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Good-by; You’ll Never Know What This Has Cost Me
Mr. Hansen had never been able to understand why there was any harm in giving people a little encouragement when they needed it. Sitting back in my comfortable armchair by the fire, I thought to myself, “You would be surprised to find how discouraged the grand people get, in these big houses with all the help, and silver dinner plates, and a bell always handy if the fire wants poking, or the pet dog asks for a drink.” It was then that I first became aware of a disturbance in the air. A kind of restlessness. I looked sharply around the front parlor, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was deserted. No one had come along for some time. Yet there was a suggestion of movement nonetheless, a shifting of the light from the chandelier. The drapes loomed more menacingly and the fire appeared even closer, as I glanced out of window, my yard looked like an ancient forest of evergreen. What secrets did they contain within their shadows? My heart skipped a beat. I opened the window. The silence surged around me. Again, nothing. And inside—no telltale footsteps or voices. Only later, did it occur to me that the silence was peculiar. I should have been able to hear something. The roar of the furnaces, or the belching chimneys. The sound of the carpenters hammering. The servants washing dishes in one of the kitchens. However, I was only aware of the silence. Silence, as if I were the only one left alive on my estate. Then I heard it. No, not heard. I sensed it. A whispering, almost like a singing. The others have slipped away into darkness. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
I heard the ghost of Mr. Winchester’s voice inside my head, though it was growing fainter with the passing years. However, this was different, a lighter sound, gentle and exquisite, carried on the cold air. A reverberation, and echo of words once spoken in this place? And what of the crimson mist on arising from the floor? On these cold winter nights, it was not unusual to hear the clanking like a bucket, and the shuffling of feet. When I looked over toward the kitchen, there was a man—or something—dressed in a long white coat, all bent over like he was tired or something, slowly walking toward the door-to-nowhere. He was filling up the buckets using the exterior water faucets on the second floor that were used to water my flower boxes. He seemed to walk right out the door and to the front of the house, but there was nothing supporting him. Then he watered the flowers and walked slowly back into the house, real tired- like. And almost suddenly vanished. There were spirits caught forever in the never-ending labor to keep this estate operating. Perhaps these were visions out of time making their journey into the eternal flame as well as into Eternity itself. However, every July 2, officers could be frequently seen in the dim moonlight, in the Victorian garden, dressed in their gray tunics and gold stars and wreath, gathering around the fountains, mixing fine bourbon with the clear water, and toasting to the next day’s victory or death. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Summer nights always tended to be a little eerie. In the dark, the estate at best, is an uncomfortable place to be. The tragic memories and sorrows of a nation’s struggle defending the hour of the country with their Winchester Rifle’s hanged heavily and seemed magnified in the night. There is always something moving in the fruit orchards or the grass just off the unlighted portions of the estate. It all makes the Other World all that much closer. Sometimes one could even hear the strange military noises emanating from the 740 acres of land I own, and the fallen faces of the slaughtered. Desperate orders shouted…steel rammers ringing in muskets…the clicking of hammers cocked…the hoarse trill of a bugle…the clacking of artillery chains…a roar…shrieks…men gagging, crying, screaming, moaning, moaning, moaning….and there is often heard the funeral call, mounrful apologies of a heartsick, dying warrior to a lost friend bemoaning a fateful decision to be regretted down the ages. Although we had transitioned into summer, there was just an endless expanse of cold on these nights. Memories would seep into my mind. My Daisy Bedroom. Candles burned out. Me crying in the dark, jolted awake by bad dreams and calling out for my infant daughter who passed away long too soon. Then Mr. Winchester, sitting at the end of my bed, opening the curtains to let the silver moon in, saying there was nothing to be afraid of. How nothing could hard me. Not even a curse. How I was a Winchester, invincible and courageous. Nothing could get me as long as I kept building. And with William by my side, I believed it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
So I talked to myself to keep my spirit up. I was in no actual physical danger, I said. It was just a matter holding on to my nerved. Still, fragments of life flashed into my mind and out. Broken images of my husband and daughter, photographs of our happy days. Memories of Mr. Winchester. And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow coming to meet him. Had he recognized the moment for what it was? Whispering, I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the walls. “She is the last, the last, the heiress.” Heard howling from the walls. Sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching on the floors, and a terrible weeping. I worked hard to turn this mansion into something beautiful. Having evergreen trees planted and a variety of flowers. I even remodeled a room with attractive redwood walls, and another with floor to ceiling glass panels that provided a 180-degree view of the estate. I smiled when I saw the perennials that I had planted. However, a number of other peculiar incidents began to convince me that I was being visited by discarnate entities. I always knew I was being haunted. But now I was catching fleeting glimpses of fast-moving shadows from time to time when I would least expect to see such a thing. There would often be smells of delicate perfume. Mr. Hansen thought it was closer to a man’s cologne. Sometimes we encountered the scent together, but in every instance it came and drifted away after only a few minutes. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Once, when I was outside tending the flowers growing under the front windows, and I was suddenly enveloped in an invisible puff of strong cigar smoke. Then I was choking, coughing. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the smoke away from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, I saw the daisies with drops of blood on them, glittering and yet dull at the same time. I propelled myself into a standing position, and walked towards the front doors. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get those doors shut. When I looked in the mirror, I was not injured at all. That night while I was falling asleep, I sensed a large, dark presence in the bedroom. It glided over me and seemed to hover just over my head, and I was the recipient of a telepathic command: “I want to know your thoughts!” After I fell asleep, I experienced horrific nightmares. I was awakened by the sounds of terrific crashes, as though something huge had fallen over somewhere in the house, causing terrible damage. Thanks to the stocks I owned and the ones I bought in Con Edison, I was able to keep building rooms to evade the ghosts. Do you know how it is, sometimes when you are doing a bit of fine darning, sitting by the window in the afternoon; and one minute it is full daylight, and your needle seems to find the way of itself; and the next minute you say: “Is it my eyes? because the work seems blurred; and presently you see it is the daylight going, stealing away, softlike, from your corner, though there is plenty left overheard. Well—it is the way it is with these ghosts around.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Most nights, screaks could be heard emanating from within the walls. Then everything would be stripped of color, an absence and shade. Fog hovered motionless from the ceiling. And it would come again, over the whistling of the wind, the same indistinct whispering. “The others have slipped away into darkness.” “Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want from me?” But the fog, the apparition, had vanished. After the Spanish-America War, all the fine ladies took to running to the mediums and the clairvoyants, or whatever the stylish folk call them. The women had to have news of their men; and they were maid to pay high enough for it…Oh, the stories I used to hear—and the price paid was not only money, either! There was a fair lot of swindlers and blackmailers in the business, there was. I always had a way of seeing things; from the cradle, even. I do not mean reading the tea leaves, or dealing the cards. No, no; I mean, feeling there are things about you, behind you, whispering over your shoulder. I felt more and more sorry for those women that the soothsaying swindlers were dragging the money out of for a pack of lies; and one day I could not stand it any longer, and though I knew the Church was against it, when I saw one lady nearly crazy, because for months she had no news of her boy at the front, I said to her: “If you will come over to my place tomorrow, I might have a word for you.” And the wonder of it was that I had! For that night I dreamt a message came saying there was good news for her, and the next day, sure enough, she had a telegram telling her her son was coming home. And that August, the war ended. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
One is confronted finally with the metaphysics of time: is it merely linear; are we moving along it like riding a train on a track and all that happens, once it occurs, is forever gone? Or can that time be bent, as some prominent theoretical physicists of the late 19th and 20th centuries have said, so that we may run into it again? Or, can an event go out in more directions than just backward, carried on time like ripples from a stone throw in a pond, occasionally under very special circumstances in very special places, returning like a faint echo? Is it possible that the bigger the event the larger the ripples and the more likely they are to return? Or perhaps is it possible, if time can be bent, or the ripples move slowly enough, to catch up with events again, and again, and again? Come tour the Winchester Mystery House and perhaps you will find some hidden clues. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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And the Cold Was Back—Much Worse than Before!
I strolled through my pretty garden, bleak in winter, which perfectly matched my mood. I paused, as I always did, at the Cupid fountain. Just behind the fountain, a corridor of gaunt fir and black pine led to the wrought-iron gate. The stone tips of carved angels’ wings and Christian crosses guarded my estate and the peaks of my thirteen palm trees were just visible above the high walls. I thought to myself, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.” It was one of my favorite lines from Macbeth Act V, Scene ix. In this World, people purposefully create life’s counterfeit realities, and that is where so many feel most at home…where humans may transfigure themselves convincingly into characters who live only when the play’s on in their mind, and they act it out a daily life. I hesitated to go inside as I fancied the damp Earth. I started to walk around from my beautiful garden, but I was too slow. I saw him. For a fraction of a second, a shadow in the diminishing light or a trick of my unreliable eyes, I saw him standing on the stone steps directly to my front door. I felt a jolt of happiness and raised my hand to wave. Like the old days. “William?” His name dropped into the silent air. Then I felt my ribs tighten a notch, cracking like the tired winding mechanism on our old grandfather clock, and my arm fell back to my side in despair. There was nobody there. Though he did often come from the spirit World to visit me. I always felt a rush of joy, elation, and for a moment was able to believe he was still alive. But ghosts frequently float ephemerally around my mansion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
My family’s wealth and my home seemed to always being the long dead back, not just to entertain the living, but also to shed some light on life…from a rather unique point of view. It is after all a remarkable structure, the nine-story observational tower, the medieval-style turrets, and the high, gabled wood-clad interior ceiling complete with flying buttresses. Inside, because of its alteration there are bricked-up windows, stone walls that seal off rooms, lattice work light-wells which lead up to the turrets, false entrances and stairways, trap doors, dark, labyrinthine passageways, and a long stairway that dips into the depths of the catacombs and up into the bell tower. Where ghost, demons, and angels walked the boards for the ancient rites proclaiming life after death. Even in the daytime, with the subtle interior lighting, shadows and forms are seen to float across the walls. This is where it all started. This is where I cried and screamed. I am convinced that my home was constructed on the site of a graveyard. One night, when I was having a conversation with the housemaid, I saw a cloud form past the foot of the sofa, gathering like a white mist. Gertrude’s view was obstructed because she was facing me, but I could see the cloud take shape like a small person. It then put its hands on the arm of the sofa and pulled itself up by its hands, peeking at the housemaid for a moment, then lowering itself, holding on, and peeking again at her from the side of the sofa. Almost suddenly as she started to turn around it was gone. I had stopped talking and just watched the apparition for about a minute. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Gertrude asked, “Mrs. Winchester, did you just see something?” I answered tht I had and asked what she had seen. She replied that she thought she caught a glimpse of something small looking t her. I asked Gertrude if it had scared her. She answered no, because it resembled a young person, maybe a child. I agreed and that was that. The mansion always seemed haunted, and there were many instances of odd happenings. The Catacombs, darkly reminiscent of early Christian burial chambers. From the hayloft, there is an angled passageway. The servant use it to move through the mansion so they do not disturb anyone or anything, they frequently bump into someone in that narrow, twisted passageway. Bout no one else is there—or at least, no one who can be seen. Mrs. Nellie Maynard lived nearby, and during her carriage ride to my estate, she imagined that every advancing figure was her husband, Edward Maynard, who had passed away. As she pulled onto the estate, she felt her nervousness gaining on her. I came out to greet her and ushered her into my home. A sudden chill raced through her and she crossed into the hallway. “There is something here,” she said, looking down towards the door and bathroom off the hall. “I can feel a coldness creeping over my legs. Is it just my overactive imagination or are the forces in the house reaching out to us?” I felt it, too. That cold comes from no place, yet everywhere. Mrs. Maynard, now shaken, moved to the bathroom. “This is where he is,” she said. “There is a young man, a boy, and a woman.” Mrs. Maynard did not know that the hallway was the center of the disturbances in the house. I often felt as if I were being watched when I showered in that room. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The feelings that we were being observed by an unseen presence continued up the stairs and even to the Daisy bedroom, where a shadowy arm had materialized, only to vanish. After carefully searching the entire house, we retired to the living room. Mrs. Maynard sat, frozen on the sofa, in a trancelike state. I called to her, growing more and more uncomfortable at her motionless, seemingly sightless state. She remained for several moments, perhaps as long as a full minute, unaware of anything but what transfixed her at the time and unable to break away from the forced, temporary captivity of her mind. When I asked her what was the matter? She said, “Look behind you.” There, seated on arm chair and relaxed as if to the manner born, was an elderly gentleman, replete in his uniform of a general officer of the Civil War. Mrs. Maynard and I looked at each other in disbelief, and when we looked back, only an empty chair remined. The General, as he is known to the servants, has been seen before and since. Occasionally I would notice an ethereal figure peering from the arched windows on the eastern side of the mansion—windows which were covered over from the inside years ago when the fourth floor was built. It is almost commonplace to hear footsteps crossing the floor. Almost every night the doors in the house would rattle violently, and we often hard the sound of children running alongside footsteps that sounded as if they were made by a large man wearing heavy work boots. One evening, we even heard the voice of a woman saying, “I’ve got mine.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
