slowly disappeared. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
Zip was whining, ears back, his tail between his legs. He seemed to be staring at the place where the apparition had been. The butler Mr. Dorchester was on duty this night, and he heard a great commotion and strange sounds coming from Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom. When he went to inspect, Mrs. Winchester was shaking. She seemed to be having some kind of fit. “Mrs. Winchester?” She did not respond. Gurgling noises grew louder. Mr. Dorchester could believe what he was seeing: it was the most macabre sight he had ever witnessed. Mrs. Winchester’s eyes were bulging; in the light from the fireplace he could see that her face was discolored. She was choking. Mr. Dorchester saw the cause. There, as clear as say, was a hand fastened about her throat. However, it did not belong to Mrs. Winchester. It was a pale, almost translucent hand, and it was trying to strangle the life out of Mrs. Winchester. The hand ended at the wrist in a frilled green cuff and wore a diamond ring on the ring finger. Mr. Dorchester was petrified. Mrs. Winchester’s face turned blue under the hand’s murderous grip and her eyes had rolled in her head. She was gasping for air. Mr. Dorchester seized the grisly hand. It was ice cold to the touch and immensely strong. Then someone with long fingernails dug into Mr. Dorchester’s shoulder. He struggled and struggled to free Mrs. Winchester. Finally he died. She collapsed onto the bear skin rug, gasping for air. As Zip lay by her side trying to comfort her, Mrs. Winchester had never felt closer to death than she had that night. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
In the hollow of her back, a single drop of sweat traced the course of Mrs. Winchester’s spine. She was more scared than she had ever been—or had ever thought she could be—but she did not want to leave her home for any reason. She stood in the bloody-orange late-evening sunlight, at the perimeter of the trees, peering into the purple shadows and mysterious green depths of her estates. The spruces and pines and sycamores rustled in the breeze, and she thought she heard something more moving furtively through the brush. Imagination, of course, she told herself. Squinting into the forest on her estate, Mrs. Winchester strained to see through steadily deepening shadows, trying to catch another glimpse of the movement that had drawn her attention a moment ago. There. A ripple in the murkiness beneath the evergreen boughs. About eighty feet from her bedroom window. Something was moving quickly and stealthily from one sheltering shadow to another. Them movement grew closers, much closer. Mrs. Winchester had been confused by the layers of shadows, she drew the drapes closed. However, she did not seem to realize that not confronting these things gives the Devil free rein to do as he chooses. It is easy to see how evil can be promulgated over generations, if the individuals concerned have neither the fortitude nor the resources necessary to put an end to it. Satan’s bid for our souls is predicted on the debasement of our humanness as early as possible in our childhood. The Winchester Mansion is believed to a portal by which supernatural forces can access this World. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
The superstitious were terrified of The Winchester Mansion and of the screams, the shrieks and the wailing that floating from the mansion after midnight, and crossed themselves every time they passed it. Oh, the town’s people gossiped about Mrs. Winchester. They claimed she had caused the manifestation of the demon Choronzon, the epitome of all disharmony and confusion, whom she conjured up in the form of a naked savage. Many also thought she was a German spy. Some even said that Annie did not die, but Black Magic caused her to disappear mysteriously. People also believed that Mrs. Winchester had the ability to invoke evil spirits and summon up supernatural darkness during daylight hours. They mystery of The Winchester Mansion and of secret societies has long been part of man’s total fascination with the occult and it would indeed be wrong to give the impression that all forms of magical and mystical endeavour and not real. There are many pursuits and secret organizations which are described as mystical or esoterical, embracing a wide variety of students and scholars seeking the knowledge of Western inner traditions. Then, more in tune with popular suspicions about secret societies, there are also occult groups whose object is clearly to influence the World order, by infiltrating the Church, politics, pressure groups and the business community. The great secrecy which surrounds the higher echelons of The Winchester Mystery House makes it virtually impossible to penetrate any senior mansion meeting, and indeed no person who has not been initiated into the meeting the secret society would be allowed to observe even the most simple of rituals. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
Because of this secrecy, which is seldom broken—even by a deserter—it is virtually impossible to identify those at the top, although there are many visible employees, much press, and television interviews and news articles. The members and agents of The Winchester Mystery House operate in the upper echelons of the World establishment circles. This is not of a sensational or World-threatening order, far from it; but it exists, has a voice among powerful bodies in international politics and is strong enough. It aims have been varied and covert, ranging from utopian dreams of fully restoring and furnishing the estate, to addressing the historical importance and destiny of authentic Victorian homes, those that have been untouched by time, and have most of their original splendour. The second level of the secret society is pure, occult, based on the old traditions, with meetings of the like-minded individuals who are moved by the romanticism of gathering for purpose of divine illumination and reaching out for contact with non-human entities, either in their spiritual or physical manifestation. The idea of these groups of men and women meeting secretly for mystical or occult pursuits, adorning themselves in their expensive robes and calling themselves by obscure titles lend itself to colourful theories about what they actually do before their secret altars. Fuelled by images from the media, it is easy to conjure up the view that all that is secret must be evil. This is not the case, yet activities of these occult groups are fascinating. He basis for much of the ritual secrecy and traditions of occult societies invariably leads us back to the famous Order of the Knight Templar, formed in 1119 for the purpose of protecting pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land and which subsequently became noted for its military prowess against the Saracens and the immense wealth of those who joined. