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Old Magic, Luminous Legend
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief to the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps within its pearly house. The halls of Llanada Villa are said to draw people closer to death, while fear gripped them in a sovereign vision of the unexplained. A symphony of malice, a ballet of madness echoes through the walls. Solid mahogany doors straining to contain the ghastly images, the torture, and the demons. Stepping into the stairwell of the Observational Tower, some are caught in a whirlwind of cries, and secret activities. Unusual blood stains sometime appear on the wall and seep up through the oaken floors. Thousands, if not millions, of lost souls lie trapped within this mansion. It would take more than a century to understand this assaulted vision of reality. I found what I never would have imagined during construction of my home. Proportions and values upside-down; the exquisite things I expected, the delightful things of my faraway youth, but when I had too promptly waked, there was a sense of uncanny phenomena, happening under the charm of this intelligent labyrinth. There were so many traps for displeasure for the restless tread of the undead constantly pressing floors. It was interesting, doubtless, the whole show, but it would have been too disconcerting had not a certain finer truth saved the situation. “Boom—boom—boom!” like a million thunderstorms occurring at the same time, would make the Heavens rock. A sudden glare of light would appear all about us, and in that very instant, as far as anyone could see legions of angels would appear singing—the whirring thunder of the wins made a body’s head ache. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
One could follow the line of the procession, slanting upward into the glittering sky until it was only a faint streak in the distance. There were gorgeous mansions standing side by side in the place of honour, and thirteen noble thrones of gold, all embedded with jewels, and the most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter-halos and beautiful amour. All of my servants went down to their knees, and looked glad. Yes, there were also times of great beauty and enjoy within the enchanted walls of The Winchester Mansion. Everybody was saying, “Did you see them?” Renovation, this estate at a high advance, had proved beautifully possible. I scarce knew what to what to make of this lively stir, other than gathering a sense for construction. The vision was the charm in the vast wilderness, breaking through the mere gross generalization of wealth and force and success to fabricate the most beautiful home in the West. The housemaids dusted off the antiques, trimmed the lamps, and polished the silver. The spirits had given me a grand vision of mystifying grace. As a pressed flower, I gave Mr. Hansen the blueprints for the new additions, overlaid with the freedom of a wanderer, shrouded by pleasure, by passages of life that were strange and dim to him, but unobscured, still exposed and cherished, which his experience could handle. He never neglected his real gift as an architect, and as towers and gables in my home rose and expanded, I truly discovered his genius. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The memory of death had visited me. The of the deaths of my husband and infant daughter. I wanted to counterbalance that wretchedness of death with the vibrant life of a living memorial. This estate was a discovery of what life had stolen, likely to give future generations true insight into the mind and motivations of this enigmatic World. That and the hankering for magic which seemed to have seduced so many. The thought filled me with an excitement and anticipation, which made me realise afresh that this whole obsession was going far beyond what it had originally set out to be. Obsession? Surely it was not quite that, was it? At five o’clock sharp, in the splendid autumn weather, a flood of light illuminated the graceful roofed arches, that had been built in the Gothic Queen Anne Victorian style. Above the arches rose walls of shimmering green wood, its ornament visible in the reflected light. With its richly decorated loggias, niches, colonnades, balustrades, belvederes, and magnificent tower and turrets—this home was for pleasure, for the arts, for merrymaking and fairytales. It seemed to be the largest building in the World devoted solely to extravagance, elegance, and splendour. The Winchester Mansion was a break rom the nearly crushing issues and worries of the day. The Observational Tower was the tallest in the city, the loftiest tower in the West, and the estate was a fairytale complex nearly complete. For most of its life, however, Llanada Villa became known not only for its marvelous architecture, perfect location, and magnificent garden, but also for its ghosts. As heiress to the most important industry in the West, I borrowed from the past to combine the classical orders and monumental scale with richly coloured mosaics and craved fifteenth-century Italian fireplaces, murals, light, and air to create a grand new Victorian style. However, it could not conceal the deepest groans of ambitious spirits. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The secrets struck into me, of nameless monsters. I onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal about the labyrinth in my soul of love. The humidity was quite extraordinary. There was not the faintest breath of wind outside; thick grey clouds hung low and motionless overhead, darkening slowly as the hours passed. By three o’clock, my head felt as if steel pincers were being driven through my temples, and I knew I must retire to my room. After an indefinite interval, the pain began to ease. I was in the midst of a dream that vanished beyond recall as I was jolted wide awake by a searing flash lighting up the room even through drawn curtains, followed a few second later by a deafening crack of thunder which rolled and rumbled and reverberated, shaking the house to its foundations. Within second I heard a great rush of wind, a spatter of raindrops against the windowpane, and then the roar of a deluge upon the roof. My headache was quite gone; I felt my way to the door, where I found the lamps in the passage lit and saw that it was almost half past six. I ran downstairs. My thoughts were lost in a blinding flash and a clap of thunder right above the house, after which the lightning flashed continuously, bolt after jagged bolt accompanied by a tumult so deafening it seemed the roof must give way at any moment. Gradually, the lightning died away and the wind dropped until there was no sound but the rush of steady, drenching rain. The night passed unimaginably slow. I went down to the second floor at first light; the rain had ceased, the air was chill and damp and laden with the scents of bruised and broken foliage. Debris was strewn across the garden, from sodden twigs and leaves to great branches, and water lay in pools across the grass. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
On a damp December morning, the air was laden with the scent of decaying leaves; thin strands of mist drifted amongst the trees. Returning to the sitting room at the front of the house, I gazed out of the window reflecting on how raw, and dismal the day outside was; I had slept badly. Dr. Wayland, whom my housemaid had sent for without telling me a word about it, arrived to see me. Hattie accompanied me to the library; and there the proud doctor, was waiting to receive me. I told him my story, and as I proceeded he grew graver and graver. We were standing, he and I, in the recess of one of the windows, facing one another. A chill draught touched my cheek. The candle flared and almost blew out, so that the bodiless features opposite seemed to writher and convulse. I cannot go on, I thought. When my statement was over, he leaned with his shoulders against the wall, and with his eyes fixed on me earnestly, with an interest in which was a dash of horror. After a time, my face was pale and although I felt very weak, I did not feel ill; and strength, one always fancies, is a thing that may be picked up when we please. I wore a morning dress and the doctor asked to examine me. He noticed upon my breast were but a small blue spot, about the size of the tip of my little finger. “Id there any danger?” I urged, in great trepidation. “I trust not, Mrs. Winchester,” answered the doctor. “I don’t see why you should not recover. I don’t see why you should not begin immediately to get better. That I the point at which the sense of strangulation begins?” “Yes, I answered.” He called the housemaid Hattie to him and said: “I find Mrs. Winchester is far from well. It won’t be of any great consequence, I hope; but it will be necessary that some steps be taken, but in the meantime, Hattie, you will be so good as to not let Mrs. Winchester be alone for the moment. That is the only direction I need give you for the present. It is indispensable.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his leave, and ride away eastward through the fruit orchard. In the meantime, the housemaid and I were both busy, lost in conjecture as to the reasons of the singular and earnest direction which the doctor imposed. The housemaid, as she afterwards told me, was afraid the doctor apprehended a sudden seizure, and that, without prompt assistance, I might either lose my life in a fit, or at least be seriously hurt. This interpretation did not stroke me; and I fancied, perhaps luckily for my nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply to secure a companion, who would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eating unripe fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish things to which young people are supposed to be prone. At times such as these, I tried to summon William’s face in memory, he would come to me only as a blur; then, at other times, he would appear unbidden, as vivid to my inner eye as if he were standing next to me. This was one of those times; I heard the exact accents of his voice: his face came back to me, alight with joy and hope, and yet I felt no grief; I could feel his presence here, now, beside me in the dark room. I remained vaguely conscious of my glittering amulet, and of the housemaid behind me, but William was calling me into the clear light of fay, speaking what I knew to be words of great comfort, words I strained to hear but could not quite distinguish, and his presence remained with me until, with no perceptible transition, I found myself in grey twilight, with the acrid scent of a snuffed candle in my nostrils. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Through the curtains, I saw mist swirling against the window. Emptiness here. And the quiet I had told myself that I wanted—just to be alone. I reached into my pocket and drew out a handful of gold coins. I gave them to Hattie and told her to enjoy the rest of the night. She took them in both hands and stared at them as if they were burning her. She looked up and in her eyes I saw the image of myself. Candles were burning in all the candelabra and in the wall scones. I went to pass the library quickly, when without warning a soundless voice shot out and stopped me. It was like a hand touching my throat. I turned and saw a shadow crawling across the wall in a slow, and terrifying manner. The room became unnaturally cold. There was a monstrous growl coming from the shadow figure. A wave of sadness and terrible fear overcame me. The shadow then called out, “Sarah.” The voice called me again leaving me shaken and puzzled. I hurried up the stairs to enter one of the rooms I rarely used. Suddenly, my eyes were drawn to the window. There I saw two green eyes looking out at me. I knew this to be the demon that was calling out to me down stairs. As I closed my eyes, I had become increasingly stressed and frightened. I opened my eyes to see if the astounding horror was gone, but it was not. The shadow moved around the room to stand beside me. I thought I would die from heart failure when it bent over me to stare into my face with those piercing green eyes. And the next thing I knew, it was morning. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Old magic, luminous legend, a beautifully bizarre atmosphere in which all the shadowy things thrive, an intoxication with forbidden knowledge in where the natural things become unimportant. Most of the souls that inhabit The Winchester Mystery House are thought to have come here after being laid to rest. There once were 600 rooms, and a nine-story tower. However, today, there remains an astounding four story mansion, with 160 rooms, of which 110 are open for tours. Some have wanted to become better acquainted with The Winchester Mystery House, and have ventured beyond the designated touring areas. Exposing forbidden areas of the house comes with some dangers, such as being lost for hours, or never finding your way out. The portion of the mansion that is off limits can get very confusing. It was late one night in February 2007. One man was caught by surveillance cameras after he had lost his way. He appeared as if he was being chased as he ran hither and tither from room to room. When tour guides finally found him, he was in a state of panic. Cold, sweating, shivering and his eyes were as large as saucers. They asked him if he was okay, and after setting down for a few moments, he explained that he saw a tall, dark hooded figure standing right beside him. “I couldn’t see much detail because it was dark, but I could make out the round hood facing me. It stood very tall. Maybe seven or eight feet. The hooded entity looked as startled—momentarily at least—to see me as I was to see it. When it saw that I saw it, it reached out to me, touching me on my shoulder with its ice-cold hands, grabbing me so tightly that it tore my shirt as I started to run. The thing just seemed to hover over the floors and kept pace with me no matter which way I turned.” https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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The Winchester Mystery
We were thundering over the bride and to Llanada Villa, and on through the crowds of Santa Clara. I heard laughter, like that of mischievous children. The carriage swerved. We were racing home, scattering the crowds before us and roaring past little villages. For one second, I felt the presence of the paranormal, but it was gone so quickly I doubted myself. I looked back and could catch no glimmer of it. The villagers were gazing at the spinning wheels, finally we entered the halls of the carriage house. We were currently working on the construction of the norther wing of the mansion. It was late in the night and I was walking into my room when I caught sight of a figure. It was a man, dressed in an elegant black brocade suit jacket. When I tried to get a better look at his face, he vanished. The next evening, he appeared again. He had empty eye sockets and a glowing countenance. He was ghastly to watch. The way he moved over the floor as if he did not even touch it. Even the wisps of his hair this way and that way by the bone chilling breeze was horrifying. The man moved through the wall itself, and I drew back into the shadows, and hid myself behind the curtain, from which I could not, of course, emerge until the housemaids searched the entire mansion. It was all to no purpose, however. My perplexity and agitation increased. They examined the windows and doors, but they were secured. I was by this time convinced that no one was in my room, nor in the dressing-room, the door of which was still locked on this side. He could not have passed it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
I was utterly puzzled. Had he discovered one of those secret passages which the old housekeeper said were known to exist in the schloss, although the tradition of their exact situation has been lost? A little time would, no doubt, explain all—utterly perplexed as, for the present, we were. It was past five o’clock, and I preferred passing the remaining hours of darkness in the Daisy Bedroom. Daylight brought no solution of the difficulty. The whole household was in a state of agitation next morning. Every part of the mansion was searched. The grounds were explored. Not a trace of the mysterious man could be discovered. When news of this haunting came out, it was not a surprise that members of the house staff resigned from their jobs and decided to leave the cold mansion permanently. More people started to tell personal stories of their own encounter with the ghost. People started to call him “Hallow Eyes.” He appeared and terrorized unsuspecting victims. The second reported sighting was by Florence Harwood, a writer and friend of mine. As she was preparing for bed, Hallow Eyes appeared and turned his head around so that it was facing backward, and all Mrs. Harwood saw was a head of hair floating on top of his shoulders and body. It goes without saying that she was frightened beyond her wits and woke up the house by screaming, hardly able to believe what she had seen. The sight was enough to send chills down the spine of anyone! Mrs. Harwood was inclined not to believe her eyes. At first, she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. However, over the course of the next four night, the seem vision repeated itself again and again. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
First, there would be a bright light that would shine behind her eyelids, and then slowly, a mist would solidify into this man’s corpse, as the room became utterly cold and frigid. This went on until Mrs. Harwood was certain that Llanada Villa was haunted. By this time, guest and staff had seen Hallow Eyes often enough that my home was getting a reputation as a haunted mansion. It was in the Crystal Bedroom that this apparition was most often seen. Mr. Hansen slept in that room each night with a revolver stashed beneath his pillow. For the first two days, there were no signs of anything paranormal. As he left the room to returned to the guest house, he caught a glimpse of a candelabra that was coming toward him. He figured that it was probably one of the housemaids on her way to visit the kitchen. Mr. Hansen moved quietly. As he watched from his vantage point, Mr. Hansen was stunned to realize that it was Hallow Eyes. Hallow Eyes then grinned at him in a malicious and diabolical manner. An ordinary man might have frozen in such a situation. Mr. Hansen, on the other hand, yanked his revolver hard and discharged the bullet right into his face. It passed right through him and lodged itself in the wall behind him, as Hallow Eyes himself vanished into thin air. The next sighting of Hallow Eyes happened a few weeks later. I was walking up the zig zag staircase, when I felt an unusual chill and caught sight of the ghost. It remains one of the longest nights I had ever endured in my mortal life. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