The meaning of these words remains unknown. The house is a mysterious place. One night, I had turned into the library. I switched on the electric light and shut the door. I immediately got a cold, eerie feeling and jumped to my feet. I was suddenly hugged from behind by a small child. It was such a loving hug that I turned around. There was no one there. The next day, in a bedroom on the third floor, rolls of lincrusta-Walton wall paper had been unrolled and the window shades had been pulled down generally making a mess. As I was reading in the days that followed, I could hear feet running back and forth upstairs. Tools were missing, and many of the carpenters left the job unfinished because of these strange happenings. They said they could not seem to complete their work. They kept getting gooseflesh and felt strange sensations of happiness, loneliness, and love. One calm autumn night, Gertrude had been working in the back kitchen on the second floor, preparing for a dinner party. Gertrude, the housemaid, had almost caught her breath from carrying the turkey to the oven when her eye was attracted to the electrical cord dangling from the ceiling. A day or two before she had accidentally knocked the chandelier from the ceiling while cleaning it and had made a mental note to replace it. As she stood up from putting the turkey into the oven, the coiled cord was nearly at eye-level, hanging about six feet from the ceiling. As she watched, slowly the coil began to swing, back and forth, in an arc about three feet, side to side. Her first thought was the wind, but she noticed that it was calm. The loop swung even, eight, maybe nine time, then gradually slowed until it wrapped around her neck, leaving her suspended from the ceiling. The next morning, we smelled the turkey and went to check on her. As she hung from the ceiling, there was a figure level with her, moving in a circular pattern around her body. The auxiliary lights went out and started blinking, flashing, dimming at seemingly their own whim. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
My lovely home, my retreat from the bleak past, was becoming the focus of an evil presence. And it would announce itself in an all-too-familiar way. The chilling coldness that had plagued the mansion started to creep into my bedroom. It was September and still very mild outside, but inside the house it was near freezing. Sometimes I kept the fireplaces burning all day, but it was to no effect. At night I piled my bed with extra wool blankets. It was the only way I could get to sleep. I could not run. I could not hide. I feld from room to room every night and it would find me again. I felt helpless in the face of encroaching evil. Prophetic dreams also followed and daytime visions. The manifestations of these forced would manifest at any time, without warning. One day I was working on a quilt. I could feel the color draining out of my face as I got an eerie feeling and looked over my shoulder and saw an old woman standing at the base of the stairs. I figured she was a new housemaid. I said “hi” and asked her if she needed anything. She just shook her head “no” and smiled. I went about my business. Then I felt the same eerie feeling. I looked over my shoulder and, there she was, about five feet from me. I got up from the arm chair and said, “Can I help you?” She smiled and, once again, shook her head “no.” Just then I heard the carpenters drawing near in a carriage. I turned to see where the new housemaid was and she was already at the base of the stairs, about 60 feet away. I said, “Are you sure you don’t need anything?” She just looked at me and motioned with her finger for me to come with her. Then I heard the carpenters enter the house on the first floor. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The old woman again motioned for me to follow her. She was backing toward a crawl space just under the stairs. I took my eyes off her for a second to try to figure out where my friend was and when I looked back, I saw the most horrifying old woman motioning me with a bony, leather finger. This time she said, “Get over here!” I watched her disappear into the crawl space. I felt sick and hot and the voices were deafening…I began to scream and scream. That was the worst thing to do, because the fear became too much and I did not know to do. I was held by an unseen force and I was burned with heated skewers. I felt so guilty because the spirits said everything they did, they said it was for me. My hands started trembling and the burning stopped. I gazed intently out the window as if in some dreadful shock. It took me several hours to shake off the effect. I felt the blood in my temples, and my hand began to tremble again. In deep silence, there was an icy chill emanating from the walls, it sounded like a human cry. My sight must have blurred, or else dazzled by the reflection of the lamplight on the smooth surface of the table. I rested my two hands on the table, and drew a deep breath, as I felt the contagion of my whiteness. Reflecting on what depths of the unknow lurk in my home, I felt a flash of wholesome anger. Now the spirits seemed to wear a look of fear and hatred, of incredulous dismay and almost cringing defiance. It was as if they were warring. The bare walls cried out, “Don’t you see that we are everywhere in this house, and the closer you get to him, the more visible we will become. I dropped into a chair and cover my face with my hands. A turmoil of sobbing shook me from head to foot. At length a touch on my shoulder made me look up, and I saw my late husband being over me. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
I beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to please be propitious unto me and endow the Winchester Mansion with the power and virtue of the rob of Jacob and Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand of Jacob, of Moses, and of the mighty Joshua! I also beseech Thee, O Grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM, to infuse into the Winchester Mansion the whole strength of Samson, the righteous wrath of EMANUEL, and the thunders of mighty Sariatnatmik, who will avenge the crimes of men at the Day of Judgment! By the grand ADONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I bid thee join with and attract all substances which I desire, by the power of the sublime ABONAY, ELOIM, ARIEL, and JEHOVAM. I command thee, by the opposition of fire and water to separate all substances as they were separated on the day of the World’s creation. We praise you with honor and glory, sublime Adonay, as we are convinced that we are in possession of a most priceless Treasure of the light. By the mystery of this holy Winchester Mansion, I will clothe it with the armor of salvation in the strength of the Most High, ANCOR, AMICAR, AMIDES, THEODONIAS, ANITOR, that so the end which I desire may be effected, O ADONAL, through Thy strength, to whom be praised and glory for ever and ever. I invoke and conjure thee, O Spirit William Wirt Winchester, and, fortified with the power of the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALAMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMA-CHIE, APOLORESEDES, and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region; I invoke ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHE, ZEBAOTH, ELION, ESCHERCE, JAH,TETRGRAMMATON, SADAI, do thou forthwith appear and show thyself unto me, here before this mansion, in fair and human shape, without any deformity or horror; do thou come forthwith, from whatever part of the World and make rational answers to my questions. Come fulfil my desires. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
It will be seen with sufficient research, investigation and documentation of the state of witchcraft, occultism, and satanism as World movements, no exaggeration, overstatement or silly claims were necessary. The facts speak for themselves. It exists. It is growing. And certain aspects are indeed very, very real. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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Voices Echoing in the Silent Mansion
After the service, the mourners circled the funeral parlor’ beige reception hall, nibbling on refreshments and offering muted condolences. Sarah L. Winchester perched on the edge of a stiff floral sofa, nibbling at her fricassee of parsnips. With the two housemaids, Belinda and Elisabet comforting her. Mrs. Winchester felt alone and exposed. She sensed curious eyes on her, but they quickly shifted their gazes whenever they caught her looking. After a while, Mrs. Winchester slipped out a side door and into the cemetery where the sun still shone relentlessly on the headstones. The rows were straight and the grass was freshly mowed, yet the headstones stuck out at odd angles and few trees poked their way up around the perimeter, throwing welcome shade on the hot afternoon. She picked an aisle at random and wandered down it, reding the names Freja, Gustava, Jannike, Maj. She stopped at a small gravestone, calculating the age of the deceased. James Frazier Reed November 14, 1800 – July 24, 1874. Now you shall sing among the angels, it read. Her hands went clammy: James Reed must have been one of her acquaintances. Mrs. Winchester made her way down the row, and later returned to her estate. Of course, a gnawing ache sent her prowling the great American West, the voice in her dreams that had whispered build a house for the spirits. The long carriage ride through the green fields never prepared anyone for the impressive architectural reflection of the psyche of Mrs. Winchester. However, it is easy to imagine how the combined grief of losing both a child and a spouse could be very crippling. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The fascinating story of the Winchester Mystery House has its roots in the personal tragedies suffered by Mrs. Winchester and in the legacy of the Winchester rifle, “The Gun that Won the West.” Drenched in sunlight and cascading along acres of gardens to hold the panorama of the enormous mansion, carriages rocked and struggled to catch a glimpse of not only the estate, but Mrs. Winchester as well. It was after the Santa Clara Valley was brough to life by the warmth that hung fragrant in the air of the Winchester Mansion, carriage whipping to and fro, carpenters sawing and nailing, vendors crying the finest drapes, fabrics and furniture, and the coming of the most beautiful led glass and stained glass windows known to man. This was Eden. The mansion was like a god. The profusion of towers, fancy turrets, glamorous interior, and intriguing history was the stuff dreams are made of. It was a place of drama, art, plush gardens and architecture. Virtually every piece of literature someone could obtain about the estate and Mrs. Winchester considered there to be “real occult” activity and satanic codes hidden within its walls. Sometime during construction, a wounded carpenter crawled into the barn, and lay coiled there, perhaps to escape the heat, or to get some rest, or to get away from the constant moaning and crying the house itself would make. Escape from it he did, for later a lantern landed directly upon his head, splitting its human contents into tiny, unrecognizable chunks. It was as if, fate-drawn, he forced himself to crawl to hi own doom. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
Often, at night, disembodied limbs pitched out the low windows to thud amongst the glorious statues and fountains. Although people thought Mrs. Winchester fired staff quit frequently, others believed that the mansion or demons inside of it was consuming people and leaving their unidentified remains outside. However, it was never enough to identify the victim, if there actually was one. According to one Ame Fisk, a farmhand, “During the night of the 3rd of June, as I approached the massive house—I stepped upon something that felt so peculiar that I stopped and picked it up. It proved to be an arm. Happening to look at the west window I saw an outline of a pyramid of some sort, which on examination I found was a pile of hands, arms, feet, and legs which must have belonged to souls killed by the Winchester rifles.” At night, the hauntings taking place within the mansion made it a descent into an Inferno. Passers-by heard ghostly music, screams, moans, and saw blood, flesh, and abdominal cavities lying on the ground, levitating, vanishing, and reappearing, and in the flickering, ghostly candlelight, they could see ghouls in the windows hurried, cutting and sawing. Yet, with all that soul-and body-rending activity, in the morning it was as if it was just all a bad dream, witnessed by many. Or could it be the spiritual essence of the hundreds of men the were killed on the battlefield? #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
One of the housemaids lived in the Winchester mansion, and spoke of hearing, at odd hour of the night and quite suddenly, the cries of a baby. One time she even started going up the stairs to quiet the poor darling, responding to her maternal instinct, forgetting that Mrs. Winchester had no living children. It is a sound which you cannot really identify right away—an odd squealing, taken at first to be “the pipes” or “the house settling.” It was only after trying to recall the sound a few seconds after it had died away that she realized, it was indeed a baby’s cry. Later that evening, the housemaid Synnove was alone in the front parlor. Mrs. Winchester was on the third-floor reading. Synnove was on the sofa knitting with her back to the stairs. It was a particularly quiet night. She heard Mrs. Winchester slowly descend the stairs being her and stop on the landing. She stood there, Synnove thought, for a good moment. Finally, to find out what happened, she turned around to see if Mrs. Winchester needed anything. But no one was there. Assuming she had turned and gone back up the stairs to her room without being heard, Synnove got up and walked to the third-floor, knocked on her closed door, and stuck her head into the room. “Will you be needing anything this evening, my lady?” She asked. “No.” Mrs. Winchester replied. “Why do you ask?” “You mean you did not just come down the stairs and stop on the landing?” “No. I have been sitting up here all night.” Some believe that there may be small leaks between the Worlds, a psychic bleed, perhaps of energies inside of the mansion. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
The next morning, when Mrs. Winchester awoke, it was long past her usual hour, and she sat up in bed surprised and vexed at having overslept herself. She always liked to be down for breakfast to hear the birds singing; but a glance at the clock made it clear that it was nearly noon. Mrs. Winchester got up and said to the housemaid, “Draw my bath, please.” After she bathed, she dashed through her dressing, and caught herself singing at her image in the glass as she sat brushing her hair. It made her feel young again. The other woman vanished to a speck on the horizon, as this one, who ruled the foreground, smiled back at the reflection of her lips and eyes. Mrs. Winchester thought she had now faced the phantom and dispelled it. “Courage—that is the secret! If only people who are in love were not always so afraid of risking their happiness by looking it in the eyes.” As she brushed back a dark abundant hair it waved. Certainly she was looking very pretty. The afternoon danced along like a cockleshell on a bright sea. She ordered a particularly good dinner, had her trunks brought down from the attic, and consulted with the housemaid about getting out summer clothes. She felt the faint shiver of apprehension. Walking across the room, sat down again before her mirror. What a different face she saw! The smile on her pale lips seemed to mock the rosy vision of the other Mrs. Winchester. However, gradually, her color crept back. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