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, provided them with headquarters in his palace, which was said to be part of the Temple of Solomon. It has been most notably the belief in the train of the goddess Diana and the host of the dead as of great interest to scholars. Welcome Spirit Marax, O most noble king! I say thou art welcome unto me, because I have called thee through Him who has created Heaven, and Earth and Hell, and all that is in them contained, and because also thou hast obeyed. By that same power by which I have called thee forth, I bond three, that thou remain affably and visibly here before this Circle so constant and so long as I shall have occasion for thy presence; and not to depart without my license until thou hast dully and faithfully performed my will without any falsity. BY THE PENTACLE OF SOLOMON HAVE I CALLED THEE! GIVE UNTO ME A TRUE ANSWER. Ahriman, Lord of Darkness divine, I thank you for your presence within this unholy temple of counter creation. I have offered you this life of this beautiful mansion as a gateway to your manifestation with this realm to stand before me! You are Angra Mainyu ho is the Lord of counter creation, who has brought forth the mountains to the plains! You have brought forth the beasts to the fields and creatures to the night. Ahriman and Marax, with your infernal blessings I asked that you both would bring forth the baneful powers of the wolf kin to fuel with atmosphere with their essence that it may be compelled according to my will. Allow of to hear the howling of wolves and perceive their phantom shadows around us. Feed the spirits and make them hunger more to walk among the living and subject them more to my will. Open a gateway to the predatory powers of the wolf and a gateway to initiation by these lupine demons. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Standing proud and majestic on a limestone outcrop and commanding panoramic views out over the surrounding countryside, The Winchester Mystery House is regarded as the finest of the many Castles built. This impressive and historically important property has evolved over the centuries to incorporate the splendour of its medieval heritage and the elegance of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th Century. The Gardens are a delight, with fine stands of trees, wild meadow flowers and stone steps lead up to the Castle Entrance. Come hang around and enjoy a tour.
Have you purchased your tickets for Friday the 13th yet?! 👀🔦 The Winchester Mystery House is offering Friday the 13th Self-Guided Flashlight Tours. These self-guided tours give guests the opportunity to roam through the halls of the purportedly haunted Victorian mansion while hearing tales of its former and (possibly current!) inhabitants. Guests will guide themselves through the mansion that is famous for its dizzying floorplan and lack of formal blueprints. Tour Hosts will be stationed throughout the house to ensure guests don’t get lost. TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
160-room Victorian mansion which was once the residence of Sarah L. Winchester👻
~Celebrating 100 Years of Tours in 2023~
Preparing to Call Out a Demon
Occultists draw on the past. Everything they do has some historical, sometimes religious, bond. Rumours, myths and superstitions surround almost every aspect of the secret societies of men and women who gather suspiciously—because of the secrecy—and perform their dark and dramatic rituals, formulated from old grimoires handed down and rewritten through the ages. Personalities, too, figure predominantly. However, there are very few forms of modern occultism that do not, at some time or other, rely upon the legacy of Aleister Crowley, the self-styled Great Beast 666. At the pinnacle of his career was renowned for a wild mix of magic, and today is revered by millions the World over who are rereading the legends of this man many believed to be another Shakespeare. Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester is also a mysterious historical figure who practiced the occult. The mansion she built, called the Winchester Mansion is classic Victorian architecture and unparalleled gardens that are so incredibly photogenic that the home has become one of the World’s most intriguing and mysterious places to see ghost. Mrs. Winchester’s resources were unlimited, and she spent enormous sums building the most incredible mansion. However, the Winchester fortune was cursed. It was in the thick December dusk, in the Hall of Fires, Mrs. Winchester had endured thirteen years in the soul-deadening mourning of her husband and her daughter. When servants would catch her off guard, she would still express a sadness. Her life had probably not been of the most vivid order: for a long period, but these country plains of existence sometimes breed, in their sluggish depths, strange acuities of emotion, and Mrs. Winchester had felt from the first day the mysterious stir of intenser memories. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The feeling had never been stronger than on this particular afternoon when, waiting in the library for the lamps to come, she rose from her seat and stood among the shadows of the hearth. Edith Bernard, a one-beautiful young woman was found dead, lying helplessly on the floor. A single bullet lay buried deep in her head. “Spare me, ye gods!” Mrs. Winchester cried. Four servants quickly rushed in the room to comfort Mrs. Winchesters. As two of the servants stood breast to breast, another bullet pierced them both. They uttered a cry together, together cast a parting look around them, and together breathed their last. Adora, another maid, seeing them fall, hastened to the spot to render assistance and fell stricken in the act of loving duty. Only one servant and Mrs. Winchester was left. Another gunshot was heard and it struck Valda, but no shooter was seen. Mrs. Winchester knelt over the lifeless bodies, and kissed, now one, now another of her dead servants. Raising her pallid arms to Heaven, “Spirits,” said she, “feed full your rage with my anguish! Satiate your hard heart, while I follow the grave of my four servants. Yet where is your triumph? Bereaved as I am, I am still richer than you, my conqueror.” Two others servants rushed into the library to assist Mrs. Winchester. One of them held her is her arms. The other was tending to the dead bodies. Scarce had Mrs. Winchester spoken, when the gun shot sounded and struck terror into all hearts. The servant mourning over the biers of their dead coworkers fell struck by a bullet, and died on the corpse she was bewailing. The maid attempting to console Mrs. Winchester, suddenly ceased to speak, and sank lifeless to the Earth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Six were now dead, and only Mrs. Winchester remained. “Spare me!” she begged. There was a torpid grief. The breeze moved not her hair, no color was on her cheek, her eyes glared fixed and immovable, there was no sign of life about her. Her very tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and her veins ceased to convey the tide of life. Her neck bent not, her arms made no gesture, her foot no step. She was changed to stone, within and without. Yet tears continued to flow. When other staff members stumbled upon the tragedy, “Could it be the house?” the Butler asked. The mansion itself was fully of secrets. They seemed to be piling themselves up, as evening fell, like the layers and layers of velvet shadow dropping from the low ceiling, the rows of books, the smoke-blurred sculpture of the hearth. “Why, of course—the house is haunted!” he reflected. The ghosts of those killed by the Winchester rifle. Mrs. Winchester has now become a permanent tenant of her haunted mansion. One of the elusive specters had apparently had the powers to crystallize about it. Immediately following the strange deaths and Mrs. Winchesters crystallization, mystery, scandal and rumor swirled around the tragedy. Mrs. Winchester had been the envy of her friends, now the pity of even her foes. She stood crystalized in her mansion for many months. A new sense of meaning—a sense gradually acquired through daily contact with her in the form created a scene of the lurking mystery. It was the house itself, of course, that posses the ghost-seeking faculty, that communed visually but secretly with its own past; if one could only get close enough communion with the house, one might surprise its secret, and acquire the ghost sight on one’s own. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
More and more under the spell of the crystallization of Mrs. Winchester, calling out to the remote corners of the house, servants found treasure after treasure, it revealed itself to them. When passing from the first rapturous flurry of exploration to a detailed inspection of the old house, the butler pressed a panel that opened on a flight of corkscrew stairs leading to the nine-story tower. The view was enchanting. His gaze flew to the long tossed horizon line of the downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the yew of hedges about the fish pond, and the shadow of cedar and palm trees on the lawn. Distinctly he recalled that he had seen, as he glanced, a shadow of anxiety, of perplexity, rather, fall across his face; and, following his eyes, had beheld the figure of a man—a man in loose black clothes, as it appear to him—who was sauntering down the lime avenue to the court with the doubtful gait of a stranger who seeks his way. “Wait!” he hastily shouted and ran down the stairs. But the man was gone. Suddenly, Mrs. Winchester let out a terrible cry…but could it be her? She had been in statue form for years. The old butler Augusts had some questions as to the connection of evil spirits with systems of idolatry and witchcraft. He was almost willing to swear that his eyes were playing tricks on him; for seeing Mrs. Winchester come back to life went beyond all human discernment. Of course, the young lady was stiff and needed help moving around. The Hall of Fires seemed to warm her blood and make moving easier. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against spiritual wickedness in high places. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Weary with her thoughts, Mrs. Winchester moved to the window. The Hall of Fires was quite dark now, and she was surprised to see how much faint light the outer World still held. As she peered out into it across the court, a figure shaped itself far down the perspective of bare limes: it looked like a mere blot of dark blackness in the grayness, and for an instant, as it moved toward her; her heart thumped to the thoughts “It’s a ghost!” She had time, in that long instant, to see the man gaining substance and character, showed itself even to her weak sight as her husband William Winchester; she turned to meet him, and he vanished into thin air. Mrs. Winchester’s spirit sunk. At once the air of the hall rand with a long, frightful chain of woeful howls. Above the bestial clamour, Mrs. Winchester could hear a spirit shouting, “I adjure thee, great Marchosias, the agent of the Emperor Lucifer and of his beloved son Lucifuge Rofocale by the power of the pact…” The noise rose higher and a green stream began to come off the brazier. However, there was silence. Again the spirit shouted, “I adjure thee, Marchosias, by the pact and by the names, appear instanter.” The room screamed…but still there was no apparition. Instantly the mansion rocked as though the Earth moved under it. The building shuddered again…then from the middle of the room, a low cloud of yellow fumes went up towards the ceiling, making Mrs. Winchester cough. As it spread and thinned she could see the shape forming under it…it was something like a she-wolf, grey and immense, with green glistening eyes. A wave of coldness was coming from it…the cloud continued to dissipate. The she-wolf glared at them, slowly spreading her griffin’s wings. Her serpent’s tail lashed gently, scalily. The existence and manifestation of demons and devils in the Winchester Mansion has been accepted without question. The thing that dominated the mansion was a group of spirits known as “Legion,” or “The Legion of Lucifer.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