It as endless and fathomless and dizzying, and there were times when I wanted some defense against the specter, and I had none. I returned to my room and went to sleep as usual in my bed, with my doors locked, that of the dressing-room, and that opening upon the gallery. My sleep was uninterrupted, and, so far as I know, dreamless; but I awoke just now on the sofa in the dressing-room there, and I found the door between the rooms open, and the other door forced. How could all this have happened without my being wakened? It must have been accompanied with a great deal of noise, and I am particularly easily wakened; and how could I have been carried out of my bed without my sleep having been interrupted, I whom the slightest stir startles? By this time, the housemaid, Hattie, was in the room. “My dear Mrs. Winchester,” she said. “I need not approach the topics on which you desire silence. But, the marvel of last night consist in your having been removed from your bed and your room without being wakened, and this removal having occurred apparently while the windows were still secure, and the two doors locked upon the inside.” “Hattie, I wish all mysteries were easily explained,” I replied.” “And so we may congratulate ourselves on the certainty that the most natural explanations of the occurrence is one that involves no drugging, no tampering with locks, no burglars, or poisoners—nothing that need alarm you, Mrs. Winchester, or any one else, for our safety,” said Hattie. I would not hear of an attendant sleeping in my room. Servants slept outside my door as a precaution. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The hurt in my heart stunned me. I did not like the chill in the air, and a fear overcame me. Everyone asks me what I “think” of everything, and I make answer as I can—begging or dodging the question, putting them off. The very next afternoon, whilst I was seated in the shade of the Araucaria Araucana, attempting to concentrate on my book, I heard the crunch of hooves on gravel, so I waited uncomfortably, expected to be summoned at any moment, until Mr. Hansen at last appeared, strode across the drive without a glance in my direction, swung up onto his horse, and spurred away out the gate. I felt briefly ashamed of having hidden from Mr. Hansen, but the thought was swept aside in a rush of emotion. The housekeeping staff reported having seen Hallow Eyes several times, and many of them talk about cold drafts and lights typical of a haunting within the mansion. The truth is that he still lingers in the walls, waiting for a release from his prison. Such a tragedy. All this anger and hate inside of him with no closure. He still roams the halls of Llanada Villa, seeking revenge for his life having been claimed, waiting for the day when, once and for all, he will exact his revenge, and be able to leave The Winchester Mansion. A place where the voices accompanying the phantom music could often be heard from the garden with a distorted disembodies clarity that was strangely beautiful. Where endless fireflies hovered about, like an aura. It could be a sweet dream, or a beautiful nightmare. Perhaps the most alluring aspect of Llanada Villa is that the mystery cannot be explained. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The mysterious spirits of The Winchester Mystery House walk among us, sometimes pretending to be us to achieve some goal that is at present beyond our ability to ascertain. If, when we encounter these entities, we might come away from the experience concluding that we had met angels unaware, higher beings who were trying to teach us something or who were cleverly guiding our footsteps along the path of this sacred mansion. However, The Winchester Mystery House lies beyond our knowing, it in fact seems designed to confuse us rather than enlighten us. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Something is Out There
The morning sun was shining full on the Victorian garden outside, making each archway of the cloister a picture of yellow light and fluttering leaves. The iron-rimmed wheels of the carriage hearse had trundled a few hours ago. But the weird apparition from this morning had left no physical evidence of its passing. Through the window, I could hear a melancholy charm which I could not duplicate. Sometimes with the nostalgia and grief and self-pity mingling so intensely in me, I wept at the recollection, of what I called a normal life. Sunlight warmed the room through the windows, as I sipped tea. A sensation ran through me like a strong and vibrant current. I heard music again. The notes were drifting upward from two floors below as Daisy played the piano. Daisy could really play the piano. It must be talent, pure and simple, I thought. As I listened to the music playing, the sun was setting, and I laid across my bed, falling quickly to sleep. I had a dream of something black coming round my bed, and I awoke in perfect horror, and I really thought, for some seconds, I saw a dark figure near the chimney piece, but I felt under my pillow for my charm, and the moment my finger touched it, the figure disappeared, and I felt quite certain, only that I had it by me, that something frightful would have made its appearance, and, perhaps, throttled me, as it did the poor servants. I have quickly learned an important lesson about humans and their willingness to be convinced that the World is a safe place. And this lesson about human peace of mind I never forgot. Even if a ghost is ripping a house to pieces, throwing plates and glasses all over, pouring water on pillows, making bells ring at all hours, humans will accept almost any “natural explanation” offered, no matter how absurd, rather than the obvious supernatural one, for what is going on. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
Next night I passed as well. My sleep was delightful deep and dreamless. However, I wakened with a sense of lassitude and melancholy, which, however, did not exceed a degree that was almost luxurious. I pinned the charm to the breast of my nightdress. It was too far away the night before. I m quite sure it was all fancy, except the dreams. I used to think that evil spirits made dreams, but Dr. Wayland told me it is no such thing. Only a fever passing by, or some other malady, as they often do, he said, knocks at the door, and not being able to get in, passes on, with that alarm. For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed woman. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it. Without knowing it, I was now in a pretty advanced stage of the strangest illness under which mortal ever suffered. There was an unaccountable fascination in its earlier symptoms that more than reconciled me to the incapacitating effect of that stage of the malady. This fascination increased for a time, until it reached a certain point, when gradually a sense of the horrible mingled itself with it, deepening, as you shall hear, until it discoloured and perverted the whole state of my life. The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
Certain vague and strange sensations visited me in my sleep. The prevailing one was that of pleasant, peculiar cold thrill which we feel in bathing, when we move against the current of a river. This was soon accompanied by dreams that seemed interminable, and were so vague that I could never recollect their scenery and persons, or any one connected portion of their action. However, they left an awful impression, and a sense of exhaustion, as if I had passed through a long period of great mental exertion and danger. There was the old lime tree with its great trunk gnarled with the passing of nearly nine centuries, the deep well, and the Torture Tower. The Torture Tower is truly grim place. The dust of ages, and darkness and the horror seemed to have settled on it. I saw a half-human form falling to its death from the tower. After all these dreams there remained on waking a remembrance of having been in a place very nearly dark, and of having spoken to people whom I could not see; and especially of one clear voice, of a female’s, very deep, that spoke as if at a distance, slowly, and producing always the same sensation of indescribable solemnity and fear. Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses left me, and I became unconscious. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
It was not three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance. One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible, which said, “You mother warns you to beware of the assassin.” The following day, There were bats circling the Observational Tower at dusk, but the sky above the treetops was a pale, almost cloudless blue, permeated with fine streaks and swirls of creamy vapour. Everything about the sky suggested an idyllic afternoon scene, but that was not the impression left by the house itself. The sunlight seemed only to accentuate the darkness of the encroaching fruit orchard, and to deepen the shadows within the window frames. My home was seemingly filled with incarnate darkness; even the hot sunlight streaming in through the door seemed to be lost in the vast thickness of the walls, and only showed the masonry rough as when the builder’s scaffolding had come down, but coated with dust and marked here and there with patches of dark stain which, if walls could speak, could have given their own dread memories of fear and pain. The housemaids had been rather neglectful. The wooden staircase was dusty. When I came up through the open trap in the corner of the chamber, there was certainly more light, but only just sufficient to realize the surrounding of the place. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The spirits who designed the tower had evidently intended that only they who should gain the top should have any of the joy of light and prospect. There were ranges of windows, albeit of medieval smallness, but elsewhere in the tower were only a very few narrow slits such as were habitual in places of medieval defense. A light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Trinity, the housemaid, stand near the stairs, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, on one great stain of blood. My next recollection is that of standing on the lobby, crying for help. Hattie and Mr. Hansen came scurrying into the tower in alarm; a lamp burned always on the lobby, and seeing me, they soon learned the cause of my terror. I insisted on our knocking at Trinity’s door. Our knocking was unanswered. It soon became a pounding and uproar. We shrieked her name, but all was vain. We all grew frightened, for the door was locked. We hurried back, in panic, to my room. There we rang the bell long and furiously. Servant soon came running up the stairs. I ordered the men to force the lock on Trinity’s door. They did so, and we stood, holding our lights aloft, in the doorway, and so started into the room. We called her by name; but there was still no reply. We looked round the room. Everything was undisturbed. I stood on the boards looking at the gilded railings, the new chandelier that hung from the ceiling, and up at the arch overhead with its masks of comedy and tragedy like two faces stemming from the same neck. It was exactly in the state which I had left it on bidding her good night. However, Trinity was gone. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The room of the Witches Cap is said to have had a spiritual meaning for Mrs. Winchester. However, some have said that the room has a presence of evil—a bad aura around it. It seemed to have a cold presence. Psychics said that they felt weird around the Witches Cap and found that it had a living entity attached to it. The entity was inside of the wood of the room. It seemed to have a controlling effect on anyone who entered it. There is intelligence in the room, which sometimes projects frightening images of the past into the minds of people. Some have also experienced very vivid dreams. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Lay Bare the Secret You Keep from Each Other
It was a lie. A lie I would never forget for as long as I walked the Earth. He would tell us nothing of himself but that he was “a fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that the rattle of a window, or the dropping of a pin was enough to scare him now. He was now asleep on the sofa. The candles were flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a long, sharp nose, peeping and drawing back. The fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, rearranging itself oddly. I rose, and walking slowly to him, I stood over him and looked at him, at the blood that soaked his lace shirt and stained his face. He did not open his eyes. However, I felt his sorrow. I felt its immensity, and I wished I did not feel it, and for the moment I understood the gulf that divided us, and the gulf that divided his attempt to overpower me from my rather simple defense of myself. And with his eyes closed, and his hand open beside him, he appeared the abandoned offspring of time and supernatural accident, someone as miserable as myself. What had he done to become what he was? His family was ruined, I believe, in some civil wars, long ago. Through the hall door, I could see the moonlight was beautiful. As the night waned on, the young man recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. He was not sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration. In the dead of the night, Haze Austin was suddenly awakened. And in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages of which I only dream. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
I shall never forget this sight, for he looked the perfect incarnation of hate. His green eyes blazed with lurid fire, and his white teeth seemed to almost shine through the blood which dabbled his mouth. Desperately he tried to vanquish what he did not comprehend. He was so exquisitely beautiful and so lost. “Is there a chill in the air, dear?” I said. “I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? You look ill, Mrs. Winchester; a little faint,” said Haze. “I am better now. How do you feel now, Haze?” I said. I was beginning to take alarm. Natural enough, was it not, that one of his own should take him away from Llanada Villa. “Papa would be grieved beyond measure,” he said. “If he thought we were inconveniencing you at all.” In a moment he was standing on his own feet. And then he walked drowsily beside me, my arm about his shoulder, bolstering him and steadying him, until we were moving towards his father’s cottage on my estate. I only half glanced at the figures passing us, until I saw a familiar shape under the trees. Somewhere far off in the darkened gardens, other were near. When he pushed open the door to his father’s home, he was laying dead upon the floor. His cravat was drawn halter-wise tight round his throat, and he had done its work well. The body was cold, and had been long dead. In due course the coroner held his inquest, and the jury pronounced that the deceased, Mac Austin, had died by his own hand, in a state of temporary insanity. However, Haze had his own opinion about his father’s death, though his lips were sealed, and he never spoke about it. He went and lived for the residue of his days in York, where there are still people who remember him, a taciturn and surly young man, who attended church regularly, and also drank a little, and was know to have saved some money. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
But there occurred that night an event which gave my thoughts quite a new turn, and seemed to even startle even Haze’s languid nature. When I returned to my drawing-room, and sat down to coffee and chocolate, Elizabeth joined me, and we had a little card party. When the game was over, Elizabeth and I sat down on the sofa, and I asked her, a little anxiously, whether she had heard from her mother since her arrival. She answered “No.” I then asked her whether she knew where a letter would reach her at present. “I cannot tell,” she answered, ambiguously, “but I have been thinking of leaving you; you have been already too hospitable and too kind to me. I have given you an infinity of trouble, and I should wish to take a carriage to-morrow, and post in pursuit of her; I know where I shall ultimately find her, although I dare not tell you.” “But you must not dream such a thing,” I exclaimed. “I cannot afford to lose you so, and I will not consent to your leaving us, except under the care of your mother, who was so good as to consent to your remaining with us till she should herself return. I should be quite happy if I knew that you heard from her; but this evening the accounts of the progress of the mysterious disease that has invaded our community, grow even more alarming; and my beautiful guest, I do feel the responsibility, unaided by advice from your mother, very much. However, I shall do my best’ one thing is certain, that you must not think of leaving Llanada Villa without her distinct direction to that effect. We should suffer too much in parting from you to consent to it easily.” “Thank you, Mrs. Winchester, a thousand times for your hospitality,” Elizabeth answered, smiling bashfully. “You have all been too kind to me; I have seldom been so happy in all my life before, as in your beautiful mansion, under your care, and in the society of your dear niece.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
I accompanied Elizabeth to her room, and sat and chatted with her while she was preparing for bed. She turned around, “Do you think that you will ever confide fully in me about your home?” “Now, Elizabeth, you are gong to talk your wild nonsense again,” I said hastily. “Not I, silly little fool as I am, and full of whims and fancies; for your sake I’ll talk like a sage. Did you ever have a ball in the Grand Ballroom? What was it like? How charming it must be.” “I almost forget, it is years ago.” I laughed. “Mrs. Winchester, you are not so old. Your first ball can hardly be forgotten yet.” “I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent. There occurred that night what has confused the picture, and made it colours faith I was all but assassinated in my bed, wounded here,” I touched my breast, “and never was the same since.” “Were you near dying?” “Yes, a very—cruel love—strange love, that would have taken my life. Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifices without blood. Let us go to sleep now; I feel lazy.” I bid her good-night, crept from the room with an uncomfortable sensation, locked her door and retired to my chambers. I was lying in bed, with my hands buried in my rich wavy hair, under my cheek, and my head upon the pillow. I often wondered whether my pretty guest ever said her prayers. I certainly had never seen her upon her knees. In the morning she never came down until long after our family prayers were over, and at night she never left the drawing room to attend our brief evening prayers in the hall. Ever since the midnight invaders, I locked all the doors in the house at night, and my whimsical alarms about prowling assassins required me to have the servants search every room in the house to make sure there were no lurking assassins or robbers “ensconced.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