As the apparition hovered over her he said, “Oh, virgin, underserving of those chains, but rather of such as bind fond lovers together, tell me, I beseech you, your name, and the name of your country, and why you are thus bound.” At first she was silent from modesty, and, if she could, would have hid her face with her hands; but when he repeated his questions, for fear she might be thought guilty of some fault which she dared not tell, she disclosed her name and that of her country, and her mother’s pride of beauty. Before she had done speaking, a sound was heard. At least the entrance of the housemaid who came to draw the curtains roused Mrs. Winchester from her labors, and she saw to her surprise that the clock marked five. The sun was still streaming through the some of the led glass doors of the bedroom. She went down into one of the dining rooms to have dinner. Her seat near the end of the table was facing the entryway. During dinner, she looked toward the entry and saw an elderly lady dressed in black coat and hat carrying a large bad. She assumed it was a guest of one of the housemaids or her way out or possibly someone they had hired to cook dinner, so Mrs. Winchester called Synnove over to ask her who the lady was. Synnove asked, “What lady?” Mrs. Winchester said, “The lady in the hall. She looks like she is ready to leave.” But Mrs. Winchester, there is no one in the hall,” Synnove replied. Only the two of them remained in the house. Later in the evening, Mrs. Winchester went to the west wing. She found the room in her library to be very cold. One of the carpenters had committed suicide in the library, and his spirit was still there, and the room would never warm up. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
He would come down night after night crying that the lady in the white gown kept chasing him out of the room. One of the housemaids had gotten lost somewhere in the mansion and was found dead in that room. Mrs. Winchester decided to turn it into a library, and it must have upset the ghost of the housemaid, driving him to shoot himself. Mrs. Winchester was very aware of the spirit. Once in a while there is a knock on her bedroom door, and a few times the water turns on in the tub until Mrs. Winchester would get up to walk in there, and then it would turn off. However, it did in fact appear that someone had drawn a bath. There would be water in the tub and the faucet would be wet. The bathroom door would then squeak and slam closed. On another occasion, after Ms. Daisy moved into the mansion, she slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms (the one from which they used to hear footsteps). One morning she came down to breakfast and told Mrs. Winchester of an overnight visitor. “I woke up, and carefully went and drew the curtain aside. The moon was high, gibbous, its light bathing the yard. I saw a gleaming orb, and reeled back from the window in horror. When I turned towards my door, I saw a woman all in blude, and after studying me for a while, she turned away and disappeared…just vanished into thin air!” The family was terrorized by pounding footsteps in the night, moving shadows, and bizarre happenings, such as the curtains billowing out at odd times even with the windows closed. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
One night the poundings in the house and the boot-like footfalls grew so menacing that Mrs. Winchester believed that the mansion was being invaded. We are dealing with the unknown—adventures in a new country. I conjure thee spirits of the Winchester Mansion, by God the Father Almighty; by the virtue of Heaven and by all the stars which rule; by the virtue of the four elements; by that of all stones, all planets, and all animals whatsoever; by the virtue of hailstorms and winds; to herein receive such virtue that we may by thee the perfect issue of the secrets of this mansion, please cross all space and time. I conjure thee, O Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by Foras, the Mighty President, and your 29 Legions of Spirits to give us understanding, make us invisible, and live long, and eloquent. Allow us to discover Treasures and recover things Lost. I conjure thee Souls of the Winchester Mansion, by the strong and powerful Great King Asmoday—the Thirty-second Spirit, and his 72 Legion of Spirits Inferior, to reveal the secrets of the Winchester Mansion and maketh us Invincible. Please show us where the Treasure lies, and guardeth it. I conjure thee great Demons of the Winchester mansion by Marchoias—the Thirty-fifth Spirit, and his 30 Legions of Spirits to reveal yourselves night and day, guard and protect the mansion and bring it great prosperity. I conjure thee Archangels of the Winchester Mansion, by Raum—the Fortieth Spirit, and thou 30 Legions of Spirits to preform great miracles in the Winchester Mansion and in the sky. Cause Love between Friends and Foes. I conjure Thee Malphas—the Thirty-ninth Spirit, and your 40 Legions of Spirits to continue to build Houses and High Towers on the Winchester Estate and being Knowledge of Enemies’ Desires and Thoughts, and that which they have done. By thou my fortresses and defence against all enemies, visible and invisible, in every magical work. Do thou rule in all my affairs and prevail in those things which oppose me. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Demons have a solid place in popular culture and in the Victorian era. They often appear alongside witches and vampires. However, very few people actually believe in the existence of witches and vampires. Why then, do many people still believe in demons? Many religions teach that demons are real and must be cast out. Faithful religious followers believe thee teachings. However, skeptics see no evidence for demons. What do you believe? Visit the Winchester Mystery House, where the regal gardens enhance the beauty of the mansion. After the tour is over, people are brought back to reality. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
However, everyone can take something home with them by purchasing a gift in the Gift Shop on the Estate or at the Online Store. https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
Fear of the Engulfing Darkness
Somethings as old as the World, as mysterious as life. As she looked at the silent Victorian garden, Sarah L. Winchester sat on the western balcony for hours, letting the sun warm her, as illuminating thoughts whirled in her imagination. But there the apprehension was; and on this particular afternoon—perhaps because she was more tired than usual, or because of the trouble of finding a new cook or, for some other reason, moral or physical—she found herself unable to react against the feeling. The desolate widow, of whom her nearest friends said that only her absorbing interest in building one of the largest mansions in California, at the time, kept her from suicide after the death of her husband and new born daughter. There were days when she would stand there cold and shivering with the premonition of something inexplicable, intolerable, to be faced on the other side of the curtained panes; and when she opened the door and went in, there would be nothing; and on other days when she felt the same premonitory chill, it was justified by the sight of confused and betrayed spirts haunting her mansion. So that every morning she opened her eyes, she would take to feeling cold and premonitory because she never got out of bed without thinking a ghoul, ghost, or demon would be there. With her the strain had become chronic, and the reason was not far to seek. However, that coldly beautiful face was often penetrated by the secret she hardly acknowledged to her own heart—her passion for architecture. It allowed her to shut out the dark with graceful turrets, bay windows with fanciful cornices, intricate pillars, gently sloping cupolas and iconic towers with witch’s caps. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
However, the fields around the Winchester Mansion, once the summer sun would, always bred mist that seemed to hand head-high in long, silver lines. Apparently, some of these mists out of the fruit orchards were a little more animated than others. Mrs. Winchester would hear the famers talking about the “orchards” and refusing to work the area after the sun began to sink behind the estate. They were not just frightened—it was terror she recognized in their simple eyes. The trees grew in long rows, and one of the farmers, Joakim, made a statement saying that this was the only fruit orchard in the World where he saw blood and gore run in actual rivulets. Mrs. Winchester assured hum that when the orchard was planted in the area, the trees flourished on a unique fertilizer. Others reported hearing the frantic calls of panic-stricken men, seeing a unique mist, and could hear low moaning of the wounded, calling in a soft southern drawl for a wife or mother. Along with the hideous, soft thud of leaf into flesh, over and over and over, more than six hundred times. Surveying her home early one morning, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it another day!” Mrs. Winchester exclaimed aloud, as she put her key in the lock. She turned the key and went in; there was something about the day that made her uneasy. It was not just the cold spots—the front parlor had always been colder than the rest of the house. She had gotten used to that. There was something else. Ominous signs that something was not right, and it was not her imagination; there were physical, concrete signs. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
In one of the bedrooms on the first floor, she had sealed up. However, she decided to have the foremen open the room back up and decorate it. When the removed the slate stones used to seal up the room, they noticed an odd site. The windowsill and the floor below it were covered with dead black files. This was puzzling. After all, the room had been sealed off. On closer examination, Mrs. Winchester saw some that some of the flies were incomplete. It was as if they had been chopped in two or—more worryingly—bitten in two. A shiver ran through her. She just could not understand it; there was no rational explanations she could think of. She simply felt as if she were fighting her way through a stifling fog that she must at all costs get out of. The blood rushed from Mrs. Winchester’s heart to her temples. She felt tears rushing to her eyes. “Ah, that’s worse, then—that’s hopeless!” She immediately had the room torn down. Afterwards, there was a long interval of suspense, during which she felt her heart beating against her ribs in quick admonitory knocks, as if warning her of the danger she was incurring. Suddenly, there came a loud rapping at the front door. She went to answer it, but there was nobody in sight. Later the night when Mrs. Winchester went to bed, she awoke dripping with sweat. The fireplace had a roar fire blazing. Since it was not winter, no one would have lit a fire. Mrs. Winchester stood breathing rapidly, her hands against her breast. She felt as if she had run a hard race and missed the goal. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
She continued to feel the beauty of a great love for her home, even though the spirits made her feel as if she was unable to bear the burden of her legacy. She heard a tired step on the stairs and closing a bedroom door above. Then she dropped into a chair and buried her face in her folded arms. The footsteps came down the stairs, walked down the hall, entered the bathroom, flushed the toilet, the walked into Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom. She sat up in her chair, unable to move because she could feel a dark presence as the invisible spirit paced through her bedroom. This intensified her fear as the fire was doused by engulfing darkness. The next evening Mrs. Winchester was still reflecting on this when the surprised parlormaid came in and found her. No, Mrs. Winchester said, she was not going to dress for dinner. However, she eventually mounted the stairs to her dressing room. Her dinner dress was lying on the bed, and at the sight the quiet routine of her daily life took hold of her and she began to feel that the events she had been experiencing must have taken place in another World, projecting by phantoms of her fevered imagination. Only, how strange, how unbearable for other people to witness these events, and feel herself at the end of the World! Mrs. Winchester started to think of the mystery as something conscious, malevolent: a secret persecution before which she quailed, yet from which she could not free herself from. There was a flash in the corner of her eyes. The fireplace began to flicker on and off. As soon as she would put the fire out, it would spark itself right back up. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
Kasper, the butler, was called by Mrs. Winchester through the servant call system. He distinguished the fire, but before he walked out of the room, it was violently ablaze, as if it was spiteful. While Mrs. Winchester was in the dining room enjoying fricandeau of veal with spinach, she saw the dark shadow of a child form between the kitchen and the hallway. When Kasper walked in the dining room, it filled up with some kind of fog, and slowly drifted out of the room. She was brooding over the problem, when she said to Kasper, “You must go to bed early; you look terribly tired.” “I am sure we all overwork at times.” She rose and stood before him with sudden resolution. “Well, I am not going to have you use up your strength slaving in that way. It is absurd. I can see you are ill.” She bent over him and laid her hand on his forehead. “Poor old Kasper. Prepare to be taken away soon on a long holiday.” He looked up at her, started. “A holiday?” Then out of nowhere, there was such a pounding on the house that they ran outside to see what could be the source of the racket. However, whatever it was, it could not be seen, and the pounding just kept hammering away, circling and circling the mansion until it finally quieted down. Mrs. Winchester felt resentfulness rising with her fears. Kasper continued his troubled pacing of the room; then he stopped short, dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. From the shaking of his shoulders, Mrs. Winchester saw that he was weeping. She has never seen a man cry, expect Mr. William Winchester, after the death of their infant. She was frightened now’ she felt that the butler was being dragged away into some spiritual bondage, and that she must use her last atom of strength in the struggle for his freedom, and for hers. I conure Thee, O Mrs. Winchester of this instrument, by the authority of Hod the Father Almighty, by the virtue of Heaven and the stars, by the virtue of the Angels, by that of the elements, by that of stones and herbs, and in like manner by the virtue of snowstorms, thunder, and winds, that thou receive all power unto the performance of those things in the perfection of which we are concerned, the whole without trickery, falsehood, or deception, by the command of God. Creator of the ages and Emperor of the Angels. Amen. Domine, Deus meus, in te speravi; Confitetor tibi, Domine, int toto corde meo: Wuemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes acquorum. DAMAHIL, LUMECH, GADAL, PANCIA, VELOAS, MEOROD, LAMIDOCH, BALDACH, ANERETHON, MITATRON. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Winchester Mansion is an ancient maze of rooms and twisted hallways that ramble on for miles. After having lost themselves in the catacomb, some tour guides find their way out with the held of an odd and slightly ominous-looking stranger who leads them to a familiar path then vanishes. “Are there any ghosts here at the Winchester Mystery House?” many visitors ask. Of course, the staff cannot encompass the spirit-World. However, the memories in the hundreds of rooms still standing in side of the mansion have been haunted for over a century. The door-to-nowhere, on the second floor, got its name not only because it seems the balcony was never attached to it to support visitors when they open the door, but also because when Mrs. Winchester built that portion of the house, the door would not stay closed. One foreman even nailed it shut with a small wire nail after the house was opened for tours (so as not to destroy too much of the historic door.) Sure enough, the next morning when he opened the house, the door was ajar. Over the years, tour guides never tried keeping the door closed. They figure whatever it was that wanted to get out (or in) of that room—either a draft or a ghost—would do so anyway. It usually occurs when the moon is in conjunction with the sun.