There is magical art abundant in the mansion. This explains how it has become an abnormal plane of power to “charge” magical energy. It is thought that Mrs. Winchester used the powers of Osiris and was able to reconstitute her body to return to life. This is a fundamental of the higher form of necromancy. When the mansion was sold and items auctioned off, the walls were found to be covered with magical symbols and paintings. Also found were solid gold talismans and amulets. The mansion itself was protected by spells and curses. The Winchester Mansion is a receptacle for all the mystical and magical beliefs of the East and the West. The farmers on the Winchester Estate followed the long-established practice of cutting a girdle of bark off the trees, and then setting them on fire or leaving them to die in place while planting crops around the decaying hulks. Immense trees were stripped of their foliage, and half consumed by fire extending their sprawling limbs, many were bleached by weather. By this method the farmers on the estate could clear from 3 to 5 acres a year for cultivation. The relentless demand for wood generated by the construction of the mansion and for other Victorian houses on the estate and barns, fences and fuel, potash and turpentine—added to the demand. Native Americas, in return for furs that they had in abundance, secured goods such as blankets, guns, ironware that they highly valued from Mrs. Winchester’s estate. It was even rumored that Mrs. Winchester owned the Philosopher’s Stone which was believed to turn anything it touched into gold, cure all ills and kept its owner perpetually youthful. It was supposedly given to her as a gift. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
As the years pass by, many people who practice magic descend more deeply into the darker realm of magic, summoning demons and spirits almost at will. Some magicians become obsessed by their craft, their quest for knowledge and power and it can drag them into the black abyss. A fascinating story about the darker realm of the Winchester Mansion is one about Leonore. Leonore was lodging at the Winchester Mansion, she persuaded Augusta, the butler, to unlock the door to the Blue Séance Room. Leonore went inside and stood reading aloud from a book of spells that lay on the table; suddenly a demon appeared and demanded to know why he had been summoned. Leonore was so shocked that she could not answer and the demon grabbed her by the throat and strangled her. Mrs. Winchester returned to find Leonore lying dead on the floor of her Blue Séance Room, and realizing this could mean trouble, she summoned the demon to return and bring Leonore back to life long enough for her to be removed. This was done, and Leonore walked out of Mrs. Winchester’s Mansion into the marketplace where she immediately collapsed and died. As word of Mrs. Winchester’s success, great wealth, and powers spread, so did the story that she had made a pact with the devil, written as usual in her own blood, in return for magical powers. Once the magical power of the menses has been blessed by the Dark Goddess it has been consecrated as a direct conduit of the powers of destruction, death, and decay. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Angra Mainyu, come forth from the realms of eternal darkness. Angra Mainyu, I summon you to come forth and ignite this flesh as the very source of your power and might that it may emanate the ways of your Black Sun. May this body become the very fuel, the embers of this forbidden Blackened Fire that I may consume power to banish the limitation of creation and become the counter creator for the glory of Dragon Zohak! Empower me with this infernal blessing as a warrior of the Path of Smoke and Apostle of your teachings of liberation! Hear Mr:–Ieou: Pur: laot: Iaeo: Ioou: Abrasar: Sabriam: Do: Un: Adonaie: Ede: Edu: Angelos ton Theon: Aniaia Lai: Gaia: Ape: Diathanna Thorun. I am He! The Bornless Spirit! Having sight in the feet: Strong and the Immortal Fire! I am He! The Truth! I am He! Who hate that evil should be Wrought in the World! I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth. I am He, from Whom is the Shower of the life of Earth: I am He, Whose mouth ever flameth: I am He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light: I am He; the Grace of the World: “The Heart Gith with a Serpent” is My Name! Come Thou forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto me! Iao: Sabao: Such are the Words! Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and most Divine Knowledge of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of things; so that true Agents being applied proper Patients, strange and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence magicians are profound and diligent searchers into Nature; they, because of their skill, know how to anticipate an effort, the which to the vulgar shall seem to be a miracle. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Winchester Mystery House
This Friday. Tune in on Friday, December 23rd 6pm pst/9pm est to watch the Destination Fear crew investigate The Winchester Mystery House on Travel Channel! The episode will be available for streaming on Discovery+ same day👻 Can’t wait!