After these measures were taken, I got into my bed and fell asleep. A light was burning in my room. This was an old habit, of very early date, ad which nothing could have tempted me to dispense with. Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. However, dreams come through walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths. I had a dream that night that was the beginning of a very strange agony. I cannot call it a nightmare, for I was quite conscious of being asleep. However, I was equally conscious of being in my room, and lying in bed, precisely as I actually was. I saw, or fancied I saw, the room and its furniture just as I had seen it last, except tht it was very dark, and I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. However, I soon saw that it was a sooty-black figure that resembled a man. He appeared to me about five or six feet tall, he floated around the room hither and tither with the lithe sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you ay supposed, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and I could see it was Haze. He looked at me with centuries of evil blazing in his eyes, but there was not the slightest stir or respiration. And I felt a shudder. My heart expanded slightly, against my will. “I curse you,” he said. As I stared at him, I felt danger again, terrible danger. Then he appeared to have changed his place, and was now nearer to the door; then, close to it, the door opened, and he vanished. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
It would be vain my attempting to tell you the horror with which, even now, I recall he occurrence of that night. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. Later that day, I had another strange experience; I walked into the parlor that afternoon where Daisy and Elizabeth had been sitting, and a saw Haze upon the sofa. However, then I realized that he was invisible to the others. He got up and walked toward me—I was not afraid—and then—seemed to dissolve into the air. And so I wondered…whether I might have fallen into a trance. I clasped my hands and struggled to control my breathing. We know that, in the mesmeric trance, a subject may acquire unusual mental powers; The Frenchman Didier, who could read minds, play cards blindfolded, and identify the contents of sealed containers with great accuracy, is one of the best-known instances. Ancient houses, it has always seemed to me, are like Leyden jars, quietly accumulating the influences of the past…and my home is a special case. I lay awake into the small hours, worrying over these anxieties as they became more and more nightmarish until I sank into a troubled sleep. Sleeping had become so difficult one night that I wandered through this vast mansion, searching for a precious jewel William had given me. The jewel had been lost; I did not know how, but I knew that my own carelessness was to blame. To make matter worse, I could not remember what kind of stone it was, for as I went from room to room, a voice kept chanting, “Emerald, sapphire, ruby, diamond,” over and over, and none of them seemed right, because the lost stone was a different, a more beautiful colour than any of those, and I knew I ought to be able to picture it, and thus recall its name, but I could not. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The mansion was absolutely silent; the light throughout, even in corridors was a pale, uniform grey like that of an overcast sky. The rooms were modestly furnished; each one seemed to have its own miniature flight of stairs, up or down two or three steps, and the corridors kept changing levels in similar fashion. Though the house itself was not especially sinister, my anxiety over the fate of the jewel grew steadily more acute until it had risen to an unbearable pitch. Then it occurred to me that I still had not searched the Venetian Dining Room. The thought precipitated a vertiginous change of scene; the light sank to a dim, murky brown, and I was standing in the doorway of the room where we had dined that night. The curtains were drawn, the candles snuffed; the room seemed to be empty, but as I crept toward the table, I saw, above the back of the chair in which I usually sat, the dark outline of a head. There was time to slip away quietly; but perhaps the jewel had fallen into the lining of my chair, and if I were to tiptoe forward, I might be able to see it. I was within two feet of the motionless figure when a voice spoke from the doorway behind me, a word that rang like a loud gong, louder and louder until it became my own cry of “No!” and I woke in grey dawn light to find myself standing at the head of the stairs. And then I thought I caught sight of a shape, dak in space and light, through the door in one of the bedrooms. There was a tall figure in what I could have sworn was a black top hat, staring directly back at me. The figure was dressed formally in black morning suit. And then, with a movement so spasmodic and sudden, the man turned and stated to walk eastward, out of sight. I dismissed it, as one of the Winchester’s passing enigmas. There was much about the curse of the Winchester Mansion that I did not understand. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Spirits of Llanada Villa, I awaken the powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of the three heeded Dragon Zohak that you may serve to empower Mrs. Winchester’s great work! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick 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 the Mrs. Winchester’s great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the path of the Lemegeton. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, 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, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be. Aeshma, Div of wrath and fury! He who wields the bloody mace! Aeshma who is demon of the wounding spear I call you forth into this temple of counter creation! Through devotion to my becoming on this path, your spiritual weapon has been made manifest in this corporeal World through my will and counter creative power so you may fill it with your essence 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 the power and wisdom for the spirits of the Winchester’s glory and ascent! Fill this weapon with your powers of wrath and fury that it may seek out spiritual attacks made and render them useless and impotent! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
One Halloween, a tour guide saw a little boy who was no more than six years old. He was dressed in a black hood, and long black robe, and it looked like he did not have a face, as he had a black, opaque nylon covering the opening in the hood. The tour guide asked him who he was supposed to be, and the little boy said, “I’m the Angel of Life.” The tour guide then asked him who the Angel of Life is. The boy replied, “The Angel of Life is someone who comes to talk to you. He tells you things about your life.” The conviction on the little boy’s face and the non-hesitant way in which he explained who he was made the tour guide think that the boy had some knowledge of what he was talking about. Shortly after, objects in the gift shop started floating about, and glimpses of a shadowy figure were spotted in the basement. In the café, according to a female patron, she had been sitting at a table in a back corner of the room when a man suddenly appeared in a chair across the table from her. The man stared straight ahead and refused to react in any way. The female patron looked away to get the waitress’s attention and when she looked back, the man was gone. The woman related that the elusive figure was wearing old-fashioned clothes. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Return in the Darkening Twilight
Llanada Villa is a prime example of Victorian architecture. Its exterior is stately, refined, with a touch of Gothic elegance. Its front doors welcome, even as it seems to be hiding something. Inside the floors creak without warning, without any sense of someone there. The wood is thick with the humidity, as if the walls and floor breathe. Through the years, guest have reported feeling cold spots, or seeing strange, wispy streaks of light. The sense of the uncanny cries out for an explanation. Ghosts bridge the past to the present; they speak across the seemingly insurmountable barriers of death and time, connecting us to what we thought was lost. The townsfolk whispered tales of its dark history, of unspeakable horrors that occurred within the walls of my homes. As I climbed the grand staircase, each step seemed to release a flurry of hidden memories. Voices whispered incantations that send shivers down my spine. I must not faint, I told myself, and summoning all my resolve, made my way to the safety of the back parlour. There I collapsed into a couch, with my head already beginning to throb. The pain soon became so excruciating that I lost all sense of time until someone, I could not tell who, brought me a sleeping draught, and I sank at last into merciful oblivion. Next morning, I was at first bewildered to find myself fully dressed upon the parlour sofa. The parlourmaid, Trinity, brought me a cup of tea. She had set my skin crawling with fear. At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many hoofs upon the road, arrested out attention. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I was haunted with a terror of robbers. My house was robbed once, and two servants murdered, so I always lock my door. It had become a habit. Still, it was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape. I was looking out of one of the long drawing-room windows, when there entered the court-yard, a figure of a wanderer who I knew very well. He used to come by twice a year asking to tour my home. He was a tall man, with sharp learn features. He wore a pointed black bread, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic-lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other a mandrake. These monsters used to my Mr. Hansen laugh. They were compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect. He had a fiddle, a box conjuring apparatus, a pair of foils and masks attached to his belt, several other mysterious cases dangling about him, and a black staff with copper ferrules in his hand. His companion was a rough spare dog, that followed at his heels, but stopped short, suspiciously at the front gate, and in a little while began to howl dismally. In the meantime, the mountebank, standing in the midst of the court-yard, raised his grotesque hat, and made us a very ceremonious bow, paying his compliments very volubly in execrable French, and German not much better. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Then, disengaging his fiddle, he began to scrape a lively air, to which he sang with a merry discord, dancing with ludicrous airs and activity, that made me laugh, in spite of the dog’s howling. Then he advanced to the window with many smiles and salutations, and his hat in his left hand, his fiddle under his arm, and with a fluency that never took breath, he gabbled a long advertisement of all his accomplishments, and the resources of the various arts which he placed at our service, and the curiosities and entertainments which it was in his power, at my bidding to display. “Will your ladyship be pleased to buy an amulet against the oupire, which is going like the wolf, I hear, through these woods,” he said, dropping his hat on the floor. “They are dying of it right and left, and here is a charm that never fails; only pinned to the pillow, and you may laugh in his face.” These charms consisted of oblong slips of vellum, with cabalistic ciphers and diagrams upon them. I instantly purchased one. He was looking up, and I was smiling down at him, amused. His piercing black eye, as he looked up in my face, seemed to detect something that fixed for a moment his curiosity. “I told you that I am charmed with you in the most particulars,” he said. “You are slender, and wonderfully graceful. Your complexion is rich and brilliant; your features are small and beautifully formed; your eyes large, dark, and lustrous; your hair is quite wonderful, I never saw hair so magnificently think and long when it is down about your shoulder. It is exquisitely fine and soft, and in colour a rich very dark brown, with something of gold.” “Well, I do wonder at a wise man like you,” I replied. And so he walked on, and I heard no more. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Within the space of a week, my colour had returned, and I was sleeping so soundly that I was scarcely aware of my dreams. I walked miles on my estate each day, and I began to see it with new eyes. Every field, every path, even every hedgerow had its own name and its own history. I considered the amulet I purchased as an omen of good luck—and placed in beneath my pillow, to guard against further visitation. That evening, as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard a peculiar flickering sound. Entering my dressing room in the darkness, I made my way to the familiar dressing table on the right side of the room. Now the noise was even more pronounced. It sounded to me as if someone were turning the pages of book, a sound for which there was no rational source. Move over, I suddenly became away of a clammy, cold feeling around me. Since it was a warm evening, this too surprised me. In the dark, I could not be sure if there were not someone else in the dressing room. I quickly existed the room and went to bed. But this night, I was awakened by a violent shaking of my bed. I could see, in the very imperfect light, two figures at the foot oof it, holding each a bedpost. A voice said, “We’ll hang you!” Trembling, I climbed over to the footboard; and saw the figure at the other side, little more than a black shadow, begin also to scale the bed; and there was instantly a dreadful confusion and uproar in the room, and such a gabbling and laughing; I could not catch the words. I found myself on the floor. The phantoms and clamour were gone, but a crash and ringing of fragments was in my ears. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
The great china bowl, from which for generations the Winchester had been baptized, had fallen from the mantelpiece, and was smashed on the hearthstone. I warned the servants not to disregard oaths and curses. A mourning coach drove up, and two gentlemen in black cloaks, and with crape to their hats, got out, and without looking to the right or the left, went up the steps to the Winchester mansion. Mr. Hansen followed them slowly. The carriage had, he supposed, gone round to the yard, for, when he reached the door, it was no longer there. So he followed the two mourners into the house. In the hall he found a fellow servant, who said he had seen two gentlemen, in black cloak, pass through the hall, and go up the stair without removing their hats, or asking leave of anyone. This was very odd, Mr. Hansen thought, and a great liberty; so upstairs he went to make them out. But he could not find them then, nor ever. And from that hour the house was troubled. In a little time there was not one of the servants who had not something to tel. Step and voices followed them sometimes in the passages, and tittering whispers, always minatory, scared them at the corners of the galleries, or from dark recesses; so that they would return panic-stricken. I, myself, had also heard these voices, and with this formidable aggravation, they came always when I said my prayers. I was scared at such moments by dropping words and sentences, which grew, as I persisted, into threats and blasphemies. These voices were not always in the room. They called, as I fancied, through the walls, very thick in this house, from the neighbouring rooms, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; sometimes they seemed to holla from distant lobbies, and came muffled, but threateningly, through the long paneled passages. As they approached they grew furious, as if several voices were speaking together. Whenever I applied myself to my devotions, these horrible sentences came hurrying towards the door, and, in panic, I would start from my knees, and all then would subside except the thumping of my heart against my stays, and the dreadful tremours of my nerves. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
What these voices said, I never could quite remember one minute after they had ceased speaking; one sentence chased another away; gibe and menace and impious denunciation, each hideously articulate, were lost as soon as heard. And this added to the effect of these terrifying mockeries and invectives, that I could not, by any effort, retain their exact import, although their horrible character remained vividly present to my mind. Camile who acted as a housemaid, would not sleep in the house, but walked home, in trepidation, to her father’s, under the escort of her little brother, every night. Mrs. Rendell, the kitchenmaid, endured the nightly terrors. Mr. Hansen was testy and captious about these stories. He was already uncomfortable enough by reason of the entrance of tow muffled figures into the house, about which there could be no mistake. His own eyes had seen them. He refused to credit the stories of the servants. I made a decision not to fuel the stories of the ghost to keep the servants. “If you see ghosts here, it is no place for you, and it is time you should pack,” I would say. Here has been the cook with the kitchenmaid, as white as pipeclay, all in a row, to tell me I must have a parson to sleep among them, and preach down the devil! Upon my soul, I would not allow my home to fall into utter chaos and disarray. “Mrs. Winchester, I know you are no fool,” said the cook. “But supposed there was a such thing as a ghost here, don’t you see, it ain’t just women telling stories.” “I will not dignify such ideas,” I replied. The women left the kitchen, the cook and the butler went down, not altogether unused to such condescension in the household. The fire had gone down and I was chilled. The candles were expiring in the socket and threw on the white all long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines I fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom I remembered with profound horror. I took the candle, with all the haste I could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach my room before the light should go out. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
On night in 1990, there was an unusual buzzing sound in The Winchester Mystery House, one of the staff encountered a dark, hooded figure standing at the door-to-nowhere. In the dim light issuing through the stained glass windows from an outside light, he could see that the intruder, who looked very much like a cowled monk, was waving his arms in a particular manner. Interpreting his movement as threatening, he approached the man and asked him to leave. At the very moment, the employee says he never felt so weak and helpless.