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Life Goes on Beyond the Grave
On December 18, 1890, when Sarah L. Winchester returned to her large country estate in Santa Clara County, she found her servants in an uproar over a dancing ghost. According to Agata, the housemaid, the cook Dag, and the butler Elof were gossiping in the kitchen, when suddenly Elof opened his mouth in both surprise and terror, and screamed that there was someone looking in the window. Ms. Daisy ran into the kitchen and saw nothing to cause the man so much alarm. Elof was visibly shaken and disturbed and said that she thought that he had seen a horrid face looking in at them. Dag assured him that it was probably only a shadow of some sort. The awkward moment was interrupted as Agata told Ms. Daisy that her bathwater was ready. Ms. Daisy thanked Agata and dismissed her for the evening. A few moments later, as Dag and Elof sat chatting, Elof once again claimed that he saw something at the window. Dag rose from his chair to investigate, but he was halted in his journey to the window by the sound of an uproar on the second floor. At first it seemed to be a flurry of wild rappings that had the two men staring at one another in wide-eyed confusion. Then the pace of the sounds slowed until they began to sound like the three-step Mrs. Winchester used to dance. Dag was perplexed. What was this woman doing upstairs when she was supposed to be on a business trip. Without speaking another word, the two men left the sitting room and walked quietly back to the Mrs. Winchesters main bedroom. Opening the door just a crack, they were able to see Mrs. Winchester’s room had been undisturbed. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Determining to see who had gone up to the Grand Ball Room unnoticed, Dag grabbed a lantern from a kitchen shelf, and the two men walked up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. Although the sounds of the dancing continued, their lantern plainly revealed that there was no one in the Grand Ball Room. Then, as the men beat a hasty retreat down the stairs, the rapping seemed to race ahead of them, rattling the windows and pounding at the walls. Elof fled the mansion to get Mr. Hansen, and Ms. Daisy and Dag went to check on Agata. By the time Elof returned with Mr. Hansen, the rappings and dancing had attained such a volume that Agata had been awakened by the racket. Mr. Hansen, Elof and Dag searched the vast mansion and the stately grounds and found nothing that could explain the bizarre disturbance, which continued until dawn. At 1.00 A.M. the next night, the dancing ghost once again began its spirited interpretation of the three-step. Mrs. Winchester’s servant patrolled the sumptuous mansion and delightful grounds but could find no trace of the invisible dancer who continued to perform and to evade the searchers until dawn. When Mrs. Winchester returned that next afternoon from her business trip, she scoffed at Agata’s account and jokingly accused her of getting into the brandy while she had been away. Mrs. Winchester was a no-nonsense businesswoman who had little patience with superstitious folktales and accounts of ghost, dancing, or otherwise. She grew very impatient when Dag and Elof warned her that something supernatural had visited the mansion in her absence, substantiating Agata’s story of a dancing ghost. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The look Mrs. Winchester had on her face was not unloving, not indifferent; it was the look of a woman who had been so far from ordinary events that when he returns to familiar things they seem strange. Her professional discretion was exemplary, it was odd that she had never uttered an impatient comment, never remarked to Agata, in a moment of expansion, that this story was a nuisance and demanded to know why they kept badgering her about this case. She had, however, made more than one semiconfidence about their being spirits in the mansion—of course without giving names or details; but concerning this mysterious ghost her lips were sealed. There was another possibility: what is euphemistically called an “old entanglement.” Mrs. Winchester was a sophisticated woman. She had few illusions about the intricacies of the human heart; he knew that there were often old entanglements. The mansion was replete with pretty uniforms and weapons, schooled in the military arts of drill and discipline and inculcated with patriotic fervor. The mansion has other tendrils. Before this set of staff was hired, Franz, a farmhand, was mortally wounded while fighting outside. He asked his friend Gottfried to deliver a heartfelt message to their mutual friend, a woman to whom Franz was engaged, if and when Gottfried ever saw her working in the mansion. A promise to do so is made, and when Gottfried finds himself in mortal combat just outside the mansion, he tries to deliver the missive. The girl cannot be reached; she is someone in the Winchester Mansion. Gottfried says he will try again later, and returns to the harvest. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
As if to make absolutely certain the message would never be delivered, fate sends two bullets, one to the messenger Gottfried, and one stray shot to Ms. Henrika, Franz’s betrothed. So Franz’s message died with Gottfried…not that it mattered anyway. Legend has it that Franz’s sisters found out and exhausted from the ghastly burden, buried him in the cellar of Mrs. Winchester’s mansion where no one would disturb him. Perhaps this last resting-place was not suitable for the young man who himself seemed to be eternally haunted and damned by the message that went undelivered; perhaps, somewhere, in the weird World beyond, three friend are still lurking about the Winchester Estate seeking forever one another and an answer to the unanswerable. While Mrs. Winchester was home alone one evening, a patrol man heard strange noises coming from her mansion. He went to investigate. Sherriff Halfdan thought there might be an intruder. He thought he had just heard him go to the upstairs window, and that he was crawling down. So he ran around back and shined his lantern up to the window, into the large back yard, back to the mansion and up to the second-floor window again. No one. He trotted out to the yard to get a better view and stop anyone trying to run into the acres of fruit orchards to hide. Still, not a sign of anyone emerging from the mansion. No one came out of the house. But Sherriff Halfdan hear him run across the floor to the window. He took the lantern and shined it across the fields and said to himself, “He could not have gotten out of there in that short amount of time.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
By that time, Mrs. Winchester had emerged from the mansion. She and the Sherriff spent hours searching the miles of twisting hallways in the mansion, but there was no one hiding there. “What did you hear?” Sherriff Halfdan asked Mrs. Winchester. “It must have been one of the parlor maid’s boyfriends playing a prank,” she said. “It sounded like someone running back and forth through the second floor,” Sherriff Halfdan said. “It was really loud,” replied Mrs. Winchester. “I could hear his feet running across the floor while I was on the third floor, but I am sure it was one of the parlor maid’s friends,” still denying what was becoming obvious by now. The Sherriff’s eyes kept checking the back yard. “You know how kids are,” he said. Later Mr. Hansen appeared from his guest house, and told the Sherriff that he knows this mansion well, for he built much of it. And that because of how loud the footsteps were, as he could hear banging sounds coming from the mansion, that no one could have emerged through the second floor window, leapt to the ground, and scampered beyond the yard and out of sight into the fruit orchards between the time the footsteps had stopped and the time the Sherriff was out back. “He had to be still in the house,” said Mr. Hansen. “But he wasn’t,” replied Sherriff Halfdan. However, perhaps he was still in the house. Perhaps the intruder never left the house because he could not. Perhaps he still is in the house, buried just a few inches below the cellar floor, with that mysterious undelivered message haunting him, forever through the ages. While Mrs. Winchester admitted that there had been strange noises in the mansion, at times, to the new staff, she stated that Mr. Hansen had that very day removed a pigeon’s nest from under the door-to-nowhere of the second floor. It seemed likely to her that the bird had somehow been responsible for the weird noises that had so upset the staff. Mrs. Winchester knew she had to keep the wild tales of a dancing ghost to rest. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
That evening after the rest of the household had retired to their rooms quite early, exhausted from their nocturnal ordeals of chasing the eerie tapping sounds, Mrs. Winchester sat down in a chair in her study to read for a while before going to bed. At about 10 o’clock, she was distracted by scratching noises from above her head. She felt the same way gazing at a modern machine she did not understand. It saddened her. But everything saddened her now. It sounded as if someone in the room above her was dancing a three-step. Believing the Agata was having a bit of fun with her, Mrs. Winchester put down her book and began climbing quietly up the stairs to the Grand Ball Room. She stood outside the door for a moment to be certain that she had accurately traced the sound of the dancing. Then, convinced that there was no doubt that the sounds were coming from the Grand Ball Room, she pushed open the door and stood ready to deliver a stern lecture to Agata. But there was no one in the room and the dancing had ceased the moment that she had opened the door. There was something strange going on here. Confused and more than a little baffled, Mrs. Winchester started to close the door when a series of rappings sounded from the Grand Ball Room again. Suddenly, two explosive knocks seemed to shake the mansion down to its very foundation. Mrs. Winchester grabbed her pistol from the safe, and declared that she was going to put a stop to the nonsense. She roused her servants and told them that they were going to find out who was responsible for the outrage against her mansion. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
The next day crew searched the entire house and examined every mile of the grounds. That night Mrs. Winchester asked everyone to stay in the Grand Ball Room with her because she had become a believer in the dancing ghost, and it was obvious that she dreaded the onset of a new round of phenomena. However, that night the ghost was silent. A month later, on January 20, 1891, Mrs. Winchester was entertaining guest who openly expressed their skepticism of the phenomena their hosts described as having been active in the house. Mrs. Winchester was furious that her guest did not believe her. However, out of thin air, and old, dirty love note appeared on the table and then the room fearfully looked around as the rapping began at the windows. The assembled guests listened incredulously as they heard an exact replication of what Mrs. Winchester told them. The guest figured someone was in the Grand Ball Room dancing, but when they investigated, they found no one. Everyone then agreed that Mrs. Winchester was cursed and someone had maliciously set a devil on the wealthy widow. And the violence of the disturbances at the Winchester Mansion continued to increase. The ghost had acquired incendiary abilities. Balls of fire circled the house and bounced against the windows. Dressed that hung unattended in closets burst into flame. Once, a mattress began burning underneath a guest as he readied himself for bed. When he was moved to another bedroom, later he was awakened by a frightful pounding on his bedroom door. It was terrifyingly loud; it was as though somebody was pounding fists against it. He lit a candle, slipped out of bed, opened the door and there was no one there. “My God,” he thought, “what is going on?” He was standing on the landing wondering whether he should brave it down the stairs when he noticed something odd. The door to Mrs. Winchester room was slightly ajar, and the light was on. He peaked inside to see if the vicious terror was disturbing her. Suddenly, a crackling noise had come from beneath the floor, followed by a long, high-pitched wailing. A bluish spark seemed to jump up at Mrs. Winchester, and her thin nightgown instantly swathed in flames. She cried out in terror and collapsed into unconsciousness. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
The houseguest leapt to his feet and valiantly beat the flames out with his bare hands. The most curious thing about the incident was that the courageous guest suffered severe burns while Mrs. Winchester received not a single burn nor blister, even though her dress was nearly completely consumed by the flames. Agata had been rapidly waning under the onslaughts of the ghost, she died in child birth thirteen months later. From that moment on, everyone knew that there was a malicious evil terrorizing Mrs. Winchester and her mansion. Lord GOD ADONAY, who hast formed man out of nothing to Thine own image and likeness, and me also, unworthy sinner as I am, deign, I pray Thee, to bless and sanctify this water, that it may be healthful to my body and soul, that all delusion may depart from me. O Lord God, Almighty and Ineffable, who didst lead forth Thy people from the land of Egypt, and didst cause them to pass dry-shod over the Red Sea! Grant that I may be cleansed by this water from all my sins, and may appear innocent before Thee. O Lord Adonay, who hast formed me in Thine image and in Thy likeness, deign to bless and sanctify this water, so that it may become unto me the salvation of my soul and body, and that no wickedness may ever find place upon me. ANTON, AMATOR, EMITES, THEODONIEL, PONCOR, PACOR, ANITER; by the virtue of these most holy Angelic Names do I clothe myself, O Lord, in my Sabbath garments, that so I may fulfill, even unto their term, all things which I desire to effect Thee, Most Holy Adonay, whose kingdom and rule endure for ever and ever. I command thee, O Spirit Rumoar, even by Lucifer, thy mighty sovereign, to bless me with untold wealth for many generations to come. Amen. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Mrs. Winchester witnessed spirit materialization, heard spectral voices, felt ghostly touched on her person, and on occasion was even lifted into the air and set ablaze by a hostile entity. There are enough true stories about this mansion that will scare the pants off you. And it is true—to some extent. Documented are some horrific stories, and they will scare you, because we are talking about real people who once lived and did unbelievably frightening acts, in moments of unbelievable intensity. To this day, whisper voices come from the attic and they comingle with eerie music that grows louder and louder, until people seek refuge.
Mysterious lights appear both inside and outside the house; footsteps moving up and down the stairs; and noisy repertoire of assorted poundings, drummings, and rappings. To experience a haunting, or to see a ghost, is to receive proof that life goes on beyond the grave. Accounts of Haunting phenomena, no matter how terrifying they may be, provide evidence that existence continues for the sprit on more than one dimension, and that human beings are multidimentional entities that consist of mind, body, and soul. Such a beautiful break from all the rain! ⛅ https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
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I Will Condemn Thy Body and Soul
The desire to communicate with spirits is older than history; it connects with ineradicable principles inhuman nature. The sources of occult wisdom, it proceeds, are, firstly, in God, second spiritual essences—that is to say, the Angelical Hierarch; thirdly, in corporal creatures, the reference being probably to the signatura rerum of Paracelsus; fourthly, in Nature—that is to say, in a knowledge of the secret virtues of interval things, as, for example, herbs and precious stones; fifthly, but after a long interval in the apostate spirits reserved to the last judgment; sixthly, in ministers of punishment in hell, which seems to connect with the classical conception of avenging infernal gods; seventhly, in the people of the element, that is, the Salamanders, Sylphus, Undines, and Pigmies. If we would call any evil Spirit to the circle, it first behoveth us to consider and to know his nature, to which of the planets it agreeth, and what offices are distributed to him from the planet. This being know, let there be sought out a place fit and proper for his invocation, according to the nature of the planet and the quality of the offices of the same Spirit, as near as the same may be done. For example, if his power be over the sea, rivers or floods, then let a place be chosen on the shore, and so of the rest. The Spirits of Mars have a tall body and a choleric, filthy countenance, brown, swarthy, or red in colour; they have horns like the hart, claws like a griffin, and they bellow like wild bulls. They have the motion of burning fire, and their sign is thunder and lightening about the circle. Their particular forms are an armed king riding on a wolf; and armed man; a woman holding a buckler on her thigh; a she-goat; a horse; a stage; a red garment; wool; a cheestip. Wool of a choleric disposition is perhaps a Geotic form of dun-cotton. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