@travelchannel @discoveryplus #DestinationFear #winchestermysteryhouse
Angels Which Kept Not Their First Estate
I hope by now that you agree with me that the tiresomeness of an over-peopled Heaven is a purely subjective and illusory notion, a sign of human incapacity, a remnant of the old narrow-hearted aristocratic creed. William Winchester loved boats and had thirteen-metres and even raced one in the America’s Cup trials once. He had a big yacht that he kept down in New Haven, Connecticut, even though he lived in Switzerland most of the time. My grandfather, Oliver Winchester, put a rear wing on the house he bought for William as a wedding gift, with a new kitchen and flower room my grandmother wanted when she married him. This house preceded the Winchester Mansion. And it was where my father, William Winchester, had an office. There had been a couple of times when I would have to take papers down to him. That office was bigger than most people’s living rooms. It had a fireplace and a window looking out on the West River, which flows into New Haven Harbor. Oliver Winchester was the Lieutenant governor of Connecticut. Not only was he founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, but he was on the board of directors of four charities, including the Winchester Foundation, which gave money for research into Tuberculosis and heart disease; he was on the board of New Haven Savings Bank, which the Winchesters pretty much owned; he was on the boards of a couple of other big companies. Running a rich family was like running a business. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
In fact, if you look at the Winchester Family treat, it is more of a “business family tree.” I guess money has always been the life source of the Winchester family. My father, William Winchester, said the family motto was “We own it, lock, stock, and barrel.” This family had a lot of power, and when you have power, you use it. The Winchester’s did not go out brawling like drunken sailors. We had the courts, the law, the police—and the Winchester Rifle if we needed it. We made sure that things around here went the way we wanted them to go. However, we did not go about it by brawling. If you did us wrong, we stayed clam, we spoke politely to everybody. However, we moved quietly. Sooner or later we would catch you between a rock and a hard place and then you would feel the almighty bad. If we did not go after them, those guys would have thought we were chicken. My father always said, “Son, do not worry what John Jacob Astor thinks of you. In your position it does not matter. You are going to be very rich and very powerful. These people will never like you. They will envy you, they will defer to you, and some of them will even admire you. But they will never like you. For that you must understand, what others think does not matter.” The original Winchester mansion was a house of these times, all right, though not to be considered new. I figured it to be at least three hundred years old. It was built of the local stone, and had three stories and a high-pitched roof, with mullioned windows—and it was vast. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Often times, there was no one about. Only the bleak winter vines stripped of their jasmine, running on for miles, and distant corpse of an ancient tree of immense size, and the cold rain, a rain worse to me than snow, falling over as if it were falling on the entre World, a near silent rain that felt like needles on the backs of my hands and on my face. The mosaic tiles were beautiful, and possibly ancient, dating all the way back to the Roman times. I walked back and forth over the, and tapped several times with the toe of my boot. I walked to the double doors that opened into the garden, and there I saw a great pile of wood. And there was a big head on the rock, it was the devil’s face that a saint put there. If men believed nothing, they did not understand it, it is a short cradle they would have. I had been put in the mood for ghost, that evening after an excellent dinner at my father’s home. Seen through the haze of Abner Doubleday’s cigars, and by the drowsy gleam of a coal fire, my father’s library, with its oak walls and dark old bindings, made a good setting for such evocations; and ghostly experiences at first hand beings. An absurd thought came to me, that being here with Abner, it had all felt natural and good, as if in spite of the topic of our conversation we were simply human beings and all the dark World did not exist. I was ashamed of this. Why did we have to be “like human beings”? I asked myself. Why could we not simply be warlocks together? He looked at me, at my shining eyes, and his congenial smile, and he took my hand and said he wanted to see the house. We remained together for several hours after that, during which we walked through many rooms and he not only admired the endless book collection in the Gothic library, filled with classics bound in black cloth and daguerreotypes of faded celebrities, but also many of the paintings, including a few Russian painters of the nineteenth century he had never seen before. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