He collapsed in a heap backward onto the floor. He remembered that he actually began to weep in fear and confusion. He was completely at the mercy of whoever or whatever was standing at the door. It was then that the hooded being spoke. “Don’t be afraid,” it said in a quiet whisper. “We won’t hurt you.” And the next thing he knew, the morning sunlight was making him squint into wakefulness. As he reflected on the incident, he became more and more convinced that an actual visitation had occurred and that some kind of entity had come into the mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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My Soul to Nothingness, but I Will Strive
Many persons accustomed to travelling the old country side were sure so fair a place was never seen. Of all that charmed the romantic eye, it seemed an emerald through the clouds of fleecy white, and cerulean sky. As the sun crowned its lawny crest, smiling upon the flowers and trees, bright eyes reflected the majesty of Llanada Villa. The lively and robust body of this remarkable house contrasts its physicality against the darkness, secrets, and void of the dense ancient elms. Tall ornamental hedges maintain the privacy of the dwelling. The fruit orchard much like an enchanted forest, in which the bluebirds returning to their nest, guard the fruit from pests, as the straggling deer who peep from beneath the branches, do not startle the natural and undisturbed dominion. Heightened by euphoria, delightful shapes of mystery and fear clear in youthful bloom of its immortal spirit. On stormy nights, as the guard described, one can hear the doors clapping inside, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through it ornate galleries. I carried with me some blessings and a good many curses. I was woken in the early morning, by hearing my name called softly. I rose and went to my door in my nightgown, but there was no one in the passage. The voice sounded like my niece Daisy’s, but when I came to her door, it was closed. All was silent; the bathroom door stood slightly open; there was the morning room beyond; then the landing and the staircase. I heard my name called again, only this time the voice boomed like a gong inside my head; the light failed, as if a candle had been snuffed, and something rushed at me out of the gloom. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
I screamed and struggled until the light came back with the sound of running feet and I realized that the demon who had seized me was, in fact, a Welsh priest. A fornight or so later—certainly, after the doctor had pronounced me well on the way to recovery—I was sitting up in bed reading when my grandmother came into the room and sat down in the chair beside me, looking exactly as he had when we first met: the same calf length frock coat, double-breasted vet, and wool trousers, with his hair parted on the left and neatly combed to the side, the same familiar scent of alone wood, orange flower, musk and spices. The chair creaked as he settled himself in it, smiled at me and took up his work, just as if he had only been gone for five minutes, rather than resting in the Evergreen Cemetery for nine years. I was vaguely aware that my husband was supposed to be dead, but somehow this did not matter; his presence at my bedside seemed entirely natural and comforting. And though my own tranquil acceptance of the visit would later seem, to me, as strange as the visit itself, we sat in companionable silence for an indefinite interval until my husband gathered up his work, smiled once more at me and went slowly from the room. Daisy came in so soon after that I thought they must have passed each other in the hall, so I asked, “Did you see your uncle William?” I saw from her look of consternation that I had best not pursue the subject, and agreed that I must have been dreaming. As with the strange radiance of William’s appearance was followed by one of the worst headaches I had ever endured. But I felt certain I had been wide awake. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Even after the strangeness of the experience had become fully apparent to me, I found I could not think of my visitant as a ghost. My reading in sensational literature had enhanced an already vivid imagination of how ghosts ought to conduct themselves: a hint of transparency and one or two bloodcurdling groans was surely the least that could be expected, whereas William had been—well, just my husband. And though nothing like this had ever happened to me before, I had not felt in the slightest afraid. Dr. Wayland had declared me well enough to get up, and the memory of my husband’s visit had faded to the point where I could almost believe it had been a dream, when one evening after dinner I saw my father-in-law crossing the hall ahead of me. He was no more than ten paces away, I heard the floor creak under his tread. Looking neither right nor left, he entered his study and closed the door behind him, just as he would have done in life. Again I felt no fear; only an overwhelming impulse to go up to the door and knock. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. The door opened readily, but there was no one there, only the familiar cracked brown leather armchairs on the worn Persian rug, the elaborate desk with its feet carved into the fierce face carved into faces of angels, the bookshelves crammed with Blue Book and army lists and regimental histories and accounts of gun dealers, the lingering faint scent of timber, leather and bindings. I remained in the doorway for a long time, lost in a trance of recollection. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
I picked up one of Willian’s old letters and went out into the garden and sat down on a charming bench, under a group of magnificent lime trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendour being the horizon, and the fountains wound through a group of noble trees, almost at my feet, reflecting in their current the fading crimson of the sky. His letter was extraordinary. So much so that I read it twice over—the second time to the spirits. It said, “I miss you my darling wife, for as such I love you. During these last days of my illness, I was too weak to write you. Before then I had no idea of the danger. I will soon no longer be with you. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for receiving me into your heart, gaiety, and for being a charming companion. Heaven! I devote my remaining days to the gleaming light that you cast upon my heart. I hope you may accomplish your merciful purpose. I curse my conceited incredulity for unduly leaving you to mourn my absence. If only I could live for eternity, I would remain by your side. Farewell. I love you, my beloved.” My eyes filled with tears at his passion and intelligence. The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time gone back inside. It was a soft evening, and I loitered, speculating upon seeing him again. I could hear his voice in animated dialogue and recall how proud he was to be a father, and turned about to admire the beautiful scene. The glade which I had just walked lay before. At the left narrow of the path wound away under the clumps of lordly trees, and was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
At the right of the path stands the Observational Tower, which guarded the estate. Over the grounds, a thin film of mist was stealing, like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there I could see the fountains flashing in the moonlight. No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. I enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking silence over the expanse beneath me. Standing a little way behind me, discoursed upon the scene, and were upon the eloquent moon. When the moon shone with a light so intense it is well known that it indicates a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy is manifold. It acts on dreams, it acts on lunacy, it acts on nervous people; it has a marvellous physical influence connected with life. One of the carpenters, having taken a nap on the balcony on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side. The moon, this night, is full of odylic and magnetic influences—and when one looks behind at the front of the mansion, how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendour, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests. There are indolent states of the spirits in which, indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the stars. But I felt as is some great misfortune were hanging over me. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
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 they Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of GOD, IEHOVAH TETEAGRAMMATON who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; 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 Heave; that thou mayest cause, enforce, and compel the Spirit Murmus—The Fifty-fourth Spirit and His 30 Legions of Spirits, Lord of darkness and liberation come forth! Murmus awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the God of limitation Ahura Mazda! Murmus, Zairich, and Tairich, unholy fever and thirst come forth! Murmus awaken! Tairich awaken! Zairich awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Amardad! Akiman, demon of evil mind come forth! Akoman awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Vohuman! Naikiyas, Div or rebellion and discontent come forth! Naikiyas awake! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Andar, Div of antinomian fire come forth! Andar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fllen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Arwahist! Taromat, beautiful Div of rebellion come forth! Taromat awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Spandarmad! Aeshma, wielder of the bloody mace! Demon of the wounding spear and bringer of wrath come forth! Aeshma awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel Srosh! Sovar, merciless leader of Divs come forth! Sovar awaken! Rise up within that I may compel the rise of the fallen ones and devour the very essence of the Holy Angel shahrewar! I stand alone as the embodiment of the Adversary known as Ahriman, the Black Dragon of Chaos and becoming! I devour the natural order of stasis brought forth by Ahura Mazda and forge my destiny through the power of the Black Sun! By the figurative mystery of this holy mansion, I will clothe it with the armour of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEDONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAI, through Thy strength, to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever. I adjure thee, Emperor Lucifer, 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, to appear instantly, or to send thy Messenger Astarot, forcing thee to forsake thy hiding-place, wheresoever it may be, an warning thee that it thou didst not manifest this moment, I still straightway smite thee and all thy race with the Blasting Rod of the great ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
In 2007, while closing up The Winchester Mystery House, Jeff kept catching sight of a shadow moving. He would turn quickly to see if it was a person, but nothing was there. It unnerved him, not knowing what was taking place. The activity picked up when they started to decorate for the Christmas season. Finally, he consulted one of the guests about the strange occurrences. He was very talkative, and would relate experiences about a ghost. During one conversation with the guest, Jeff related that he heard people upstairs laughing and thumping around in the Grand Ballroom, almost like they were dancing country-western style. When he investigated, he would find nothing out of place and no living person upstairs. When opening the mansion in the morning, they found linen that had been neatly arranged, laying on the floor, yet no one had been in the mansion since he had closed it the night before.
One morning he found an entire display sitting at the foot of the stairs. Everything had been moved during the night. His first thoughts were that someone had broken into the place, but there were no signs of an intruder. Early another morning, Jeff and a few other employees heard a music box playing. They went deep in the mansion to find the source. After searching for hours, they found nothing in the mansion, until they went up the dark stairs to the fourth floor. The stairs were steep, and when Jeff got to the top, he snapped a picture down the stairway. He took the picture at that moment because he had a strange feeling. After the investigated the fourth floor, Jeff said he felt a cold draft come by him, as though it was rushing past them down the stairs. The resulting picture was a tragic and forlorn figure dressed in nineteenth century clothes. People have reported seeing her figure walking toward doors that lead to parts of the mansion that are off limits to guest and that she passes unimpeded through locked doors. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Is this Not a Marvelous Tale?