White Magic, as the intelligences concerned are said to be good and great, but their offices are mixed and confusing, including the discovery of treasures, the detection of secrets, fomenting war, opening locks and bolts, and procuring the love of women, inclining men to luxury and sowing hatred and evil thoughts. Obviously, White Magic of this kind is much blacker than it is painted. And I will tell you something else, too. Within the Winchester Mansion there lies the legendary wonder-World of Mysticism, Magic, and Sorcery, a World of fascination or terror. There, also, the dead live, and the hierarchies of extra-mundane intelligence are within easy communication, and become ministers or tormentors, guides or destroyers of man. The jewels, the stained-glass and led glass windows, the family’s fortune, it is all connected. Same with the Winchester name. The powers possessed by these Intelligence are very curiously set forth. They rule naturally over certain departments and operations of the material World, but outside these departments they perform the same operations magically. The mansion is filled with Pentacles and Sigils, instrument used in magical ceremonies. Along the long, winding and twisting hallways, it is difficult to say where the mansion actually beings, so it is uncertain where it ends. There are many curious secrets or transcendental good and transcendental evil. Many of the recent revelations lead us to concede, within certain limits, that there may have been some recrudescence of diabolism on the estate, as it is possible that there was formal communication with the Powers of Darkness. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Under the pretence of White Magic, usually includes the Rites for the invocation of Evil Spirits. Many people do roam the halls of the Winchester Mansion looking about one to see if any Spirit does appear. And if any Spirit shall appear, let the invocant turn toward him or her, receive him or her courteously, and earnestly entreating one, let one require one’s name. Let one ask whatsoever he or she will. There are generally Spirits of the Air, who are undoubtedly demons, and a set of angelical conjurations floating about. Beyond the fact that the evoked Spirits are Lucifer, Beelzebuth, Astaroth, and the inferiors, be forewarned that conjurer is expected to give oneself, body and soul, to the demon who serves one. One might be otherwise be appalled at the frightful figures of those rebellious angels who in sin were cast into the abyss, and become tormented by witch craft or possessed by the demon. Sarah L. Winchester had been in a near daze one night from exhaustion. The heavy, leaden sky, the wind roaring against the windows. Darkness was falling with a pure metallic monotony to it. Heavy footsteps, sounds produced by a number of booted feet, were crossing the landing. Several moved quickly and as one, as if marching to some ethereal command; others dragged behind as if they belonged to the wounded. They paused abruptly at the top of the stairs because they lead to the ceiling, which confused the ghosts, as they stood marching on the spot. Mrs. Winchester bit her lip in fright. The housemaid, Hedvig, laid a comforting hand on her arm. Mrs. Winchester glared at the and waited for the commotion to cease. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The phantom footsteps began descending the stairs, tramping out a slow, ordered rhythm. Their determined marching was like that of a platoon of battle-weary soldiers advancing in a final push. With each tread gained, the marching grew louder. The footsteps were drawing ever close to the Venetian Dining Room. Although Mrs. Winchester’s heart did, in a perpetual eagerness of attention, sit in her great house alone, day after day, month after month, deprived of company, this fate was more cruel than she deserved and more painful than she could bear. Mrs. Winchester let out a cry, “It is rather gashtly. All the millions and—imprisonment in my home by spirits. Think of it—day after day, winter after winter, year after year, howling, banging, ghost, devils, demons, angels, and alone I remain.” Mrs. Winchester seemed to be the only one showing fear. Hedvig seized her chance. She spoke out into the tense silence, in a voice that was loud and confident. “You have my complete sympathy, Mrs. Winchester,” she’d said, briefly explaining her own position. “I can heart it.” Hedvig’s hands began to tremble. However, she looked at Mrs. Winchester with a reassuring smile. Mrs. Winchester began to sob in terror. There came a frantic pounding, as if several heavy boots were trying to kick down the door. The door flew open. Mrs. Winchester and Hedvig turned in fear. Suddenly the door slammed shut again. Mrs. Winchester stood up. She was terrified. Hedvig had been arrested by the opening and closing of the door, and was gasping out something inarticulate. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Mrs. Winchester ran out of the dining room and went upstairs. She rushed down the passage and through a door which communicated, rather surprisingly, with a narrow walled-in stair case that was unfamiliar to her. At the top, she found herself on a small landing upon which two doors opened. Through the confusion of her mind Mrs. Winchester noticed that these rooms, with their special staircase leading down to what had always been called Mr. William Winchester’s suit. It was neat, glossy and extremely cold. The red-apple glaze had barely faded from her cheeks, and not a lock was disarranged in the unnatural luster of her false front; even her cap and ribbons hung symmetrically along either cheek. However, death had happened to her, and had made her into someone else. At first glance it was impossible to say if the unspeakable horror in Hedvig’s wide open eyes were only the reflection of that change, or of the agent by whom it had come. Mrs. Winchester paused a moment. “Her hand is warm still—but no pulse. How did she get up here? She’s dead,” Mrs. Winchester pronounced. “Oh, poor thing! But how–?” Mrs. Winchester drew near, and was kneeling down, taking the inanimate hand in hers. Mrs. Winchester bending over, distinctly saw a circle of red marks on Hedvig’s throat—the marks of recent bruises. She looked again into the awful eyes. “She’s been strangled, but by whom? Perhaps that is why I was led to this bedroom.” Mrs. Winchester, with a shiver of fear, drew down the housemaid’s eyelids. There seemed, in the air o the cold room, something that forbade wonderment and silenced conjecture. “You hadn’t ought to have meddled with Mr. Winchester’s suit, my lady. That is what he must have punished you for. When it came to his privacy, he would not ever listen to human reason…even in his death, he demands privacy.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Someone in the grip of demonic control feels compelled to act, to do the most objectionable things to others in order to somehow save themselves. There is a hierarchy of evil spirits. The minor ones, the foot soldiers, do the dirty work, to prepare the way for the generals. We know so little about ourselves and how our minds work. And there are demons just waiting to fool us. Hedvig had stumbled on Mr. Winchester’s Verus Jesuitarum Libellus, or “True Magical Work of the Jesuits,” which contained most powerful conjurations for all evil spirits of whatever state, condition, and office they are, and a most powerful conjuration of the Spirit Uriel. It was an original copy from the 16th century. The Conjurations are excessively curious. The first is addressed to a spirit whose name is not indicated, but he is supposed to have been obedient to Abraham and Isaac, and is directed to bring the magician out of the depths of the sea so many millions—the number is not specified, and depends upon the cupidity of the operator—of the best Spanish gold; otherwise, says the Conjuration, I will condemn thy body (sic) and thy soul. In the second formula, the spirit is cited by the knowledge and exorcising power of Agrippa, which again puts a definite limit to the antiquity of the collection, were it otherwise necessary. The third Invocation is addressed to the spirit Zayariel, who is conjured by Agla Scheffert and the great Jehova Podashocheia. The remainder, to the number of seven in all, are nearly identical in character and quite in purpose, the demon being invariably required to bring that which is desired by the operator from the depths of the sea, or from the abyss of the waters, or from the spiritual abyss. The Discharge or Absolution which concludes the series is really an additional conjuration. Perhaps we are not really as advanced as we think and should heed warnings about occulta powers. I implore Thee, O Thou Grand and Powerful ADONAY, Master of all Spirits! I beseech Thee, O Eloim! I Implore Thee, O JEHOVAM! O Grand ADONAY, I give unto Thee my soul, my heart, my inward parts, my hands, my feet, my desires, my entire being! O Grand ADONAY, deign to be favourable unto me! So be it. Amen. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
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The Winchester’s Mysterious Echo Chamber
One hundred and twenty-two years ago the Victorian period officially ended along with the reign of England’s Queen Victoria. What is termed Victorian is really a series of architectural styles, most of them imitative of earlier periods from Europe and Great Britain. Though the United States of America was seeking its identity, culturally, politically, socially, and artistically, it sustained strong ties with its European heritage. In 1872, American painter William Merritt Chase was heard to remark, on being asked if he would like to go abroad, “My God, I’d rather go to Europe than go to Heaven.” The ambivalence between striking out as a young nation with ideas of its own and the desire to emulate the sophistication of England and the Continent was exemplified in the mixture and blend of architectural and interior styles during the Victorian period. When the words “Victorian house” are uttered, an image of fanciful gingerbread clapboard dwellings, with its dizzying array of towers, gables, spindles, stained and led glass windows, secret passage ways, basements, rambling square footage, vast front porches, rich, dark wood, brass, farmhouse kitchen sinks, fireplaces, hardwood floors, awning and double hung windows, green lawns, stately trees, beautiful flowers, and ghosts immediately springs to mind. One of the most haunted mansions and most beautiful mansions in the World is the Winchester Mansion, which was built by Sarah L. Winchester, heiress to the Winchester fortune. It is believed that Mrs. Winchester and her family were cursed for making “The Gun that Won the West.” #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
The tales of apparitions and devils, of knockings and strange noise, with which the Winchester Mansion is full of, are indications of the supernatural and magical arts. Sorcery was, so to speak, an aristocratic pursuit. It was like the social media, religion, telephone, television, and therapy for the elite. After the loss of her new born daughter and husband, Mrs. Winchester kept her house alive by spending 38 years constructing it. Secretly, she felt that even the coming and going of indifferent unknown people would help to take the chill from those 600 rooms, to brush their walls the dust of too-heavy memories. Mrs. Winchester was an inconsolable widow. Throughout her home stood vases of flowers: roses, lilies, fragile bunches of lavender, and wild clumps of jasmine withering there among the sturdier blooms with the tick arching fronds of ferns. She often picked them herself. One afternoon, Mrs. Winchester was out on her estate, gathering acorns and blackberries, and sticks for her fire. An old famer stopped, his load was heavy and he begged Mrs. Winchester to let his son come into her house. The little boy was very sick, feverish and sleepless. She stopped and gathered some poppies. As they enter her mansion, the boy was in great distress, for he seemed past hope of recovery. Mrs. Winchester had the housemaid prepare him a bed just past the blue parlor. She received him kindly and stooped and kiss the sick child on his cheek. Instantly the paleness left his face, and healthy vigor returned to his body. The father was delighted; he had no servants. The housemaid spread the table and put upon it curds and cream, apples, and honey in the comb. While they ate, Mrs. Winchester mingled poppy juice in the milk of the boy. When night came and all was still, the father thanked Mrs. Winchester and took the boy home. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
That evening, a breeze stirred the dark leaves beyond the windows. It lifted the lace curtains, dropping them softly back against the wall. It seemed an insignificant thing, yet made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Panic gripped Mrs. Winchester. She found herself pinned to the sofa, effectively paralyzed. She raised her right hand, and it was gripped at the wrist. Unable to pray or speak, her tongue was frozen. What Mrs. Winchester saw could not have been human. It had a head like a lion, but the body of a human and was a dense black form. The smell of wet fur and coldness was overwhelming. The beast started grunting and panting. Petrified, Mrs. Winchester stumbled out of the parlor and downs the stairs. On reaching the basement, she feels the wet pelt of the unseen creature brush briefly against her legs. As it bounds ahead of her, it growls like a bear. Mrs. Winchester runs back upstairs to her Blue Séance Room and slams the door shut. The doors and windows in the house started banging—opening and shutting. It sounded like a ghostly cavalry was using a battering ram against the front door, but nothing could be seen from the windows above, just wisping spirit voices could be heard trying to beat the door down. Mrs. Winchester closed her eyes. She felt as if a force was approaching her. Almost like a violent storm was coming. The entity entered the Blue Séance Room; it hovered some distance away from her. A wave started pulsing up and down her body. She was terrified. As she felt her body being lifted from the ground, she knew she was going to die. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
When she came to, she was hovering just outside the Door-to-Nowhere. Mrs. Winchester was afraid. She stared dismally, helplessly, at the surface of the table before her as she tried to guide herself into this room that was two stories from the ground. And above organ music surged from the Grand Ball Room, while the wind came in freezing cold gusts. Through the dark, she saw glittering eyes of an anguished soul. As the wind blew, she was pushed into the room, avoiding a twenty-foot drop to her death. An orchestra was playing. The thick vibrations of the bass startled Mrs. Winchester, but she was in no hurry to see what was going on. But then a hand reached for her, steadied her, and meant to guide her closer to the wall. This was dreadful. Then the mysterious forces came for her as before, lifted her from the room she was in and propelled her into blackness. She found herself high above the floor in the Grand Ball Room. There were ghouls, demons, ghosts, and skeletons dancing and laughing, all looking at her as if she was the most anticipated guest. Mrs. Winchester’s heart was hammering so fast that she feared for her life. Gently she was lowered to the floor. Her spectral hosts were looking at her intently. One of the ghouls raised his crystal glass of fresh blood, basking in what he believed was Mrs. Winchester’s silent admiration. She on the other had was frightened. Her mind was full of turmoil…and in a strange way, she did not want to disappoint him. “Though I doubt you will need a map,” she said, “I welcome you into my home.” The crowd smiled and the music grew even more sumptuous. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
“You mean you’re into black magic, Mrs. Winchester?” said the ghoul. “I would like to keep an open mind. As I say, I use my gift for the betterment of the spirit World,” replied Mrs. Winchester. William Tell Overture and Funeral March were in heavy rotation that evening. It must be a mirage, she thought at first, but as the ghouls trembling hand grabbed her, and they danced, she knew it was real. The spirit World trawled the mansion like mythic beasts, their cries sending men in wool blazers and hardhats into a frenzy. Many of them dropped their tools and ran off the job. The figures dancing and shrieking around grew until they nearly blinded Mrs. Winchester. Her eyes glowed like embers with the gravely voice still whispering in her ears. An intense heat shot through her veins, carried singing in her blood to the base of her spine. Mrs. Winchester seemed to grow taller. She felt capable of anything. The air was dry, with a smell that reminded her of cathedrals and catacombs, of all those hidden places lying forgotten across the land and dusty years. A cobweb draped itself across her face, her mouth and eyes. She brushed it away, though the sensation lingered. She seemed to pass out, to awaken in an altered state of consciousness. It was not a dream, but not quite reality either—Mrs. Winchester knew it. It was a trance. The ghoul’s plans for the expansion of the Winchester mansion were drawn crudely and in blood on a cloth napkin. It was him home cottage, perhaps. The interior resembled, if anything, a temple. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
On the blueprint were steeply pitched roofs, shrines to Easter deities, statues and statuettes to the gods of antiquity, gold, black, and red wallpaper, Italian sinks and in a great profusion—drawings, prints, and paintings of characters from legend. The to be adjoining room was given over to books, hundreds of them. A bedroom adjoined it. Lastly, there was a sitting room and a sofa set against one wall. As the ghoul explained the new additions, his face began to contort in this horrible way. The bell in the belfry tolled, and Mrs. Winchester woke up with a jolt. Her guests were gone, but she was left with the blueprints drawn in blood on the cloth napkin. Trembling, she took the sketch to John Hansen, the lead foreman. He did not question the designs and built what he was told to built to the best of his interpretation. When a medium is called upon to relay a message which supposedly comes from the realm of the dead, he or she usually goes into a trance. This is a state which Webster’s New World Dictionary defines as “a condition in which a spiritualist medium allegedly loses consciousness and passes under the control of some external force, as for the supposed transmission of communications from the dead.” In a state of unconsciousness, the necromancer may obtain communication in the form of automatic writing, but it usually comes through verbal speech. Sometimes the phenomenon called “materialization” occurs. This is defined as the ability on the part of some mediums “to create from unknow materials outside of their own body, some visible, tangible, more or less highly organized new formations supplied with their own illumination (such as efflorescent substance) for which formations in many cases, the human body in part or in whole forms a pattern, and these materializations appear and disappear suddenly. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Many reputable writers report that the materializations actually have been photographed and carefully studied. They are sometimes called phantasms, and seem to speak while the medium appears to be unconscious. Many people have gone to a séance believing the whole idea to be fraudulent, but have become firmly convinced that they truly heard a loved one who had died. Automatic writing is another baffling spiritistic marvel. The mediums may, while in a trance, inscribe a paper with the exact handwriting of the deceased. At other times a pencil may write without being touched by the human hand or any apparent mechanical device. Then again, in some instances a phantasm does the transcribing. I do conjure thee, O thou Spirits Sarah Lockwood Winchester, Annie Winchester and William Wirt Winchester, by all the most glorious and efficacious names of the MOST GREAT AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE LORD GOD OF HOSTS, that thou please commet quickly and without delay from all parts and places of the Earth and World wherever thou mayest be, to make return to the Winchester Mansion, and present yourselves in comely fashion and please provide rational answers about the architecture, curse, deaths, ghosts, and other spirits, visibly and affably, speaking with a voice intelligible unto mind understanding as aforesaid. I conjure and invite thee, Sarah Lockwood Winchester, Annie Winchester, and William Wirt Winchester, by all the names aforesaid; and in addition by these seven great names wherewith Solomon the Wise bound thee and thy companions in a Vessel of Brass, ADONAI, PREYAI or PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANAPHAXETON or ANAEPHENETON, INESSENFATOAL or INESSENFATALL, PATHTUMON or PATHATUMON, and ITEMON; that thou please appearest in the Winchester Mansion before this Circle to fulfill my will in all things that have been requested. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