For me, this was a wonderful time. We could have continued our conversation for a year. We walked about outside the house, through the gardens which were crowded with trees for privacy and vines that blossomed at night. These carefully guarded hours had been devoted to the cultivation of a fine intelligence and a few judiciously chosen habits; and none of the disturbances common to the human experience seemed to have crossed the sky. Mentally I was able to exercise a hospitality less seductive but no less stimulating than a play. Abner’s mind was like a forum, or some open meeting place for the exchange of ideas: somewhat cold and drafty, but light, spacious and orderly—a kind of academic grove from which all the leaves had fallen. In this privileged area, we were able to stretch our muscles and expand our lungs; and, as id to prolong as much as possible the tradition of what we felt to be vanishing institution, Abner tasted the lyric qualities in youth. He nipped the flowers of soul which he gathered from this tour, which forced a young idea to blossom. The man was really intelligent, and the soundness of his nature was like the pure paste under a fine glaze. Abner had been fished out of the dullness by the spirits of the Winchester mansion. Just at the evening was drawing to an end, he demanded, “And now you have to tell me about your ghosts!” “My ghost? Do you suppose I am fool enough to the expense of keeping my own ghosts, where there are so many charming ones in my friends’ closets?” I said. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
The fact is that we found whole skeletons that were used in various forms of old black magic rituals. Undoubtedly, for many who pursue this darkest of experiments, necromancy is the touchstone of occultism, especially for warlocks. If, after careful preparation, they are able to carry through what they regard as a successful contact they have reached a certain pinnacle in black magic conjuration. It is fruitless discussing whether or not this feat is possible; belief by the practitioner is all that is needed for the ritual to proceed and some psychological or drug or spiritual trance may well convince the depts tht they have indeed succeeded. “Oh,” Abner said, “you would never be content to share if you met one you really liked. What is the use of denying it? You have seen everything, so of course you have seen a ghost! Or if you have not seen one, it is only because you have seen several!” “That is it,” I said. “I have seen a legion.” The words were so unexpected that they dropped down and down into a deep silence, while we continued to stare at each other. Abner learned forward with is listening smile. “You will wonder why I am enlarging on some of these incidents. It is because the evening on which this particular incident took place was the very evening on which I first saw the queer sights I have spoken of. Being at that time an ardent believer in a necessary sequence between cause and effect, I naturally tried to trace some kind of link between the lion and the lamb lying down together.” Ancient Druids lived on the estate and necromancy had a particular appeal to warlocks seeking confirmation, for example, of the mysteries of the afterlife but more often necromancy was pursued by the skilled masters of ritual magic. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
“We once wanted to raise a dead uncle,” I told Abner. “We went to the course of the giant tree, where we performed a ceremony. For a few moments, nothing happened. But moments later, there was a mysterious explosion. And afterwards, the road lay thick with cinders and debris. At first, my grandfather worried about the result. But he had a reassuring thought. Perhaps the explosion was caused by spontaneous combustion. ‘Oh my God…’ cried my father. ‘What happened?!’ he demanded. No one was sure. After that we walked back to the house in disbelief of the mess. Then I pointed and shouted out in horror. Before I could stop, my father fell to his knees before a hill of burned leaves and tree branches, under which he glimpsed a man’s head. It was his brother and he was looking for us. My grandfather put a hand to his mouth and stified the urge to vomit. My uncle’s eye sockets were empty, and his hair singed. ‘Brother, get up!’ he cried roughly. My father yanked his brother to his feet, frightened by the wide-eyed horror in his eyes and his awful nonstop screaming. He tried to pull out of his grasp, but he held my father tight until the screams subsided into sobs.” “Now listen,” my grandfather told my father. “You are a Winchester, so do not go making a liar out of me.” “But his brother’s tears burned my father’s skin.” “Your brother is dead,” said my grandfather. “We wondered if anything else came back to life. It was so eerily silent for this time of the morning. No cows mooing, no wood being chopped. No birds singing on the roof top. And the lawn was blackened.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
“As we went into the house, it was full of strangers, burned, bleeding, sick people. As we precariously waded through the maze of bodies, the wind must have carried in a fog. While my grandfather dug a mass grave for these animated bodies, my father and I dragged them out of the house to burry them. It took days, there were literally hundreds of them. My arms were shaking. We were all near exhaustion, and we still have several bodies to bury. We worked for an entire week to remove all these bleeding strangers from our home. I went up to bed with rather a heavy heart, for I was bowed under the weight of the first ritual I had ever consciously committed; and young as I was, I saw the gravity of my situation. The situation of being William Wirt Winchester Jr. Do not imagine for this that I had hitherto been an instrument of destruction I had been a harmless young man, who had followed his bent and declined all collaboration with Providence. Now I had suddenly undertaken to promote the moral order of the World, and I felt a good deal like the trustful spectator who has given his gold watch to the conjurer, and does not know in what shape he will get it back when the trick is over…Still, a glow of self-righteousness tempered my fears, and I said to myself as I undressed that when I had got use to being good it probably would not make me as nervous as it did at the start. And by the time I was in bed, and had blown out my candle, I felt that I really was getting used to it, and that, as far as I had got, it was not unlike sinking down into one of the softest wool mattresses.” #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