It began with a fall, soon after my birthday, though I recall nothing between going to bed as usual and waking as if from a long, dreamless sleep. I was found, early on a Winter’s morning, lying at the foot of the stairs in my nightgown, and was carried back to my room, where I lay unconscious, scarcely breathing, for the rest of that day and all of the following night, until I woke to find Dr. Clyde Wayland being over me. His head was surrounded by the most extraordinary halo of light, suffused with all the colours of the rainbow, a radiance so subtle and yet so vibrant as to make me feel I had never seen colour before. I lay entranced by the beauty of it, too absorbed to follow what he was saying. And for a while longer—minutes, hours, I did not know—everyone who came to my bedside was bathed in paradisial light, as if my housemaids Trinity and Elsa had stepped from the pages of an old manuscript book I had once seen. For each of them the light was subtly different, the colours shimmering and changing as they move and spoke. A verse kept running through my mind: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.” However, then my head began to ache, worse and worse until I was forced to close my eyes and wait for the sleeping draught to take effect, and when I woke again, the radiance had gone. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Everyone assumed that I had fallen whilst sleepwalking, which I had done often enough as a child. Since the death of my husband and my daughter in infancy, I had become prone to nightmares, as well as sleepwalking. As I continued to expand my mansion, the nightmare became more frequent and oppressive. There was one in particular, which recurred many times, of a vast, echoing in my house, as I had never seen it before. It was not much like Llanada Villa in its current state, there was a high tower projecting from the fourth floor, another five stores in the air, and the forth floor had been greatly expanded, adding a fifth floor to the mansion. It is dream, I was always alone, acutely aware of the silence, feeling that the house itself was alive, watchful, aware of my presence. The ceilings were immensely high, with dark-paneled mahogany walls, and other walls that flickered so there were made of gold and diamonds, as the sunlight transmitted its subtle sophistry of passion with a golden crown of enchantment. And the windows had a gemlike brilliancy of diamonds, emeralds and rubies sparkled from bouquets in the garden. I was inhabiting a castle so marvelously beautiful. However, this dream also made a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced. I was in a large cylinder room in the upper story of the castle, with a steep mahogany roof. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Looking round the room from my bed, I failed to see the chambermaid. I thought myself alone. I was not frightened. Feeling neglected, to my surprise, I saw a solemn, but very pretty face looking at me from the hands under the coverlet. She was lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath—richer than a garden of Persian roses. I looked at her with a kind of pleased wonder, and ceased whimpering. She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; her eyes conveyed a holy secret from the depth of one soul into the depths of mine, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way. I felt immediately delightfully soothed. I was awakened by a sense of pain. There was a sense of a burning and tingling agony, as if two needle ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly. The lady started back, with her eyes fixed on me, and the slipped down upon the floor, and, as I thought, hide herself under the bed. Now, for the first time, I was frightened, and I yelled with all my might and main. The chambermaid and butler came running in, and hearing my story, they made light of it, soothing me all she could meanwhile. However, I could perceive that their faces were pale with an unwonted look of anxiety, and I saw them look under the bed, and about the room, and peep under tables and pluck open cupboards; and the chambermaid whispered to the butler; “Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; someone did lie there, so sure as you did not; the place is still warm.” #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
I remember the chambermaid petting me, and both of them examining my chest, where I told them I felt the puncture, and pronouncing that there was no sign visible that any such thing had happened to me. The chambermaid and two other servants who were on duty remained sitting up all night; and from that time a servant always sat up in my chamber. I was very nervous for a long time after this. Dr. Wayland was called in. How well I remember his long saturnine face, and his chestnut hair. For a good while, every second day, he came and gave me medicine, which of course I hated. The morning after I saw this apparition I was in a state of terror, and could not bear to be left alone, daylight thought it was, for a moment. I remember Mr. Hansen coming up and standing at the bedside, and talking cheerfully, and asking the doctor a number of questions, and laughing very heartily at one of the answers; and patting me on the shoulder, and telling me not to be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream and could not hurt me. However, I was not comforted, for I knew the visit of the strange woman was not a dream; and I was awfully frightened. In the course of that day, a venerable old man, in a black cassock, came into the room; his face was sweet and gentle, he had white hair, as he stood in my room, amongst the three-hundred-year-old furniture. His eyes, gazing down afar, at me. “Accursed one!” he cried, with venomous scorn and anger. “I beg your pardon, dear sir?” I said turning my large, bright eyes upon his face. The force of his words had not found its way into my mind; I was merely thunderstuck. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
“Yes, poisonous thing!” he repeated, beside himself with passion. His rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightening flash out of a dark cloud. “Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou has made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself—a World’s wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!” “What has be fallen me?” I murmured, with a low moan out of my heart. “Holy Virgin, putt me, a poor heartbroken child!” Thou—dost thou pray?” cried the man, still with the same fiendish scorn. “Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, tain the atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray!” “You are certainly no gentleman,” I said, camply, for my grief was beyond passion, “why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me for I am heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune.” His passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without tenderness. “Does thou pretend ignorance?” he asked, scowling upon me. This selfish, and unworthy spirit, could dream no Earthly happiness had been so bitterly wronged, and I could feel his pain as I too pass heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders of time—I must bathe my hurts in some fount of paradise, and forget my grief, as I was the cause of their suffering. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
“My dear, sir,” I said feebly, and still as I spoke I kept my hand upon my heart, “wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom upon me?” “Miserable!” exclaimed the man. “What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvelous gifts against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy—misery, to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath—misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?” His wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither me by a glance. I grew white as marble. “I would fain have been loved, not feared,” I murmured, sinking down upon the ground. “But now it matters not. I am cursed by evil to be haunted by vengeful spirits for all of eternity.” The angry apparition started to fade right before my eyes, vanishing into thin air. Several ghosts haunted this spectacular mansion, including a dark and menacing spectral figure holding an axe who wanders around the grounds at night, and a ghostly black monk who walks from the castle kitchen toward the Observational Tower in the late afternoons. Servants often spoke of ghostly woman holding a gray lantern near the front gates as well as two children who have been sighted playing in the basement. There are also others various apparitions who seem to wander aimlessly through the hallways. Because of this, I was compelled to move from one room to the next, fearful and yet powerless to stop. Sometime after midnight, there would be some malignant being hovering at my window; my heart would begin to pound until I feared it would tear itself out of my breast, and I would run, my heart still beating violently. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
hester Mystery House is full of recollections of the delicate and benign power of Mrs. Winchester’s feminine nature, which so often envelops guests in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart are noticeable, from the pure fountain and their pools of water, and the estate in the midst of which grew shrubs, flowers, and trees that bare gemlike blossoms. Several guests have been affrightened at the eager enjoyment—the appetite, as it is—with which they find themselves inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. The date the original house was built is unknown. When Mrs. Winchester purchased the 18-room farmhouse in 1886, she expanded it into a 600-room mansion with a nine-story tower.
Today, the mansion stands at 4 stories high and has 161 room, of which 110 are open for guest to explore. According to legend, one dark and stormy night a hundred years ago, a group of teenagers crept into the mansion to explore its empty hallways, but one of them never came out. All that was left of the young lady was her bloody handkerchief at the bottom of the fourth-floor staircase. Ever since that girl met her mysterious fate in the mansion, people have seen an eerie light in the upstairs window and heard cries and moans issuing from the dark interior. In September of 1991, one of the tour guides stated that there was not a shred of evidence to support the spooky tale of the young woman who disappeared, leaving only a bloody handkerchief and a few drops of blood behind.
He had heard all the stories about people seeing lights on in the mansion and hearing and seeing strange things to support the legend. He himself was surprised one night to see a single light in the fourth-floor window. After a careful examination, he concluded that the source of illumination must have been light escaping from the skylight. Tour guides often hear people saying that they “feel something” within its walls. Some people have sent pictures they took, when photography was allowed, that purport to show something passing in front of the camera, like an apparition. Perhaps the expectations of hundreds of people over the years have created a spirit and a mysterious light at The Winchester Mystery House, and these same expectations have kept the “ghost” alive for more than 100 years by feeding it with their collective psychic energy. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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The Haunted Winchester of America
There were times when I slept in a different bedroom just to be someplace completely different, and I have a favorite room, The Daisy Bedroom. I marveled at it, and enjoyed it. I did not care whether it was literal or sophisticated, mystical or pedestrian. It was gorgeous, it was gleaming, and it comforted me to be in it. I had no family. I had no one. I was no one. I had grown unused to company. I found myself thinking of Annie and William as I had not done in years, and of the great darkness of spirit tht had followed their deaths. I thought of the home I was building, The Winchester Mansion, and of how, in my efforts to outflank the inhibition—or curse, that I had inherited. The room seem suddenly darker; I noticed that one of the candles had sunk to thin blue flame. Falling silent, contemplating the dying fire, I found myself trying to summon the dead. As you may have heard, my home is haunted. Dy after day I walked to the greenhouse under a dazzling blue sky, wishing that my spirits would rise accordingly. Until one hot and airless morning, I emerged to find the sky already overcast. My anxiety grew until, early in the afternoon, against the walls and windows of the house the wind had roused itself with a shuddering, uncertain violence. The shadows themselves spread and encroached. Gravel was sprayed against the windowpanes as if in antic glee. Still, all afternoon the heat pressed down and the barometer continued to drop, until darkness fell without a breath of wind. Too restless to read, I sat out in the garden, staring into the night. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
Then away on the horizon came the first faint flicker of lightning, branching and multiplying in dumb show until the air began to stir, and the distant muttering of thunder rose above the shrilling of the insects. The storm, approaching gradually at first, seemed to gather pace as it came nearer, until the sky to the south was a searing tapestry of light. Soaked from the heavy rain, fear took me. I felt loquacious, verbose. I found myself descending the cellar steps. The truth is, the basement had always unnerved me. It was cold, and there was a starkness about the shadows and the light. There was the feeling I always had of being followed. I wondered sometimes had my professional life had not been some sort of reaction to, or compensation for, the fears I felt to plagued by. Maybe. And maybe not. There were plenty of other people rightfully prone to night terrors of their own. Now, in the basement, amid my stores and stashes of secret collusive things, something shifted softly over by the shelves against the far wall. I saw an alien face looking at me. His face had somehow melted and twisted. His mouth had melded together, but there was a hole in his cheek that he could make no sound through. His features were badly distorted and he was hideously deformed—even his hands were burned and melted. However, the worst thing was that his puckered, melted flesh had taken on a slight greenish tinge. Terribly frightened, I grabbed the book I was looking for and took the elevator back upstairs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