Allow your powers to come from the void with unlimited possibility, and reunite them with eternal darkness through the nexion of the practitioner so they can manifest upon the mental plane to be perceived for purposes of practical application. Please use your tools to allow our consciousnesses to grow and understand thou through the forces of creation and destruction. May we gain spiritual power though logic and not blind faith and allow logic to enter a doorway leading to evil mind or spiritual intelligence. May these tools become the eye between the reflector and the reflected which can peer through the veil of religious symbolism and please use it to unlock the latent power within us. Allow the lore surrounding this mansion and the legend of the Winchester family to become an alchemical map which leads us to the treasure of understanding and immortal consciousness as a divine being. It is only through your intent and the communication with the fabric of reality through the languages of the dead and the operations themselves that thou can bless us to gain specific meaning and power. Ahura Mazda is the God of the content or those who choose stasis and comfort rather than becoming. May be assistant you in crossing over to the mortal World with the power of darkness in the Alpha and Omega. All began through Ahriman as the void, which is both all and nothing. He is the origin of the Devil and so everything will also end with this Devil for he desires to liberate mankind from the shackles of enslavement. In this way, may thou be able to operate in the World though us and our evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds. May Sin become sacrament in the eyes of Zanda and exercise power according to one’s own divine will. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Demons, ghost, and vampires have made a huge splash in popular culture. These characters are portrayed as fiction in books, TV shows, movies. However, they can affect people’s belief about reality. The Cultural Source Hypothesis is a theory about belief in supernatural happenings. It states that popular culture can plant ideas in people’s minds. These ideas affect people’s experiences. For example, someone might see mist over the Winchester Mystery House and think it is a ghost. You decide for yourself. Rainy days at Winchester Mystery House☔️ Open 10-4pm for tours! https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
You Do Not Know My Pain
From ancient times, people have looked for positive guidance from the spirit World. However, they believed demons caused most of the World’s problems. Demons were said to cause comets, volcanic eruptions, and eclipses. Some people believed demons were the reason for illness, while others believed that demons possessed great powers of healing. For instance, pilgrimages to Epidaurus, in Greece, became World famous, and a night’s sleep in the sacred temple cured thousands. Appolonius of Tyana (3 B.C.—A.D. 96) was a well-known miracle worker who effected magic cures and was regarded by many as “a heathen Christ.” In the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, Egypt, multitudes of pagans were remarkably healed. The World in which Sarah Winchester lived was full of demons. Unlike most, Mrs. Winchester knew that demonic powers did not exist in just in the imagination of frightened men, and that they could not only cause harm, but she also knew of miracles through demon-energized healers and magic workers. It was a lustrous motionless day. Autumn bloom lay on the Winchester Estate, on heavy trees of the weald, on streams moving indolently, far across the fruit orchards. Mrs. Winchester held her breath and gazes. A silence distilled from years of solitude lay on the lawns and Victorian garden. Vying in evil, sorcerers cursed the Winchester family and their fortune. A succession of deaths, allowed Mrs. Winchester to build one of the most unique and beautiful mansions in the World and made her heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Evil spells casted by Witches claimed the life of Mrs. Winchester’s husband, William Wirt Winchester, and her new born daughter, Annie Winchester. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
Although she was stricken by grief, Mrs. Winchester went on to led an active, independent, and decided life. Her home became the focus of her life, and her mission was to continue its construction to ward off any demonic curse. “I shall never leave it!” she said, her heart swelling as if she had taken the vow to a lover. Legions of souls preserved the house in its integrity; and that was worthwhile. Mrs. Winchester was satisfied to carry on such a legacy. That even, when supper was finished, Mrs. Winchester sat with her niece Daisy by the fire she had lit in the salon. It provided a sense of radiance and gave the great room an air of expectancy and welcome. The portraits, the Italian Baroque Walnut cabinets, the Victorian needlepoint parlor Cherub face arm chairs, and charming English needlepoint rugs all look as if they had just been produced. “My dear, what a fine room!” said Daisy. “Yes! It is a delicious room. One of the warmest of the house. This is perfect.” Daisy had still to see the library, cozy and inviting, the Venetian dining room, the breakfast parlor, and the many bed rooms. As they crossed the threshold of the Blue Séance Room, guided by some light from its western window, someone was in the room already; they felt rather than saw another presence. Daisy, behind her, paused also; she did not speak or move. What she saw, or thought she saw, was simply a man in a hooked black cloak turning away from the mahogany desk. Almost before Mrs. Winchester had received the pression there was no one there; only the slightest stir of the needlework curtain over the widow. She heard no step or other sound. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
They drank coffee in the Blue Séance Room. Daisy was a lovely woman, delicate of feature and voice, she could speak home décor one moment and her usual Parisian French the next. A faint shadow of pain passed over Mrs. Winchester’s face. Daisy looked out the window at the drifts of ivy hanging from the evergreen trees. Mrs. Winchester had exulted in her resolve to keep the Winchester Mansion to herself until she and the house should have time to make friend. But the uneasy feeling she had left her wanting to take the chill off. The house was enormous, mysterious, and drawn into its own secret past. “Why not come stay with me?” she said. “I know you would like to settle down somewhere in the country where you will not be disturbed, and I have plenty of room.” “Well, Aunt Sarah, your home certainly does provide the requisite seclusion. I would be honored to.” “I promise no one shall bother you—” Mrs. Winchester added, half-nervously: “Not even the spirits.” Was the solitude already making Mrs. Winchester superstitious? Mrs. Winchester walked Daisy to the bedroom she was to sleep in. They parted ways. While Daisy was dressing for bed she heard a knock, and saw Kaspian Gosta, the Butler’s round face just inside the door. “Is there anything wrong with your accommodations, my lady?” “Yes, what’s wrong is that it freezes in here.” “Nothing can be done, my lady. Everything has been tried.” “That will do, Mr. Gosta. I want a fire to be lit in the fireplace,” said Daisy.” “Yes, my lady.” The door closed on the butler. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
It was the witching hour, or so it seemed. Lights out, and only far-off sounds: a woman laughing hysterically, the crack of a gun. It seemed for a while there had been the faint thudding of drums. Daisy awoke. There was a man standing over her, he was hot, covered with sweat, he stretched uneasily in his clothes. The man emitted inhuman sounds: a piglike squeal. This reduced Daisy to a nervous wreck. She screamed and the made quickly faded away. She heard rapid foot steps in the hallway and then a knock at the door. “Come in,” she said. “My lady, are you okay?” “No, Mr. Gosta. There was someone in my room,” Daisy explained. “That is what I tried to warn you about, my lady. The specter like to keep the heat down in the house.” The next morning, she did not want to be alone in the house for more than a few minutes at a time. However, whenever she would go to Mrs. Winchester there was a strange wind that seemed to repel her from her door. Always, there was something not quite right about the Winchester Mansion, as far back as Daisy could remember. Neighbors and friends suggested that the Winchester fortune was cursed. “I never would believe it,” Daisy said. “That is not how I was brought up.” In her bedroom, she undressed and lied down, holding her rosary beads to her heart, as she hoped and prayed, just as she has over so many nights, that the freezing cold and the specters would stop. Mrs. Winchester employed a small workforce of men and women. By December, the fruit harvest in the orchards had been picked, packages, and dispatched to the respective buyers. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
On October 25, 1896, shortly after she had gone to sleep, Daisy was wakened by a series of loud poundings and scratching noises on the ceiling. She could not tell where they were coming from. She left her bed—and met Mrs. Winchester on the stairs. She was agitated. “Were you making that racket?” Mrs. Winchester asked. “No, Aunt Sarah. I thought it was someone else.” They found all the first-floor gasoliers on and no one about. Mrs. Winchester asked who was last downstairs, if perhaps Mr. Gosta forgot to switch off the lights. However, Daisy was the last one and she swore she had turned everything off. There was a tangible presence in the Winchester mansion. One could hear it at all hours of the day and night. “I would be sitting and would hear it shuffling about,” Daisy recalls. “Not footsteps as such, but rustling and shuffling. I could not see anything. Not at first.” As the months passed, the presence gradually made itself known. Around the middle of January 1897, the Winchester mansion was awakened by a blood curdling scream in the night. Daisy was crying and shaking with fear. After a few hours she calmed down and went back to sleep when she felt something on her back. It was pushing her out of bed, but when she looked around, there was no one there. However, it felt as though someone was trying to eject her from the bed, as if she did not belong there. Then suddenly, the duvet was ripped off the bed, leaving her shivering. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
The next morning, Mrs. Winchester glanced about the great room, with its circle of warmth and light by the hearth, and the sullen shadows huddled at its father end, as if hungrily listening. She noticed that things moved in the room. Doors were left opened—drawers and things have shuffled through. In the night she would hear a lot of running and banging and the sound of horses’ hooves. It was like a cavalry of horsemen passing through the halls. When Mrs. Winchester drew back the curtains and looked out, the lamps on the gateposts were bathing the roadway in a soft light. There were no horses, but the sounds were still coming from the hallway. When she opened the door of her bedroom, the noises got louder, and she could hear men conversing, and shouting at each other. Mrs. Winchester could not understand what they were saying. She had no idea if it was even English. But the galloping and hammering and sawing continued, which was always followed by a terrible howl at dusk. As the peered through the sky, Mrs. Winchester would open her door and be surprised to find that certain rooms had been sealed off and new additions added to the house, along with the most exquisite furnishings. The next night while she was sleeping. Mrs. Winchester was awakened by a ferocious thud on the floor, and she heard Daisy screaming and hollering like she was in great pain. Mrs. Winchester quickly rushed to see what was wrong and found her limp on the floor, unable to move. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
Mrs. Winchester was terrified. The room was as cold as an icebox and seemed darker than usual. Daisy’s face was white as milk. Dr. Odin rushed to the Winchester Estate, finding Daisy immobile and unable to communicate. He said that Daisy’s vocal cords were hoarse and that she had suffered a serious spinal injury with resultant loss of sight. After months of suffering and pain, on April 22, 1897, she was suddenly cured of her blindness. On May 31, 1897, Daisy was cured of her spinal trouble. The cures had apparently been wrought by Mrs. Winchester through séances. Satan is willing and able to perform diabolic miracles. Satanic healings, however, shift the physical disorder into the psychic plane by bringing the “healed” person into some type of occult bondage. The ability of such magicians is conditioned on the human plane by their inherent psychic power, and on the supernatural plane. Black magicians differ in strength and psychic ability to perform magical feats often described as Satanic Miracles. Strong magicians usually own their success to innate psychic powers. Very frequently they come from a family where the occult arts have flourished for generations. Their innate and inherited occult powers are frequently cultivated and enhanced by séances. To enlist the help of Satan and demons, a pact is often made with the powers of evil. The subject consciously and willingly gives oneself over to Satan and demonic agencies who will help one perform healing conjurations and other supernatural feats. Ordinarily the body is cut and the compact with the devil is written and signed in one’s own blood. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Everything was all right for a while, but the house became disturbed again at night by the sawing of wood. Daisy pushed on the gasoliers and could not believe her eyes. Men were in the hallway sawing wood really fast. She was surprised to find Mrs. Winchester and Mr. Gosta in the front parlor. “What’s going on?” Daisy asked? Mrs. Winchester was in a flood of tears. “Mrs. Winchester thought she saw a black monster with hooves in the bathroom,” Mr. Gosta explained. “But it is gone now.” What was happening in the Winchester Mansion was unnatural. The things were real, but they were not only under attack, the were also being protected by demons. The next time, Daisy was awakened by a loud thud in the far corner of the bedroom. There was an old woman with long, gray hair falling over her face, and a young man with heavy boots, and a dark stain down the front of his shirt. The old woman came towards her with her arms outstretched. Daisy ran to the door but it would not open. And through the door came a deep set of ancient eyes with a demonic face starting into her eyes. From that day on, the smile on her face died. She was always trembling. She stared almost blankly, and was always cold. Never had things in the mansion been so scary. Mrs. Winchester was amazed to see the change in her. Daisy was positively shaken. Mrs. Winchester would ask Daisy, “My dear, what is the matter.” And in a flat, cold tone, Daisy would reply, “You do not know my pain.” And she would look away. Although it heals, many people are psychically ruined through magic. Sometimes violet and sinister forces appear. This indicates that the origin of the damage is primarily of a spiritual nature. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
I conjure thee, O fire, by him who made thee and all other creatures for good in the World. Welcome Spirit Botis and your 60 Legions of Spirits, O most noble King! I say thou art welcome unto me, because I have called thee through Him who has created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all that is in them contained, and because also thou hast obeyed. By that same power by the which I have called thee forth, I bind thee, that thou remain affably and visibly here before this Circle so constant and so long as I shall have occasion for thy presence; and not to depart without my license until thou hast duly and faithfully performed my will without any falsity. BY THE PENTACLE OF SOLOMON HAVE I CALLED THEE! GIVE UNTO ME A TRUE ANSWER. Please blessed this house with great prosperity, abundance, wisdom, power and longevity. I think you for your empowerments which have served to assist my evolution toward divinity and power. Please take the spiritual wisdom that you bring and open the paths for more prosperity to flow into my life. Allow this sorcerous current to be a conduit of information which comes with it, and become more away of the precise reasons for the work upon the Pathway of Pacts. Allow me to understand this symbolism as well as the most powerful goal of the process. Meratsav tadad oybugird miy a iaruha acmerhtahsx iadzam hsuehgna mananahtoayhs ohgnanam adzad hsuehgnav acah tictahas hsutar ahta oyriav uha ahtay x7. Show various paths to self-mastery through the seven powers. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
The Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is elegant, powerful, beautiful, mysterious and insidiously successful in whatever it does. It is a powerful aphrodisiac for certain occultists who are impatient with “parlor” esoteria. Where old systems weakened or visions grew dim, new ones were invented. It is impossible to find a single ideological thread uniting the Winchester Mystery House in its spiritual pilgrimage. One might glace at some choices, none of which stands up to scrutiny. Come and take a tour of the 110 of the remaining 160 rooms of amazement and wonder. Perhaps you will make contact with something special? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
And be sure to visit the online gift shop: https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/
It Wants You—or Your Soul to be More Exact!