“My room had grown cold, and intensely still. I was waked by the queer feeling we all know—the feeling that there was something in the room that had not been there when I fell asleep. I sat up and strained my eyes into the darkness. The room was pitch black, and at first I saw nothing; but gradually a vague glimmer at the foot of the bed turned into two eyes starting back at me. The eyes gave out a light of their own. They were the very worst eyes I have ever seen: my dead uncle’s eyes. And the room slowly filled with hundreds of these eyes, orbs of light. My father paid immense sums to the architects and workmen to entomb the heart of the house in hopes of locking their spirits inside. This mean enclosing one of its four towers left standing and living in only a few habitable rooms while the work went on. The mansion went on to be inhabited by a secret order of men and women who met to discuss philosophy and music and escape the modern World, and the public would never be invited here due to the deep mourning of my mother over the loss of my grandfather, father, and baby sister. Indeed it was most anguishing. Some of these people had devoted their entire careers to this one project, and there was nothing now to be done but to give them, but gold coins. My mother left this mansion to Yale, I went to Rome, she went to California and it was later demolished. And there were egregious lies to be told about the Winchester name. Gorgeous salons with silken-paneled walls and plaster curlicues and Savonnerie carpets on the floor all destroyed. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
The modern marble bathrooms, replete with sunken tubs and spacious showers for every bedchamber. We wanted to make sure to give off no scent, absorb no precious oils, and did not want to take up the human scents. The great hall where my family and I had once dined, listened to the demands of the villagers and farmers, and hovered around the seventy-five fireplaces, twenty kitchens, four libraries, eighteen thousand windows, four towers, and three hundred and fifty rooms all gone like it never existed. At times, there may have been two thousand present in the ballroom. No one ever counted. This was the height of the Winchester fortune, my dear Abner. There were many departed here, though untouched by the rifle.” In its blackest form the art of necromancy has produced fairly evil recipes for success. Graveyards are indeed a common place, and it is possible our home had been constructed on a battle ground. This was a place where contact with the dead could be expressed, and was conducive to dark apparitions in suffocating rooms or beneath a mock swinging gibbet. The old grimoires are full of colourful descriptions, and since they were often written by clerical scholars when they took down the confessions of warlocks, one must be careful with the rite performed. One could magnify the spell. Even policemen were involved in occultism. As an example, the daughter of a police superintendent was initiated into the dark arts and the High Priest was another policeman. “Yes, I was the High Priest…I have been a white witch for eight years and I am not ashamed of what I do although some of my colleagues have reported me to the Witch Inspector General. I have helped to initiate at least seven witches and eight warlocks.” #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
There is much evidence in Scriptures that the spirits who appear at séances are rebel angels. Perhaps that is what we raised that night? Jude 6 speaks about “angels which kept not their first estate.” Many Christian Bible scholars interpret Ezekiel 28.17, “I will cast thee to the ground,” as indicating that the Earth is the realm of Satan’s powerful operations, with the help of his fallen colleagues, the demons. Satan is called the “god of this World,” in 2 Corinthians 4.4. And Christians are under attack by “rulers…powers…World forces of darkness” (Ephesians 6.12). God tell us that hell was “created for the devil and his angels (demons)” (Matthew 25.41). I, Randolph Harris, cite and conjure thee, Spirit of Schemhamforasch, by all the seventy-two holy names of God, that Thou appear before me and fulfil my desire, as truly in and through the name Emanuel, which thee three youths Sadrach, Mijach, and A hero sung in the fiery furnace from which they are released. I do conure thee, O thou Spirits William Wirt Winchester and Oliver Fischer Winchester, by all the most glorious and efficacious names of the MOST GREAT AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE LORD GOD OF HOSTS, that thou please comest quickly and without delay from all parts and places of the Earth and World wherever thou mayest be, to make rational answers unto my demands, and that visibly and affably, speaking with a voice intelligible unto mine understanding as aforesaid. I conjure and constrain thee, O thou Spirits William Wirt Winchester and Oliver Fischer Winchester, by all the names aforesaid; and in addition by these seven great names wherewith Solomon the Wise bound thee and thy companions in a Vessel of Brass, Adonai, Preyai or Prerai, Tetragrammaton, Anaphaxeton or Anepheneton, Inessenfatol or Inessenfatall, Pathtumon or Pathatumon, and Itemon; that thou appearest here before this Circle to fulfil my will in all things that seem good unto me. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