I sat up long after lightning had ceased and the wind had died away, listening to the steady patter of rain on the leaves outside. Whatever I ought to have done, it was too late now. Nevertheless, I was early in my study the next day, and spent most of the morning pacing up and down my room, peering out at the rainswept garden. Ten minutes later, the rain had all but ceased, but grey, swirling cloud hung low over the sodden landscape. Despite the fire, the chill seeped into my bones, slowing my thoughts to a dull trance of apprehension until I sank into a dream in which I seemed to be conscious of every creak and rattle in my mansion, yet I felt safe and warm at my own fireside, only to walk, half-frozen, in the gloom isolation. The mansion was shrouded in vapour, the lighting robs all but concealed in the mist that swirled above the rooftop. The pounding of my own heart seemed unnaturally loud as I approached the entrance to the library. The doors would not budge, and the key would not enter the lock. I hammered on the door, again, with no result but a fusillade of echoes. I drew off a little and threw my full weight against the door, expecting the panel to fracture; instead the door burst open with a rending crash, pitching me across the threshold as lock and bolts tore from their sockets. There was no on in the study. Along the wall another door stood open, concealing whatever lay beyond. I moved uneasily toward the other door. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Shuddering as if I had seen a serpent, I burst onto the landing, with the sound of my footsteps reverberating around me. I heard a cry from the darkness below. There are some credulous people who pretend to have seen this ghost. Huntsmen and woodcutters say they have met him by the large oak on the cross path. That is supposed to be the spot he inclines most to haunt, for the tree was planted in remembrance of the man who fell there. My Heavens my home was an interesting spot. The apparitions of imprisoned damsels who never reappeared, the storming of the observational tower, the death of the knight, the nightly wanderings of his spirit round the old oak, and lastly, the architecture, the indescribable curiosity that draws so many hither. That is when I noticed there were sounds of muffled sixteenth-century music emanating from the empty Grand Ballroom, while ghostly sounds of battle came from outside. I made my way towards the music and saw a blue light emanating from the room. The brilliantly lighted room gave a full view of a stranger. He was a man about forty, tall, and extremely thin. His features could not be termed uninteresting—there lay in them something bold and daring—but the expression was on the whole anything but benevolent. There were contempt and sarcasm in the cold grey eyes, whose glance, however, was at times so piercing that I could not endure it long. His complexion was even more peculiar than his features: it could not be called pale; it was an olive colour; and was rendered still more remarkable by the intense blackness of his short-cropped hair. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
As I was going to supper, it was only natural to invite the stranger to partake of it; he complied, however, only in so far that he seated himself at the table, for he ate no morsel. The housemaid, with some surprise inquired the reason. “For a long time past I have accustomed myself never to eat at night,” he replied with a strange smile. “My digestion is quite unused to solids, and indeed would scarcely confront them. I live entirely on liquids.” “Oh, then we can have a cup of lemonade together,” I cried. “Thanks; but I neither drink lemonade nor any cold beverage,” replied the other; and his tone was full of mockery. It appeared as if there was some amusing association connected with the idea. “Then I will order you a cup of hippocras”—a warm drink composed of herbs—“it shall by ready immediately,” I said. “Many thanks, fair lady; not at present,” replied the other. “But if I refuse the beverage you offer men now, you may be assured that as soon as I require it—perhaps very soon—I will request that, or some other of you.” The housemaids Trinity and Harriette thought the man had something inexpressibly repulsive in his whole manner, and they had no inclination to engage him in conversation. I begged his pardon and asked his name. “It has now been in hour that we have known each other—-” “And I have not yet told you my name, although you would gladly know it. I am called Johann von Hahn and I live at Rozafa Castle.” “What bring you to my home?” I asked. “You see, my dear lady,” he continued, “Mrs. Winchester, there are a variety of strange whims in the World. As I have already said, I love what is peculiar and uncommon. It is wrong in the main to be astonished at anything, for, viewed in one light, all things are alike; even life and death, this side of the grave and the other, have more resemblance than you would imagine. You perhaps consider me rather touched a little in my mind?” #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
“I understand you: I know how to vale your ideas, if no one else does,” I cried eagerly. “The humdrum, everyday life of the generality of men is repulsive to you; you have tasted the joys and pleasures of life, at least what are so called, and you have found them tame and hollow. How soon one tires of things one sees all around! Life consists in change. Only in what is new, uncommon, and peculiar, do the flowers of the spirit bloom and give forth scent. Even pain may become pleasure if it saves one from the shallow monotony of everyday life—a thing I shall hate till the hour of my death.” “Right, Mrs. Winchester—quite right! Remain in this mind: this was always my opinion, and the one from which I have derived the highest reward, caried Johann; and his fierce eyes sparkled more intensely than ever. “I am doubly pleased to have found in you a person who shares my ideas,” I said. As Johann spoke in a cold tone of politeness, taking leave before the table was cleared. When the stranger had departed, many were the remarks made on his appearance and general department. The following morning I lay longer than usual in bed. When the housemaid came to my room, fearful lest I should be ill, she found me pale and exhausted. I had passed a very bad night; the stranger must have excited me greatly, for I felt quite feverish and exhausted, and a strange dream, too, had worried me, which was evidently a consequence of the evening’s conversation. “At least let me here this wonderful dream, Mrs. Winchester,” Henrietta cried. To her surprise, I was a length of time refused to do so. “Come, tell me,” inquired Henrietta, “what can possibly present you from relating a dream—a mere dream? I might almost think it credible.” #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
“This whimsical stranger was fascinating, but I must not say,” I replied. “Strange, Mrs. Winchester,” cried Henrietta. “I cannot comprehend the almost magic influence which this man, so repulsive, exercises over you.” “Perhaps the very reason I take his part, may be that you are all so prejudiced against him,” I remarked. “But that dream, Mrs. Winchester?” said Henrietta, easily appeased. “Now tell it to me. You know how I delight in hearing anything of the kind.” “Well, I will, as a sort of compensation for my peevishness towards you,” I said. “Now, listen! I had walked up and down my room for a long time; I was excited—out of spirits—I do not know exactly what. It was almost midnight ere I lay down, but I could not sleep. I tossed about, and at length it was only from sheer exhaustion that I dropped off. However, what a sleep it was! An inward fear ran through me perpetually. I saw a number of pictures before me, as I used to in childish sickness.. I do not know whether I was asleep or half awake. Then I dreamed, but as clearly as if I had been wide awake, that a sort of mist filled the room, and out of it stepped the knight Johann. He gazed at me for a time, and then letting himself slowly down on one knee, imprinted a kiss on my throat. Long did his lips rest there; and I felt a slight pain, which always increased, until I could bear it no more. With all my strength I tried to force the vision from me, but succeeded only a long struggle. No doubt I uttered a scream, for that awoke me from my trance. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
“When I came a little to my senses, I felt a sort of superstitious fear creeping over me—how great you may imagine when I tell you that, with my eyes open and awake, it appeared to me as if Johann’s figure were still by my bed, and then disappearing gradually into the mist, vanished at the door.” “You must have dreamed very heavily, Mrs. Winchester,” began Henrietta, but with a sudden pause. She gazed with surprise at my throat. “Why is that?” I cried. “Just look: how extraordinary—a red streak on your throat!” Several weeks passed. I daily became thinner, more sickly and exhausted, and at the same time so pale, that in a space of a month not a tinge of red was perceptible on my once glowing cheek. The ravishes of my fever filled the housemaids with alarm. It was on the morning of the following day; the sun had not risen above an hour, and the dew still lay like a veil of pearls on the grass or dripped from the petals of the flowers swaying in the early breeze. Someone opened the gates to my private interest to the garden. He walked along several obscure passages, and finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came the sight and sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine glimmering among them. He stepped forth, and, forcing himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden entrance, stood the open area of my garden. How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance. My pulses had throbbed with feverish blood at the idea of someone standing in this very garden, basking in the Victorian sunshine of my beauty, and snatching me from my full gaze the mystery which I deemed the riddle of my own existence. The fields turned into a gloomy path. The doctors who attended me say I only grew rose. I had always bloomed like a rose, but for some months I had been getting so thin and wasted, and without any satisfactory reason: they tried every means to restore me, but in vain. One evening, an old Sclavonian—who had made many voyages to Turkey and Greece, and had never seen the New World—and I were sitting over our wine. We chatted for about an hour, and I drank a glass of wine. As soon as I had, in some degree, I astonishingly started to recover. It was a gradual recovery, but fortune favored me. My health had been so severely shaken, that it was long ere and my strength was restored at to allow me of being considered out of danger. However, my character underwent a great change in the interval. Its former strength was, perhaps, in some degree diminished, but in place of that, I had acquired a benevolent softness, which brought out all my best qualities. I continued expanding my mansion, and treated my fortune as a joy and blessing, and allowed this beauty to be expressed in the creative design. Many people were surprised by my generosity. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
A few weeks after my recovery, I was conversing with the housemaid, and she told me a story of a stonemason who had recently died on the estate. This man, had been abroad in the fruit orchards on the afternoon of the great storm. At any rate, he had missed his way, and wandered until he came to the Observational Tower. Oppressed by the airless heat, he lay down to rest a little way from the entrance, fell into a deep sleep, and woke in pitch darkness. The storm had not yet broken, but with the stars entirely obscured, he dared not move; he could not see his hand in front of his face. Then a spark of light appeared in the blackness, flickering amongst the trees as it came toward him. He thought of calling out for help, but—though he was not a local man, and knew nothing of Llanada Villa’s reputation—something about its silent, purposeful approach unnerved him. As it came closer still, he could make out a human figure-whether a man or a woman he could not tell—with a lantern in its hand. Again he was out to call out, when he saw that the figure was shrouded, not in a greatcoat but a monk’s habit, with the hood drawn over its head. Now he feared for his soul and would have fled blindly into the fruit orchard, but his limbs were frozen with dread. Twigs crackled beneath its feet as the figure passed within a few yards of him; it was tall, he said, too tall for a mortal man, and as it went by he caught a glimpse of dead-white flesh—or was it bone?—beneath the hood. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
It did not pause, but went straight up to the tower’s door. He heard the scrape of a key, the rasp and snap of a lock, and then a creaking of hinges as the door swung inward and the figure passed into the Observational Tower, closing the door behind it. The glow of the lantern shone out through a barred window at the side. Now was his chance to flee; he knew that if the figure emerged again, it would see him. However, he could move only as far as the light from the window would guide him, for fear of falling and having the creature rush upon him. He began to creep around the side of the tower, keeping the edge of the dim semicircle of light. Then he saw that the glass had gone from the window, leaving only four rusty bar between himself and the scene within. The hooded figure stoon with it back to him, facing a stone coffin by the opposite wall: the lantern hung upon a bracket overhead. Even as he watched, it leaned forward and raised the lid of the sarcophagus with a grinding of stone on stone. Again his limbs failed him; he could only watch as the creature took down its lantern, slipped over the edge, and in one swirling movement lay down within the tomb, lowering the lid as it went, until only a thing line of yellow light remained. A moment later, that, too, was extinguished, and he was plunged once more into absolute darkness. Then his nerve gave way altogether and he fled blindly into the wood, stumbling and rebounding from one obstacle to another until he ran headfirst into a tree trunk, to be roused an indefinite time later by a gigantic crash of thunder. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Even beneath the trees he was drenched to the kin, and when he finally stumbled out of the fruit orchard the next morning, he was in a worse case than I had been. He was taken to the infirmary, where he survived the first bout of fever, and was able to relate his strange tale to Dr. Montgomery, but his lungs never recovered, and another infection carried him off within the month. Dr. Montgomery, though he thought it picturesque enough to be worth relating, naturally dismissed the unfortunate man’s story as a delirious dream. Of course the housemaid agreed with him, but it reminded me of an uncomfortably of the old superstition about the Mansion, and the image of the shrouded figure with the lantern troubled my imagination for many months to come. I summoned up all my powers of mind and body, went towards the Observational Tower, and sank on my knees before the altar in quiet prayer. A sort of twilight reigned in the nine-story tower, and everything around was so still and peaceful, that I felt more calm. However, I knew myself to be in terrible danger, of what kind I could not guess: in an agony that threatened to rob me of my senses. I began to lose consciousness. I wished to hasten away, but staggered; and mechanically grasping at something to save myself by, seized the corner of the coffin, and sank fainting beside it on the floor. A quarter of an hour might have elapsed when I again opened my eyes. I looked around me. Above was the starry sky, and the moon, which shed my cold light on the ruins and on the tops of the palm trees. My shoulder was wet, my throat, my hand…my hand was full of blood. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
The Winchester Mystery House is best known for its architecture and lovely gardens, but some customers believe the mansion is haunted. Some say that they have seen a dark shadow following them into the place; still others say they hear things in the house—things like silverware moving about with an odd tinkling sound. Several years ago, a woman witnessed a cup levitate and fly across the room smashing against the wall. There is a persistent cold in the Daisy Bedroom even on a hot day. Could this cold spot be evidence of a ghost? Some believe that phantoms are the spirits of the carpenters, checking back at the place they worked so hard to build. So many people have so many good times at the Winchester Mystery House, they return now that they are in spirit. “The Daisy Bedroom and the front lobby seemed to me to be haunted. There was also a strange feeling in the Witches Cap, as well. If you go there, keep an eye out for moving shadows. People are usually so busy looking for ghost that they miss them!” https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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And the Skulls were Partially Digested!