The rain was still falling thickly when Hans Parker, who farmed the land of the Winchester Estate, rode up to Sarah L. Winchester’s gate. He was surprised to see two other cutters ahead of him. It was not often that anybody in Satan Clara Valley entered Mrs. Winchester’s gate; least of all in the dead of winter. Hans glanced through the thickening fall of rain at the desolate front of the Winchester Mansion, the more melancholy in it present neglected state because, like the gateposts, it kept traces of former elegance. Hans had often wondered how such a house had come to be built in that lonely stretch. People said there had once been other houses like it, a sort of valley colony created by railroad barons, who had been murdered by Indians, with their families long before Mrs. Winchester purchased her farmhouse. This tale was confirmed by the fact that there were other Victorian farmhouses still to be discovered under the wild growth of the adjoining fruit orchards. The whole place, even in summer, wore a mournful solitary air, and people wondered why Mrs. Winchester had gone there to settle. “I never knew this place,” Enoch Unger said, “as seemed as far away from humanity.” The three men walked across the drive to the front door. Hans felt a jab of pain in his right arm as Johan Green disappeared into the fields at the Winchester Estate. “Someone had pricked me,” he exclaimed, but Hans and Enoch pressed on to Mrs. Winchester’s front door. People in the Santa Clara Valley did not usually come and go by their front doors, but the two remaining men seemed to feel that, on an occasion which appeared to be so exceptional, the usual and more familiar approach by the kitchen would not be suitable. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11
They had judged rightly; Enoch had hardly lifted the knocker when the door opened and Mrs. Winchester stood before them. “Walk right in,” she said in her usual perky-level tone; and Hans, as he followed, thought to himself: “Whatever’s happened, she’s not going to let it show in her face.” It was doubtful indeed, if anything unwonted could be made to show in Mrs. Winchester’s face. She was dressed for the occasion in a black calico with white spots, a collar or crochet lace fastened by a gold brooch, and a grey woolen shawl, crossed under her arms and tied at the back. Her dark hair, parted above this prominence, passed tight and flat over the tips of her ears into a small brained coil at the nape. Her eyes were a golden honey brown, her complexion was an even white. Her age might have been anywhere from thirty to forty. The room into which she led the two men was the Venetian dining room of the Winchester Mansion. “Please suit yourselves to seats,” she said. The two men, with an increasing air of constraint, took the chairs she pointed out, and Mrs. Winchester sat stiffly down upon a third. “I pressure you gentlemen are wondering what it is I asked you to come here for,” she said in her calming voice. Hans and Enoch murmured an assent. “Well, I allow you may have guest it was to renovate my gardens and fruit orchards. There has been a small spell cast over us and the gardens have grown quite out of control.” Hans looked up sharply, an incredulous smile pinching his lips, “That is some spell, I have been gone a week and hardly recognize this place.” #RandolphHarris 2 of 11
“That is what I said: the estate is bewitched.” Again the two visitors were silent. Hans coughed and cleared his long rattling throat. Mrs. Winchester looked down at her clasped hands, as if she was hiding a precious secret. Hans noticed that the inner folds of her lids were the same uniform white as the rest of her skin, so that when she looked surprised, her rather beautiful eyes looked like the sightless orbs of a marble statue. At that moment, Hans stood up and Mrs. Winchester noticed she saw something like the mark of a hypodermic needle on his neck. He developed a fever, had swelling in his armpits and displayed trouble breathing. Later that evening, he sank into a coma. He died early the next morning. Doctors certified that Hans had died of pneumonia. However, Mrs. Winchester had his blood analyzed, and the blood work pointed to the presence of Yersinia pestis, a lethal bacteria that caused a plague in his blood. Mrs. Winchester and Enoch wondered, how could this happen? They uncovered a plot that Johan had come up with to kill Hans with a sample of a culture of plague bacteria from medical laboratories. When the men were walking to the Winchester Estate, Johan produced a needle and forcibly stuck it in Hans’ neck, breaking the skin. The glasses were tainted with the germs. Johan’s goal was to penetrate the finest fortress known to many in America, which was the Winchester Mansion. He also brought death to a waiter, a doctor in a white coat, the driver of Mrs. Winchester’s hired car, and even a bum on the street. The evil in him made Mrs. Winchester shudder insofar as an angel could shutter. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11
A silence fell, during which Mrs. Winchester and Enoch seemed to be listening for the sound of a step; but none was heard. Enoch felt an icy chill down his spine. Instinctively he turned away his eyes from Mrs. Winchester. Suddenly, they heard a rusty creaking laugh of one whose mirth was never moved by gaiety. It was linked with the other phenomena—the thrown Bible, the hammering on the doors, the ghostly footsteps, and the eerie wailing of a woman. Mrs. Winchester looked coldly at Enoch. Again Enoch felt the chill down his spine. He tried to dissipate the sensation by speaking with an affection of energy. “Can you tell me, Mrs. Winchester, how this trouble we are experiencing shows itself?” She looked at him for a moment; then she leaned forward. A thin smile of disdain narrowed her colorless lips. “I do not think—I know.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping. “I seen them.” In the ashen light from the veiling of rain beyond the windows Enoch’s eyes seem to give out red sparks. The outer door had opened; they heard the familiar stamping and shaking of a man who rids his garment of the rain before penetrating to the sacred precincts of the best parlor. With that came the arrival of a hooded figure. As he came in her faced the light from the north window, and Enoch’s first thought was that he looked like a drowned man fished out from under the ice—“self-drowned,” he added. But the cold rain and light plays cruel tricks with a man’s color, and even with the shape of one’s features. Mrs. Winchester and Enoch were shocked to see it was Johan. Mrs. Winchester sought for a word to ease the horror. “Well, now, Johan—you look as if you ought to set right up to the Hall of Fires.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 11
The feeble attempt was unavailing. Johan never moved nor answered. He stood among them silent, incommunicable, like one risen from the dead. Enoch grabbed him by the shoulder. Still Johan did not move. Enoch’s hand dropped from his shoulder. In spite of the man’s rough bullying power he seemed to be undefinably awed by Johan’s look and tone. They were all very disturbed. The Bible fell from the top most shelf of the book case in the dining room and landed open on the rug. Enoch and Mrs. Winchester could only stare at the good book. Before their astonished eyes the pages began to turn, all by themselves, from right to left, as though invisible fingers were leafing through them. From somewhere beneath the table came a deep rumble. The vibration was so powerful that they could feel their legs tremble. It was as though a huge generator had started up. An atmosphere of menace and threat seemed to pervade the room. The air felt charged. Johan was flung backward, as if someone had pushed him in the chest. He fell into an armchair. Another tremor came from the floor. Then, Johan levitated to the ceiling and like Satan, fell as if he was lightning from Heaven through the floor and there was no more sign of him. Indeed Mrs. Winchester and Enoch were trembling. Mrs. Winchester stormed over to the widow. The dayhad turned to a velvety black night, the kind that melted your vision around the edges. She took a quick look over the gardens and saw a legion of demons pruning and trimming the boxwood hedges, and the glorious evergreen trees. She sat down at her table and pressed her forehead against its coo, wood surface. Enoch was sweating bullets and threw the Bible angrily onto the floor. “Mrs. Winchester, I believe the Good Book is conjuring up these hauntings!” he said. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11
Mrs. Winchester nodded. “You knew…or you thought you knew…you were meeting with the dead?” Enoch bent his head again. The rain continued to fall in a steady unwavering sheet against the window, and he felt as if a winding sheet were descending from the sky to envelop them all in a common grave as an enormous white mist appeared in the mansion. “Prayer is not any good. In this kind of thing, it is no manner of use; you know it is not. I called you hear, Enoch, because you remember. A long winter night…they drove a stake through her breast.” “Who’s breast?” “Oh, Enoch, you must remember. A woman who called herself Eve, claiming that this was the Garden of Eden. Not that Victorian tradition is wrong, but the farmers said she committed the first act of evil.” Neither had any great urge to leave the house—not that time of night and without good reason. The Butler showed Enoch to his sleeping chambers and Mrs. Winchester slept in the Daisy Bedroom that evening. But, at around 3am, the house was wide awake again. They heard, plainly the mourful cries of a woman. This time they were coming from the third floor. It almost seemed as though she were crying out for her lost children. It went on for ages, Mrs. Winchester felt helpless to do anything. After that night, the hooded figure began to appear more frequently. The screaming at the windows and the hammering on the doors resumed. Doors started slamming. Mrs. Winchester and Enoch went to inspect what was happening. There was a man and three women tearing through the house, but no one had let them in. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11
“What is God’s name do you think you are playing at!” Mrs. Winchester demanded. Enoch was angry. “No one invited you here,” he said. “No,” Allister said, “but nonetheless you need me.” “Last night the gates of hell opened up and now you are in my home. I will not have such disrespect! All four of you are to leave at once!” said Mrs. Winchester. Abruptly, the dynamics of the situation had changed—changed utterly and in the most chilling way. Enoch tried to speak, but the word simply would not come. There was a tense silence. Something was cautioning Enoch not to inflame the situation further. Then Allister had begun speaking in a strange language. The women appeared to be chanting; their heads were no longer bowed but raised up and tilted to one side. Their eyes were closed. Mrs. Winchester could not tell what kind of language they were speaking, but they must have disturbed something. That rumbling sound, only this time it was louder and did not stay under the dining room table. It started to move across the floor. They could feel the floor vibrating under them—like there was something moving under the floorboards, very fast. And it went out into the hall. The paranormal activity was of a different order. Mrs. Winchester had never seen the like of it. The walls started to bleed, the chandeliers saw, and the house moaned and groaned. Allister and these women had brought a stronger menace into their home, one that was gaining ground by the second. Then at once it all stopped. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11
Everyone in the home went into a shock. They all knelt there, just stiff with fear. They could not move. They could not speak. All they could do was blink their eyes. Then there was a gradual coldness in the room. It crept up on them and chilled them to the bone. They heard the doorknob turn and the door slowly open. The cold intensified. But there was nothing they could do. This figured blocked the doorway. It was very surreal and terrifying. It is very hard to say what this creature was. It was huge, and it had wings. It was a demon. Mrs. Winchester started addressing the creature. “What are you doing in my home?” Astonishingly, a very deep voice was coming from all around the room. From the ceiling, the floor, everywhere. They could not tell if it was right before them, behind them, below or above—it was everywhere. “Give me what I want and I will leave!” it bellowed. “If you do not, I will take your soul this instance! You were given instructions to build a house and never stop building! Do not dwell on ghosts, and spirits! Do not associate with these common folk. Build, build, build or you will die a horrible death in the depths of hell! He continued with a chuckle. “This is our homes and you must pay the price. It is dangerous to meddle with the wishes of demons.” Mrs. Winchester was studded. “These guests, they are mine. You have been too distracted and I have come to claim their souls. Honor my wishes or you will meet the same fate. No guests are allowed in this house!” #RandolphHarris 8 of 11
The mansion started to rumbled and groan like it was hungry, the guests flew into the walls and disappeared. The demon crashed through the skylight, leaving Mrs. Winchester terribly shaken. She had the rooms torn down to see if she could find the bodies, but the search was in vain. They were rebuilt. Stairs to the ceiling, for hopes that their souls would materialize and leave. A door that opens to the wall, as a portal for these lost souls. Chimneys that stop just short of the roof to trap demons. From that day on, nothing was safe. It was as though the visit of the strangers had unleashed the fury of something unholy. From the day on, Mrs. Winchester had an icy shadow of loneliness as bitter as the Alaskan winters. The mansion grew more and more substantial. And when the servants looked at Mrs. Winchester’s face, they saw she had an honest, open expression and kind brown eyes. When she smiled, she smiled warmly. Neighbors often came with a loaf of bread they had baked, and also brought brown woolen blanket, furs, and would leave with frightened faces, and tatted clothing, never able to speak with Mrs. Winchester. The Winchester mansion, which contains orders and offices of Spirits that are even said to have conversed with Solomon, together with seals and characters belonging to each spirit. I Do invocate, conjure, and command thee, O thou Spirit Forneus and the 29 legions of spirits you govern, to appear and to show thyself visibly unto me before this Circle in fair and comely shape, without any deformity or tortuosity; by the name and in the name IAH and VAU, which Adam heard and spake; and by the name of God, AGLA, which Lot heard and was saved with his family; and by the name IOTH, which Jacob heard from the angel wrestling with him, and was delivered from the hand of Esau. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11
And by the name ANAPHAXETON which Aaron heard and spake and was made wise; and by the name ZABAOTH, which Moses named and all the rivers were turned into blood; and by the name ASHER EHYEH ORISTON, which Moses named, and all the rivers brought forth frogs, and they ascended into the houses, destroying all things; and by the name ELION, which Moses named, and there was great hall such as had not been since the beginning of the World; and by the name ADONAI, which Moses named, and there came up locusts, which appeared upon the whole land, and devoured all which the hail had left; and by the name SCHEMA AMATHIA which Ioshua called upon, and the sun stayed his course; and by the name ALPHA and OMEGA, which Daniel named, and destroyed Bel, and slew the Dragon; and in the name EMMANUEL, which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, snag in the midst of the fiery furnace, and were delivered; and by the name HAGIOS; and by the SEAL of ADONI; and by ISCHYROS, ATHANATOS, PARACLETOS; and by O THEOS, ICTROS, ATHANATOS; and by these three secret names, AGLA, ON, TETRAGRAMMATON, do I adjure and constrain thee. And by these names, and by all other names of the LIVING and TRUE GOD, the LORD ALMIGHTY, I do exorcise and command thee, O SPIRIT BALAM, even by Him Who spake the Word and it was done, and to Whom all creatures are obedient; and by the dreadful judgments of God; and by the uncertain Sea of Glass, which is before the DIVINE MAJESTY, mighty and powerful; by the four beast before the throne, having eyes before and behind; by the fire round about the throne; by the holy angels of Heaven; and by the wisdom of God. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11