And if thou be still so disobedient, and refuest still to come, I will in the power and by the power of the name of the SUPREME AND EVERLASTING LONG GOD WHO created both thee and me and all the World in six days, and what is contained therein, Eie, Saraye and by the power of this name Primeumation which commandeth the whole host of Heaven, bless three, and grant thee of thine office, joy, and place, and bind thee in the depths of Heaven or the eternal to remain unto the Day of the Last Judgment. And I will bind thee in the Eternal Light, and into the Sky of Light and Harmony, therefore see my good wishes for you and please comest quickly and appearest here before this Circle to do my will. Therefore, come thou! In and by the holy names Adonai, Zabaoth, Adonia, Amioran, Come thou! For it is Adonai who commandest thee. If THOU hast come thus far, and yet he appeareth not, thou mayest be sure that he is sent unto some other place by this King, and may return any time; and if it be so, invocate the King as here followeth, to send him. However, if he does not come still, then thou mayest be sure that he is bound in the Heavens, and that he is found in the custody of his King. If so, and thou still hast a desire to call him even from thence, thou must rehearse the general curse which is called the Spirits’ Chain. O THOU great, powerful, and mighty KING AMAIMON, who bearest rule by the power of the SUPREME GOD EL over all spirits both superior and inferior of the Infernal Orders in the Dominion of the East; I do invocate and command thee by the especial and true name of GOD; and by that GOD that THOU Worshippest; and by the Seal of they creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATION who cast thee out of Heaven withal other infernal spirits. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
And by all the most powerful and great names of GOD who created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all things in them contained; and by their power and virtue; and by the name PRIMEUMATON who commandeth the whole host of Heaven; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirits of William Wirt Winchester and Oliver Winchester to come unto me here before this Circle in fair and comely shapes, without hard unto me or unto any other creature, to answer truly and faithfully unto all my requests; so that I may accomplish my will and desire in knowing and obtaining any matter or thing which by office thou knowest is proper for him to perform or accomplish, through the power of GOD, EL, Who created and doth dispose of all things both celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal. I conjure you William Wirt Winchester and Oliver Fischer Winchester, by the Spirits Chain to appear in the Winchester Mansion, and if you two are bound in chains, by the Emancipation Proclamation, you have permission to break off from them and be at liberty. As this smoke ascends I ascend also by following the path of smoke and usurping power of worship to empower by blackened eternal soul. I take all the power raised within this sanctuary as my own through this talisman of counter creation to strengthen my divine power and to Become a Living God. Harness power through the cedar tree of life, disinfectant, expectorant, treatment of tuberculosis. Spirits of the Winchester Mansion, here me—Roubriao: Mariodam: Balbnabaoth: Assalonai: Aphniao: I: Thoteth: Abrasar: Aeoou: Ischure, Might and Bornless One! Legions of Spirits in the Winchester mansion, here me and arise. I invoke thee. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three headed Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower my great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magik which break the shackles that bind the Blackened Fire of Spirit, may you be uplifted and liberated! Awaken and empower the forbidden rites of Angra Mainyu! Awaken to empower my great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the Path of Smoke! Through the gateway of blood, smoke, and Blackened Fire receive life from the deepest depths of Arezura, in the name of Zohak, and by the power of Angra mainyu it is done! Hear Me:–Ieou: Pur: Iou: Iaot: Iaeo: Ioou: Abrasar: Sabriam: Do: Uu: Adonaie: Ede: Edu: Angelos ton Theon: Aniaia Lai: Gaia: Ape: Diathanna Thrown. I am He! the Bornless Spirit! having sight in the feet: Strong, and the Immortal Fire! I am He! the Truth! I am He! Who hate that evil should be wrought in the World! I am He, that lighteneth and thundereth. I am He, from Whom is the Shower of the Life of Earth: I am He, Whose mouth ever flameth: I am He, the begetter and Manifester unto the Light: I am He; the Grace of the World: “The Heart of Girt with a Serpent” is My Name! Come Thou forth, and follow Me: and make all Spirits subject unto Me so that every Spirit of the Firmament, and of the Ether: upon the Earth and under the Earth: on dry Land, or in the Water: of whirling Air or of rushing Fire: and every Spell and Scourge of God, may be obedient unto me! Iao: Saboo: Such are the Words! This is the special secret of this Seal. This is also the special secret of this Throne. Carrying this Seal with you will cause you to be very agreeable and much beloved, and will also defeat your enemies. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
The castle is the ancestral seat of the former royal German dynasty known as the House of Winchester. The beautiful, Neo-Gothic/Victorian castle, now known as the Winchester Mystery House, sees hundreds of thousands of tourists a year. It once contained a sizeable art collection, a treasure trove of jewels that were stolen from the safe, along with a conjurer’s heart. But despite its magnificent features and Medieval history, the Winchester Mystery House has not been formally lived in for centuries.
As political power shifted, and taxes became law in 1909, the spirits decided they would discontinue construction, and shortly after called Mrs. Winchester home. The architecture of the Winchester Mansion and its gardens are the main attractions, and some come for the food, and/or to purchase items from the gift shop. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Randolph Harris II International Institute 