As I was cultivating the garden, the most simple and innocent of human toils, the morning sun was shining with uncommon brilliancy, birds were singing in every tree and on every bush; so pleasant, so spirit-stirring, health-giving a morning, seldom I had seen. And the effect upon my spirits was great. This must have been like the same joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present World? It was arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much. I was redundant with life, health, and energy. Hours and hours past. As the night started closing it, I went to the parlor, and thought of the influence of the light of the morning that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun’s decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. My first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden which my dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. I was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be in the first rays of the sun which gilded the dewdrops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. I rejoiced that I had the privilege of owning this estate which possessed such lovely and luxuriant vegetation. It served as a symbolic language to keep me in communion with Nature. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The ordinary little casualties of evil fortune had certainly from time to time in the shape of illness, and one thing or another, attacked the family of the Winchesters’ in common with every other family, but here suddenly had arisen a something at once terrible and inexplicable. I was in a deep and anxious thought when I heard a noise from the direction of the library: the sound of a key turning in a lock. My skin was crawling afresh. I blew out the candle, closed the book, and moved as quickly as I dared toward the main entrance. However, footsteps were already approaching the door from the library, and I knew that the landing doors could not be opened in a hurry without making a great deal of noise. Nor was there time to make it to the elevator. I could have hidden beneath the long table, but the thought of being discovered, and having to crawl ignominiously out to face the apparition…No; there was only one possible hiding-place. I stepped into the trap door, and I was plunged into absolute darkness. There was very little air, even at first, and it soon grew stifling hot. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I became aware of a faint glimmer. I could feel the dread and chill that the spirit brought. As I sat, I noticed there was a severed head facing away from me on the floor. The sides of the head were dark and bloody and the air there matted with gore where the ears had been sliced off. I only notice that after taking in the raw, red nakedness of his skull. However, he had been scalped, too. His lips were drawn back in a snarl of agony from his teeth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Worse, though, were his eyes. They were black, dismayed, lost as the life dimmed in them to the dawning consequence, of what his bartering with evil was going to mean for him in death. The secret passageway was vaulted, timbered in hardwood, the high dome spreading above a spacious circular room, flagged in smooth stone under strew rugs, opulently furnished in teak and ivory and marble and blood. The headless torso of this man lay in a thickening pool of gore, small and still at the carved feet. Shambolic and grotesque, much worse of a sight than anyone could imagine. Its skin was some greyish animal hide, scraped and seasoned, maybe the softened hides of boar or buffalo, crudely stitched over its stuffing in the rough shape and posture of a man Standing, it would have been about eight feet tall. It was a lifeless thing, an abomination slouched on its throne, with its cloven buffalo hooves for feet, with its hands taken from some slaughtered ape and clenched now, the fingernails black with rictus and crafty decay. It was an abomination, right enough, but crudely inanimate. I lite a torch and studied the head. It was large and pale and bald, sunken in placed in shallow depressions where the stuffing did not seem to be sufficient and gave it a deformed and almost sullen aspect. The eyes were blank discs of ivory perforated at their edges and stitched on to the fact. And the mouth under them was a black, leering gash. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
I could not fathom what had been living in the walls of my home. Shaking my head in disbelief, I tuned my back on the thing. And felt the hairs rise on my neck in dread as I heard foot steps behind me. In my heart, I felt that demons were living within my home and was deeply afraid. It appears that someone had been dabbling with diabolical forces. Remorseful, ashamed, deepening terror, I felt my heart was going to explode out of my chest. I turned around, already squeezing the trigger of my revolver, and fired. I hit it with a burst, cutting the monstrosity in half. As a staggered through the secret caverns, I noticed other curious things, bits of gold, plaits of old rope, rags, coins, what looked like a couple dozen diamonds and five small human skulls. And the skulls were partially digested. The silence began to unnerve me. I was seized by a creeping, mortal dread. I wondered, “Am I awake? Have I my senses?” This was an inexpressibly terrible night. An impulsive movement, I drew my eyes to the window. There I beheld the beautiful head of a young man—rather a Grecian than an Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold among his ringlets—gazing down upon me like a being that hovered in mid-air. An incredible clear and calm overcame me. A doorway opened in the catacombs. I watched this angelic man walk through them as I followed. Back inside the mansion, he became light and insubstantial as a ghost, until he disappeared completely into thing air. It was midnight, and the door behind me vanished, leaving nothing but a solid mahogany wall behind. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Those who have never personally felt the demons storming over their home can have no conception of the reality. A number of wolves have also taken up their quarters in the fruit orchards and feed on wild birds, rabbits and such like. They are sky in the summer-time, and a boy of twelve might scare them; but when the birds migrate, and the rabbits are gone, they prowl about at night, and they are dangerous. They are the worst, however, on stormy nights, for then it is just as if the fiend himself possessed them: they are so mad and fierce that man and beast become alike their victims; and a party of them have been known even to attack the ferocious bears of the mountains, and, what is more, to come off victorious. Their howl is enough to scare the bravest man. As soon as it commences, the wind rises, and you will see their eyes gleaming among the trees. Your only plan for safety is to wrap your cloak around you, and lie down flat on the ground. If your home were but a few hundred yards off, you might lose your life in the attempt to reach it. Horses become unmanageable as the terror infects them. Grown men begin weeping with fear when their howling recommences and approaches nearer and nearer. As the moonbeams become dusky amongst the trees, from time to time a fierce howl arises from their center, and people know they are in great danger, as the wolves will very soon make a general attack. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
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 Lucifer; and by that God that Thou Worshippest; and by the Seal of thy creation; and by the most mighty and powerful name of God, IEHOVAH TETRAGRAMMATON who cast thee out of Heaven with all other infernal spirits; 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 Fifty-second Spirit Alloces and His 36 Legions of Spirits to come here before this Circle in a fair and comely shape, without hard unto me or unto any other creature. I awaken you and your powers of darkness which dwell within you by the power of the blood of Lucifer that you may serve to empower this great mansion! Through serving the greater cause of dark magick which breaks 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 and empower our great work of counter creation as an Apostle of the Lord of Darkness eternal and as a warrior of the Path Satanachia. Herein receive such virtue that we may obtain by thee the perfect issue of all our desires, which also we seek to perform without evil, without deception, by God, the Creator of the Sun and the Angels. Amen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
In 1994, a man stopped by The Winchester Mystery House for the Christmas Tree tour. Afterward, he went to the café for a cup of coffee. He brought his coffee and sat at a table, by the doors looking out onto the courtyard. He picked up a newspaper and started looking through it as he was sipping his coffee. There was no one else in the area, and he noticed just a few people outside waiting to tour the estate. One waiter was at the counter at the time, and there were a few other employees in the gift shop area. Very shortly, he noticed a man and a woman enter from the courtyard. They passed, looked around for a moment, then sat down in the back of the café. He could not help but notice them because of the way they were dressed and the way the looked. The man was dressed in a nice-looking black suit and wearing a tie, but his complexion was that of a very sick man. He was very pale and seemed to be sweating. The woman wore a Victorian type dress, black and long, very formal, it reached down to her ankles. She was carrying a large cloth type bag. They sat for a moment and the woman reached into her bag and withdrew a large towel of some kind and began wiping the man’s face, over and over again.
Then she put it back in the bag. They sat for a few more moments, apparently conversating, although he could not hear what they were saying. Then the man walked over to his table. He asked, “Do you have some money so I can get something to drink?” The sickly-looking man was so well dressed that he was surprised he asked for money. So he refused him. The sickly-looking man starred at him for a while and went and sat back down. He is his wife talked for a while, and walked towards him, they made a left and went toward the exist. Out of curiosity, he immediately got up to see where they were going, but they had vanished. He went outside and looked at the cars in the parking lot and all of them were empty. Upon revealing security footage, the manager determined that was William and Sarah Winchester, but before they reached the exist, the security tape got all fuzzy and distorted. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” reports Hebrews 13.2. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Look at those Big Bad Pimps—Americans Want to Pay for their Lunch!
Whenever a single wave of change predominates in any given society, the pattern of future development is relatively easy to discern. Writers, artists, journalists and others discover the “wave of the future.” Thus, in nineteenth-century Europe many thinkers, business leaders, politicians and ordinary people held a clear, basically correct image of the future. They sensed that history was moving toward the ultimate triumph of industrialism over premechanized agriculture, and they foresaw with considerable accuracy many of the changes that the Second Wave would bring with it: more powerful technologies, bigger cities, faster transport, mass education and the like. This clarity of vision had direct political effects. Parties and political movements were able to triangulate with respect to the future. Preindustrial agricultural interests organized a rearguard psychological action against encroaching industrialism, against “big business,” against “union bosses,” against “sinful cities.” Labor and management grappled for control of the main levers of the emergent industrial society. Ethnic and racial minorities, defining their rights in terms of an improved role in the industrial World, demanded access to jobs, corporate positions, urban housing, better wages and mass public education. This industrial vision of the future had important effects as well. The shared image of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. #RandolphHarris 1 of 18
This industrial vision of the future had important psychological effects as well. The shared images of an industrial future tended to define options, to give individuals a sense not merely of who or what they were but of what they were likely to become. It provided a degree of stability and a sense of self, even in the midst of extreme social change. In contrast, when a society is struck by two or more giant waves of change and none is yet clearly dominant, the image of the future is fractured. It becomes extremely difficult to sort out the meaning of the changes and conflicts that arise. The collision of wave fronts creates a raging ocean full of clashing currents, eddies and maelstorms which conceal the deeper, more important historic tides. In the United States of America—and in many other countries—the collision of Second and Third Wave creates social tensions, dangerous conflicts and strange new political wave fronts that cut across the usual divisions of class, race, gender, or party. This collision makes a shambles of traditional political vocabularies and makes it very difficult to separate progressive from reactionaries, friends from enemies. All the old polarizations and coalitions break up. The apparent incoherence of political life is mirrored in personality disintegration. Psychotherapists and gurus do a land-office business, people wander aimlessly amid competing therapies. They slip into cultus and covens or, alternatively, into a pathological privatism, convinced that reality is absurd, insane or meaningless. #RandolphHarris 2 of 18
Life may indeed be absurd in some large, cosmic sense. However, this hardly proves that there is no pattern in today’s events. In fact, there is a distinct, hidden order the becomes detectable as soon as we learn to distinguish Third Wave changes from those associated with a diminishing Second Wave. The crosscurrents created by these waves of change are reflected in our work, family life, sexual attitudes and personal morality. They show up in life-styles and voting behavior. For in our personal lives and political acts, whether we know it or not, most of us in the rich countries are essentially Second Wave people committed to maintaining a dying order. Third Wave people constructing a radically different tomorrow or a confused, self-canceling mixture of the two. The conflict between Second and Third Wave groupings is, in fact, the central political tension cutting through our society today. The more basic political question, as we shall see, is not who controls the last days of industrial society but who shapes the new civilization rapidly rising to replace it. On one side are the partisans of the industrial past; on the other, growing millions who recognize that the most urgent problems of the World can no longer be resolved within the frame work of an industrial order. This conflict is the “super struggle” for tomorrow. #RandolphHarris 3 of 18
This confrontation between the vested interest of the Second Wave and the people of the Third Wave already runs like an electric current through the political life of every nation. Even in the nonindustrial counties of the World, all the old battle lines have been forcibly redrawn by the arrival of the Third Wave. The old war of agricultural, often feudal interests against industrializing elites, either capitalist or socialists, takes on a new dimension in light of the coming obsolescence of industrialism. Now that Third Wave civilization is making its appearance, does rapid industrialism imply liberation from neocolonialism and poverty, or does it, in fact, guarantee permanent dependency? It is only against this wide-screen background that we can begin to make sense of the headlines, to sort out our priorities, to frame sensible strategies for the control of change in our lives. Once we realize that a bitter struggle is now raging between those who seek to preserve industrialism and those who seek to supplant it, we have a new tool for changing that World. To use this tool, however, we must be able to distinguish clearly those changes that extend the old industrial civilization from those which facilitate the arrival of the new. We must, in short, understand both the old and the new, the Second Wave industrial system into which so many of us were born and the Third Wave civilization that we and our children have inhabited. America has a lot of structural problems. Almost all of them are similar to those faced by developing nations. However, they are more acute and visible to the World because of America’s unique status. #RandolphHarris 4 of 18
The list is well-known. We no longer manufacture a significant portion of products we use in our own country. Although we are technologically advanced, new technology is often not used in many buildings and infrastructure because older technology is more cost efficient. And there is a battle between polluting enterprises and green technology, both of which pose problems for the environment. There is high latent unemployment and underemployment in rural and urban areas. Large-scale migration to the cities overstrains their infrastructure causing a lot of ultra-urbanization pains. Obviously mismatch exists between the labor supply (and those willing to work for lower wages, tend to get most of the work). And so on, and so forth. Discussion of America’s present and future usually focuses on a gentlemanly set of problems. They are often looked upon as critical and posing a threat of abrupt and disruptive economic downturn, social and political turmoil or, in the extreme case, the country’s collapse. Such views do not look convincing. The gentlemanly set of problems is manageable, especially for America with its remarkable ability to address crucial issues a gradual, evolutionary, but persistent change. Let us have a loot at a conventional Problem List. Aging Population and Labor Shortages? Yes, population of the working age is apparently approaching its peak and will start to decline in the second half od this century. #RandolphHarris 5 of 18
However, labor force constraints can and most likely will be offset by further gains in labor productivity. Also, there is still a lot of underused human resources in the countryside (about 40 percent of all American worker live in suburban areas) whose migration to the cities will continue to boost labor supply. However, many businesses are now leaving the decaying urban centers, for the suburbs, and many people are working from their electronic cottages. As a result, more businesses will move to the suburbs, which should decrease inner state traffic. As for the growing number and share of elderly people, America with its high migration rates, unhealthy public finance, extremely high social spending, and high dependency toward social safety nets in the future, is in a good position to address the population aging issues in a realistic and financially sustainable way. However, many senior citizens are now small business owners and in good health and are working and support their families, while their kids go to college to obtain degrees, and one day may take over the family business and expand it. Also, the genetic engineer and stem cell technology, we may be able to prevent and cure disabilities. Therefore, most of the population will be in the condition to work and pay taxes. One day, scientists may even find a cure for aging. So, there is a lot of hope for the future. Growing Income Gaps? Well, indeed, they are growing, but, on the other hand, low-income families are mostly elevating their earnings and consumption standards; social safety nets are improving; and, overall, today’s America provides a lot of opportunities to enhance revenues and life a better life to those who really want to make it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 18