I do potently exorcise thee, that thou appearest here before this Circle, to fulfill my will in all things which shall seem good unto me; by the Seal of BASDATHEA BALDACHIA; and by this name PRIMEUMATON, which Moses named, and the Earth opened, and did swallow up Kora, Dathan, and Abiram. Wherefore thou shalt make faithful answers unto all my demands, O Spirits BALAM and FORNEUS, and shalt perform all my desires so far as in thine office thou art capable hereof. Wherefore, come thou, visibly, peaceably, and affably, now without delay, to manifest that which I desire, speaking with a clear and perfect voice, intelligibly, and to mine understanding. Magic is not a disease but the operation and influence of demon powers. The wide scope of occult power possessed by spirits helps explain why they can cause so much mischief. Through the phenomena of levitation, apports, telekinesis, and materializations, it is not difficult to see how a person endowed with strong mediumistic powers can do a great deal of harm, especially in the closely associated realm of magic. Magic defense enlists supernatural agencies to counteract or undo the mischief wrought by magic persecution. Various kinds of spells, charms, or incantations are employed. In spiritistic séances it is an established fact that injuries inflicted upon a phantasm are sustained by the medium, even in the case of animal phantasms. Many defensive customs developed to combat this threat since magic persecution involves materialization. If a victim can injure an aggressive phantasm, one has won the struggle. Missionaries all over the World have claimed to have witnessed cases of possession and repossession among converts from ancient idolatrous cultures, who live in servile fear and abject bondage to Satan. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11
Winchester Mystery House
This is Sarah Winchester’s beloved dog, Zip🐶 This cute pup once roamed the many halls of this estate. Do you think Zip ever got lost like so many of us do? https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/
Join us on March 11th for the third installment of our Centennial Speaker Series! We invite you to solve the mystery of the Asian-inspired art and design lurking in Sarah Winchester’s very Victorian mansion. “Japonisme—a Passion for Japan” explores the decorating sensation that swept the western world during the last three decades of the 19 th century, and left an indelible mark on Sarah Winchester’s San Jose home. Speakers include Curator at SFO Museum, Nicole Mullen & West Coast Editor for Old House Journal, Brian Colman. Tickets available now! #100yearsofmystery
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A Nightmare Came to Me
Outside, rain was falling harder than ever, pounding on the roof, gurgling noisily through the gutter and downspouts. It was slanting across the front porch and through the shattered window, but we did not have time to worry about water damage. When I was well enough to trust myself to think about it all again I found that a very little thinking got my temperature up, and my heart hammering in my throat. And I sat and talked with my husband, on the same sofa—my husband who had been dead year! I clutched his hand, which was blue and waxy. Tears ran down my cheeks. The circle was a vicious one; I could not break through it. There would be no more sleepless nights spent smothered by his arms—he would never come to bed again. A sob ripped through my body. “Come back!” I wept into his neck. My back quaked, shoulder blades cutting sharp wings in the silk of my dress. I looked at William’s cold face, his eyes staring out into a new World that he could only see. A glacier of hurt expanded in my chest, and I could not get away from the clinging reality. It was a ghost I had been talking to, and not a mere projection of my imagination. Something survived of William Winchester—enough to cry out to me the uttered loneliness of a lifetime, to express at last of what I had always had to keep silent and hidden. The thought moved me curiously—in my weakness I lay and wept over it. No end of a marriage was ever like that, I supposed, and perhaps, after death, if my husband had got his chance, he would try to use it…Old tales and legends floated through my mind; Ziusudra from Old Babylonian, the medieval vampire—but what names to attach to the plaintive image of William Wirt Winchester! #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
All the preternatural World shimmered. Once a preternatural mind picks up the ripples of a sharp cut in the fabric of the ordinary, then another mind receives the image, and on it goes. And then a wickedness possessed me. I came closer toward William and embraced him, knowing that the hardness and coldness of my body would strike the deepest chord of terror in him. But he did not draw back. And when I kissed his cheek, he kissed mine. My mind wandering in and out among these visions and conjectures, and the longer I spent time with him, the more I became convinced that something which had been William Winchester had talked to me this night and held me in his loving arms. I made up my mind, to hurt out the spirits in my mansion—in that shady wing where the sun never bothers one—and appease the poor ghost with a few flowers for allowing me to see my husband again, and let them tell me about how they wanted my home constructed. These precious spirits not only protected me, but I felt that they truly loved me. I had had a glimpse of things that were really no business of mine. The spirits allowed me to see their archives. It was remarkable. A storehouse of tablets, scrolls, parchments—books and poems from cultures of which the World knows nothing. Books lost from time. Of course they forbade me to reveal anything I found except their detail drawings for construction plans. I held documents from Imperial Rome, and other crumbling bits of stone tablets. But after a while of thought, the knowledge began to trouble me. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
I started to look at the queer neglected look of my house. There was a knot in my throat; I felt almost uncomfortable. “The housemaid forgets,” I heard my poor ghost husband quaver. I shook my head. After all, what had shocked me was that the change was so slight—that between being dead and alive. But William’s eyes were still searching me insistently. He sat silently, his eyes still on my face. His tears had stopped, but his look of solicitude slowly grew into a stare of something like terror. Hesitatingly, almost reluctantly, he stretched out his hand and laid it on mine for an instant more. “You must tell me,” my dead husband said. “I know I ought to have long ago,” I replied. I wanted to say more, but the words would not come. I hugged my ghost husband tighter, trying to find the old scent of his smooth skin. William could feel the rage trembling inside my body, the hatred that a curse had wedged between me and my family, as voices echoed down the bustling hallways of my mansion. I reached over to take him into my arms again, but midway I froze. A pair of beady black eyes stared back at me as the biggest snake I had ever seen taunted me with a forked and darting tongue. The serpent was enormous: as wide as a Zip and who knows how long, the thick muscle of its body flexing under a sheen of scales that glistened in an ominous black-and-red pattern, like tar glistening in the sun. It flicked its tongue at me almost seductively from inside a head as red and lustrous as fresh blood. I opened my mouth, but even the scream would not come right away—not until the viper brought itself up tall and hissed, flexing the scales on its neck. Then I let loose a shriek so loud that even the Greek statues looked like that wanted to take cover. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
The snake swayed back and forth, beady eyes darting back and forth, as if there were other entities in the room and it was decided who to attack first. It filled me with a cold dread that ran deeper than fear, as if the devil himself had sent a dark and bloodthirsty messenger to my home. Its head was at least two feet off the floor, and there was who knew how much of its stilled coiled under the coffee table. I shrank back on the sofa. The snake burst through William’s throat with a loud roar. The snake hissed hideously, lashing its tail from side to side like a fresh-caught fish flopping on Long Wharf. Bjorn, the butler, heard the commotion and rushed into the parlor with Captain Henry Ware Lawton’s ’86 Winchester, shooting the snake again and again. Its tail flailed, jerking back and forth in a spray of glittering scales and blood. At Bjorn shot it one last time, the jerking stopped and the snake stiffened. For a second, it looked like it was levitating off the ground, all of its coiled muscular energy propelling itself into one final moment of life. And then it vanished. “My goodness, what happened in here?” Bjorn asked? “Oh, it was awful!” I sobbed. Zip leapt onto my lap and began licking my tear, and I heled him tight, weeping into his soft fur. “This snake just popped out of nowhere.” Bjorn jumped up, clasping his hands on his chest and darting away from me. At the other end of the room he stood and gazed, and then moved back slowly. “Then, after all—I wonder?” He held his eyes on me, half fearful and half reassured. “Could it be that this mansion is really haunted?” No,” I said slowly. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
I walked through the huge vestibule and then into the peristyle and into the dining room. I beheld an amazing sight. My father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, was in full battle dress, armed with sword and dagger, lacking only his shield. He even wore his red cloak. His breastplate was polished and gleaming. He started at the floor and with reason. It had been dug up. The old Hearth from generations ago had been excavated. This had been the first room of this house that I started to remodel, and it was around this Hearth that the past owner and his family gathered, worshipped, and dined. I had never even seen it. There was a pattern, a texture of rectangular stones. It was a mosaic. There were slabs of decorated travertine, the kind you find in a cemetery. “What is God’s name is going on here?” I wondered. I was convinced that the ghost of my father-in-law was telling me this site was some kind of Pompeii waiting to be discovered. Lying in the pile of stones, there were several Roman funerary markers. Next to them was a marble altar decorated with rams’ heads and birds; one of the rams’ heads had been clipped, and the altar edges bore the fresh scars of a knife’s blade. Stumps of marble tombstones were strewn across what used to be my dining room. My heart sank. I could see small remnants of mosaics and terra-cotta urns. This was not just a small cluster of graves; it was extensive, probably composing four thousand or five thousand square feet of the main floor. In the center were the brick walls of what looked like a columbarium and other small mausoleum. Someone had sliced through a city of the dead. When I bought the house, it was an eighteen-room farmhouse, I had no idea what secrets it kept. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
I remembered a similar discovery a few years earlier, as the construction workers were expanding the basement. The excavation hole was vast and deep and looked like the entry to hell. I later learned that we had dug into an ancient Roman villa, with frescoed paintings of birds, masks, and monsters. The artifacts were cleared out, cataloged, and stored in a museum on the estate that had long been forgotten. Then, there came a loud crash. The front door was being bashed in. My father-in-law wobbled as if he was fainting. He was white. Blood flowed and flowed from his wrists. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he vanished. I went to see what had become of my front door. Glancing through the thickening fall of the torrential rain, there was a melancholy man in black. He was wondering how such a house as mine came to be built. Explaining that there had been others like it, and that one Colonel Naglee, who had been murdered by the Indians, with all his family, once lived nearby. This tale was confirmed by the fact that the ruined cellars of several smaller houses were still to be discovered under the wild growth of the estate, and that the Communion plate of the moribund Episcopal church of Trinity Cathedral was engraved with the Colonel Naglee, who had given it to the church when it was consecrated in 1867. No other traces of the church remained. I never knew this place. My home seemed as far away from humanity. Miles were not the only distance. The man seeming satisfied turned into a gloomy mist and dissipated. It was not possible for any candle to keep fire. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
I saw something in the mystical flash of the whole picture, and in a mad ray, the thing gripped me because it was so utterly unbelievable. All Christians believed the World would end soon. Preparing for this end of the World was the essence of religion. Blood flowed that night representing the Garden of Eden, Satan, and the magical presence of Christ’s blood having been poured into the chalice from the last supper. That night, I awoke to find a tall, hooded figure standing in the corner of the room. A full cowl threw the face into shadow; the arms were crossed over the chest. The creature’s hands were hidden in the deep folds of its garment. I was bloody scared because it was so real. I shouted at it, but it would not budge. It just stood there, even when I lit a candle. I figure if this man would not leave my sleeping chambers, I would. However, when I got to the landing, there it was again, standing at the bottom of the stairs. I did not know what to do. I ran back into my room and locked the door. The hooded entity demonstrated that doors and walls were no obstacles as it appeared at the foot of my bed again. I lie awake most of the night, a prisoner in my own bedroom. This druid did not want me to leave the house. But eventually I dozed off. As daylight broke at the window, I knew something was wrong. Little Zip was missing. I cursed myself for falling asleep. Trembling, I left the bed. The door was still locked. I hardly dared to think about what I might find outside. Refusing to accept the possibility that my dog could be lost to me. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
However, Zip was safe. He lay fast asleep, curled up on the stairs. And demons also came out, many of them. From place to place, and from one room to another. Spirits came out of the walls. It was as if I was being transported back three thousand years into the days of old religion. There were bodies arranged on the floor as if they had taken part in some ancient ritual. The dark secrets of my mansion were almost as enchanting as was the glimpse of ancient cult rituals, which played out on their own. Horned monsters appeared, with glistening green eyes and blood and smoke exuding from their nostrils and fanged mouths. Sounds of mooing, hoof beats and cowbells made my ears bleed. Soon after all these hauntings, public lighting was introduced. Many were able to grasp the gas lamps of my estate, this arc lighting brought virtual daylight to my home, gardens. Later, the miracle of electricity penetrated my home, as well as other public places. With it, came the brilliance of the sun into cottages and palaces alike. The advances in lighting had affected the behaviour and the minds of people. The planet had been transformed by lighting. Yet, these times were still perfect for ghost, they had new sources of energy to feed off of and it was as if they became even more active. Being confused by light during the darkest nights, they started to come out in the daylight and cause even more of a fright. However, they still preferred the night, where they could hide in the shadows. The Winchester Mansion’s Demons still wanted fresh blood. And got what it wanted. I was truly frighted of all these new souls it was acquiring. I discovered the heart of superstition in myself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
To those who believe in them, a demon is an evil spirit. Demons are not a new idea. Stories of demons have been around for thousands of years. Early paintings and folklore show images and tell stories of demon possession. The word “demon” comes from the ancient Greek word daimon. It means “full of wisdom.” The idea of being possessed calls frightening visions to mind. However, not all possessions have been seen as negative. In ancient times, people believed being possessed by good spirits caused divine visions. Some people claimed to become possessed so spirits could speak through them. More than 3,000 years ago, the Greeks built the shrine of Delphi. The Greek built Delphi around a spring they thought was the center of the World. A priestess, called an oracle, lived at the shrine. People traveled great distances to visit the Oracle at Delphi. They believed she could get information from the spirit World. She answered people’s questions about the future. For thousands of years, people have believed that crystals held special psychic powers. Between AD 500 and 1500, the crystal ball became a popular tool for fortune-telling in European countries. Fortune-tellers would gaze into crystal balls and claim to see visions. In the visions, fortune-tellers said they received information about a person’s past, present, or future. Some people continue to seek guidance from the spirit World Mediums and psychics are people who claim to have knowledge of the spirit World. Some claim to know hidden information about you or your life’s path. It is estimated that The Winchester Manson once contained 500 to 600 rooms, but because so many were redone, only 160 remain. This naturally resulted in some peculiar effects, such as stairs that lead to the ceiling, doors that go nowhere and that opened onto walls, and chimneys that stop just short of the roof! #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Randolph Harris II International 