Intra-Regional Development Gaps Threatening the Country’s Integrity? Not at all. It is not a critical problem as less developed provinces are becoming the country’s major growth engines and the state has enough financial and other resources to support and amplify the trend. Environmental Damage Endangering the Very Basis of Human Life? No doubt, a whole lot of issues have become critical. However, America is more and more establishing the position of the World leaders in most areas of sustainable smokestack energy, as these companies like Standard Oil are starting to tackle the environmental problems in the same gradual, evolutionarily, but persistent manner it tackled the other ones. And, finally, is there a threat of a big political and social turmoil that may occur as people’s anger with the authoritarian Capitalist regime and democratic political system bursts out and they take to the streets again? Fringe groups of Americans have also been dissatisfied with law and order and hard work, and their anger with the regime is really strong and apparently growing, impacted by numerous cases of power abuse, rampant corruption, disrespect for law enforcement, abuse elder and contempt for leaders, and a lack of respect for patriots and Americana, and other violations of basic human rights. A fresh memory of mine…Some three or four years ago, during a reception in hour of a group of American professors visiting Africa, two of them approached me for a greeting and asked a tough question: “Sir, why don’t you write plainly the America’s present political system is outdated and has to be changed? It worked, but now it has ceased to work. For us it is kind of problematic to write such a thing. Why don’t you?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 18
What could I say to this? For sure, democracy and human rights have a basic, universal value and are perhaps not less (or even more?) important than economic growth and rising living standards, but really all of that is intertwined. Generally speaking, people are disrespected because they do not have enough money, because the color of their skin, religion, physical appearance and what type of house they live in and the car they drive. However, as standards of living increases, through economic growth, people become more rational, better education, and have more money to defend themselves in a court of law, so people reconsider violating these peoples’ human rights because they know they may suffer dire financial and legal consequences as a result, which could impact their freedom and reputation. However, on a macro level, we are seeing people raging against the capitalistic regime and they are actually fighting to restrict freedoms and destroy human dignity; information block-outs are now occurring because a handful of corporations own the media outlets and are fighting to conceal the truth; as well as cynical politicians consorting with the World’s most dictatorial and criminal regimes, which often get a helping hand from Washington when the global community tries to do something to put an end to their brutalities (notably, America tends to mind its own business and condemns brutal regimes for massacres of all people or for developing weapons of mass destruction; it always repeats honest and genuine calls to resolve issues peacefully and not to interfere with internal affairs when possible), naturally, this causes resentment, anger, and indignation. #RandolphHarris 8 of 18
It is a moral and historical obligation of all America and all honest people in the World who care about justice, the rule of law, mortality, and individual freedom to do their best to send the global leadership a clear message about it. On the other hand, values, ideals, and emotions are not the right starting point when your task is to analyze the logic of the evolution of the country’s political system. And there the truth is that America is approaching the task of changing its political system in the very same way it has approached the task of the economic reforms; gradual, evolutionary, but persistent. Its ruling elite is really trying to find workable answers to key and very difficult questions, while avoiding, by all means, any abrupt revolutionary change. At the dawn of 2020, President Trump proclaimed that everything which is good for a human being is capitalism, that is it not so important if you drive a Cadillac or BMW as long as it is made in America or Europe, and that there is no problem with some Americans becoming rich earlier than others. A variety of forms of ownership is encouraged to give a boost to private enterprise and less the burden on social programs. Many affluent people, this may come to a surprise to some, when they retire, it is funded 100 percent by private investments. Wealthy and upper-class Americans have always felt shameful to use government resources, that is why they believe in capitalism. They want to pay for their lunch. After his election, President Trump boosted the stock market to record highs, we saw property value soar (which is a good thing because it puts money in the banks of homeowners), and unemployment reach a historic low. #RandolphHarris 9 of 18
Also, although President Trump is a Republican, he is also a business owner. He fought to make sure each and every America, no matter if they pack income taxes or not, and every business received stimulus money. This helped avoid a depression that would have been much more severe than the Great Depression. Because people have hope, they did not jump from buildings to end their lives like they did during the great depression. President Trump also made sure all Americans has access to medical care, that they had food on the table and that fuel prices remained low so people could get back to work and school. He also told people that they have a right to tell authorities about their grievances, in a respectful manner, but that is they got out of line that the situation would be dealt with by using necessary force. He also told Congress and state and local leaders that they are to listen to what the people say, as long as they are respectful, and seek solutions for the issues they pose. Also, perhaps, America is the World leader in terms of the number of high-ranking officials executed for corruption-related crimes. The FBI prosecuted several government officials in Sacramento when they raided the state capitol. Again, any changes America makes will not be abrupt: from one party of rule to full-fledged multiparty politics, but evolutionary and very gradual, which is why it is very important to people to actually to research about political issues and politicians and vote accordingly. Many people used to vote democratic because they wanted high welfare benefits and more social programs, but as you see, many democrats are using the money to build sports complexes and remodel state buildings and put in bike lanes and resurface sidewalks, while affordable housing needs are ignored. So a Republican may be your best bet. #RandolphHarris 10 of 18
As any business owner will tell you, if your employees cannot take care of themselves, they will not take good care of your business. Therefore, a business owner might make a better President, than a politician because they are used to dealing with human concerns. Citizens are being encouraged by federal law enforcement to stop criticizing the ruling party too strongly because otherwise they may face tough penalties—for example, for disturbing the social order or for being a public nuisance. President Trump was even in the works of making a government news broadcast channel, like FOX News or CNN, so you could get the information directly and unfiltered from the government. That way, private entities and special interest groups will not be able to distort the information for profit. In other words, the major trend is and will be a shift from an outdated communist dictatorship of the traditional type to a more sophisticated political system with a democratic base. This will make the information projected over the airwaves more legitimate in the eyes of World and public opinion or at least to argue that it is legitimate and that it cares about democracy. Look around you and you will see: America is one of the best countries in the World. Now, prostitution is an economic activity, and it is one many people turn to when they cannot feed their families, and this is why the government likes to keep social programs because no matter how rich a person is or what political party, they are part of, their kids could become involved in prostitution if they have no other way to survive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 18
The prostitutes-as-business-women and prostitutes-as-loving-partners identifications were made possible by a men-as-expense symbolic landscape where men were defined in relation to money because involvement with them was seen as necessitating payment in the form of “opportunity costs” (id est, vales which must be given up in order to achieve something) and “hidden costs” (id est values which are unknown at the time of calculation). The men-as-expense symbolic nexus was a construction of involvement with men in general rather than involvement with men in the context of engagement in prostitution. Hence, Sophie (aged 28) made the comment: “If you get involved with a man—ANY MAN—there’s always a price to pay. There’s always responsibility to give him money or something. You never can get away with it for free.” Throughout all the respondents’ talk there were differences drawn between the actual opportunity cost incurred by relationships with different categories of men. Involvement with pimps, boyfriends and the police were described as necessitating an opportunity cost in that the women understood involvement with all these men as providing them with “sanctuary” from prostitution or protection from prostitution-related risks, but at different and specific prices. “What I was left with was absolute fear and terror—a loneliness on a level I didn’t know existed. I didn’t feel like a human being anymore,” Michelle shares of her heartbreaking story of addiction—an addiction that eventually drove her to become a prostitute. #RandolphHarris 12 of 18
Most of the women spoke about boyfriends with whom they were or had been involved and who gave them sanctuary from prostitution through financially supporting them. However, the women described such involvement as costing them their independence and it was their unwillingness to pay this price that, they believed, lead to the break up of those relationships. Similarly, involvement with policemen was seen as offering the women protection from prostitution-related violence, especially against violence from pimps. In her moments of deepest darkness, Michelle began entertaining the idea that maybe God could help her, maybe He could provide hope and light like to one else could. “My World changed. You don’t life a life like that and then have things change overnight. It took some time,” she says. Indeed, two other women recalled that it was only after the intervention of the police that they were able to leave their pimps. However, here, the police did not arrest the pimps, rather they arrested the women and took them to hostels or other helping agencies. The price for this was understood as being both provision of information to the police, and more importantly being “indebted” to the particular policeman who provided the help. In one of her moments of desperation, Michelle heard a knock on the door. Two police officers were on her doorstep and wanted to share a message with her. “I needed to know that Heavenly Father loved me. Once I started to believe that—to believe that I was a child of God, that I want not the sum of my behavior, that I was not too broke and not too damaged. I was not unlovable. I was loveable and I was worth it, and He would send His police officers to knock on the door to make me feel loved that night.” #RandolphHarris 13 of 18
Lastly, in relation in relation to pimps, more than half of the interviewees talked of making calculations about the quality of protection that pimps could offer them (against violence from johns or intimidation by other pimps) in exchange for the financial exploitation to which they would have to submit. This was most clearly seen in the women’s discussion of “big, bad pimps.” “Once they know who you’re working for and what status he’s got—like who’s the baddest, who’s got the gun and who hasn’t. You have only to mention his name and that was that. People leave you alone. Other [pimps] and other girls just leave you be. They don’t meddle because he’s psychotic! He’s notorious! He’s one very sick and twisted individual. People are afraid of him. (Anna, aged 36.) Of course, the obvious irony is that, although the women understood involvement with their pimps as a form of opportunity cost, providing them with protection, in reality, these pimps provided them with little protection and, in fact, exposed to them further violence and certainly to further financial exploitation. (I supposed they must have shorted him on his money.) In contrast, involvement with men as partners was described by the women as incurring “hidden costs.” In two cases, the hidden cost was initial entrance into prostitution. Both women talked about “having the knickers charmed off” them and being talked into engaging in prostitution. The cost was hidden because it only emerged after their relationships with these men were established. More commonly, however, was the woman’s understanding of the cost of maintaining their relationships as being their continued involvement in prostitution. As Anna (aged 36) stated: “There’s a lot of pressure. You have to do it, coz you need the money yourself. Then you get mixed up with someone and you have to do it again to help him, to keep a hold of him.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 18
A community committed to the optimal development of all its citizens will usually find—unless it is very small—that it has an array of all six types of agencies, both public and private. At the national level these are mostly grouped in the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare; at the local level, the city departments (plus some units of county and state) tend to cover the range, though very unevenly, and so do the councils of social agencies on the private side. Together they make up an impressive complement of personnel and machinery. From the administrative standpoint, not more machinery but its co-ordination to sever the family as a unit, appears to be the most pressing demand. From the standpoint of the citizen and family, however, the salient point is the effect achieved by the expenditure of resources; what matters is whether the agencies encourage dependency or foster development. Expressed in terms of values rather than functions, does the family agency attempt to define and achieve an optimal family, or does it avoid such responsibility, and merely seek to supply the most obvious and agreed-on deficiencies, as if these deficiencies were objective facts, not subject to different interpretations? In most parts of the United States of America, the hospital rather than the home is the place where babies are born and where patients with the more acute illnesses are cared for. Professional nurses and subordinate assistants have largely displaced kind relatives and helpful neighbors. #RandolphHarris 15 of 18
Yet while the hospitals have been taking over certain medical functions from the home, the biological scientists have been urging that greater responsibilities for nutrition, sanitation, and mental hygiene should fall upon the family itself. The vast and burdensome scale of mental disease in particular, which cannot possibly be reversed solely by psychiatric treatment at the point of breakdown, as well as an increased consciousness of the contribution of disturbed mental states to physical illness, have led physicians to expect more from the family than in the past. Nursing education steadily includes more social science. Likewise, the modern knowledge of bacterial and other origins of disease, and the biochemistry of healthful nutrition, have led to the elaboration of genuinely new functions, whereby the family may contribute to the physical competence of its members. Even if desirable, it would not be possible to have a psychiatrist, a bacteriologist, and a dietitian stand over every living unit of the community. If there is to be a rise in health along these lines, the members of each living unit must co-operate in supervising their own hygiene. It is not easy to think of a better institution for performing these functions than the competent family. There is a conspicuous problem for present families who attempt to cultivate the physical competence of their members. This is not really a medical problem at all but an economic one. It is the problem of hospital and doctor bills, and of spreading the risks of chronic or catastrophic illness. #RandolphHarris 16 of 18
The believer needing deliverance from the condition of passivity must first seek to understand what should be one’s normal or right condition, and then test or examine oneself in the light of it to discern if psychopathological offenders have been interfering. To do this, let one recollect a moment in one’s life which one would call one’s “best”—either in spirit, soul and body, or in one’s whole being—and then let one look upon this as one’s normal condition, one which one would want to be maintained, and never rest satisfied below it. Since the passivity has come about gradually it can only end gradually, as it is detected and destroyed. The full cooperation of the human is necessary for its removal—a major reason for the long period needed for deliverance. Deception and passivity can only be removed as the human understands, and cooperates by the use of one’s volition in the refusal of both the deception and the ground upon which it was based. It is important to keep perpetually in mind the standard of the normal condition, and should at any time the believer drop below it, to find out the cause, so as to have it removed. Whatever faculty or part of one’s being has been surrendered into passivity, and therefore lost for use, must be retaken by the active exercise of the will, and thus brought back into personal control. The ground which had been given—which caused the fall into bondage to the enemy—must be eliminated and then refuse persistently, in a steady resistance to the spirits of evil in their hold of it. Remember, the powers of psychopathological offenders will fight against the loss of any part of their kingdom in human, just as any Earthly government would fight to protect its own territory and subjects. #RandolphHarris 17 of 18
However, the “Stronger than he” is the Conqueror, and will strengthen the believer for the battle and full recovery of the spoil. First of all, the method of correlation is seen in action, the posing of existential questions followed by theological answers in the form of Christian symbols. Up to now the method of correlation has not been explicitly operative; rather, we have synthesized the union of religion and culture. Second, God, the Christ, the church, history—corresponds to the major divisions of Systematic Theology, and so we gradually progress systematically and express a lifetime of theological endeavor. The existential question is the question of being, and the answer is God. Also treated is the problem of the natural-supernatural and the problem of symbolism, or the way to speak about God. Thus we probe into the depth-dimension which underlies theonomous cultural forms, the holy which shines through the secular, the ground of being which alone can command the ultimacy of an ultimate concern. God is the answer to the question implied in being. We are nominalist by birth. And as nominalist we are inclined to dissolve our World into things. However, the true ontological question does not try to describe the nature of beings, either in their universal, generic qualities, or in their individual, historical manifestation. It simply asks: What does it mean to be? The profundity and the seriousness of the question is realized only in a “metaphysical shock”—the shock of possible nonbeing. The question, “Why is there something, why not nothing” produces the shock by peering into the abyss of possible nothingness. However, the answer to the question is always in terms of being, which permits it to be posed again and again in infinite regression. Furthermore, nonbeing cannot answer it, for nonbeing depends upon being. Therefore, we cannot go beyond being in order to explain being. However, there could be something, a state, beyond being and nonbeing that we cannot comprehend. #RandolphHarris 18 of 18
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Randolph Harris II International 