A man must stay in his own orbit and take his directives from within. If through fear of loneliness, intimidation, or suggestion, he joins the marching groups of time, he will not reach his best. Covert hypnosis might sound like something that just would not work. After all, if they are going to be hypnotized, a person has to be aware of things. The back-and-forth action of an old pocket watch repeated words. You are getting sleepy. Those kinds of things cannot be done without the subject knowing what you are trying to do. Some people claim to be able to contact the unconscious mind of others. Manipulating thoughts of other without the subjects being aware of what they are doing is what covert hypnosis is. Of course, with something this sinister, there are huge controversies surrounding the subject. Who has not ever been sleep deprived? A lack of sleep degrades both short-term and long-term memory. Sleep deprived decision-makers are likely to have access to fewer strategic options, decision criteria and other information in their long-term memory. This knowledge, however, is crucial for making informed strategic decisions. That is why people use sleep deprivation to get others to do what they want. Intense emotions such as fear, anger, and shame can alter individuals’ capacities for decision-making, emotional regulation, and relating to others. It is well established that emotion plays a key role in human social and economic decision making. People evaluate objective features of alternatives such as expected return in a subjective way, and emotions are understood to influence these subjective evaluations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

People often play on old fears to get other to do what they want them to do. The history of neuroscientific research on fear has developed extensively over the last 50 years, in particular focusing on the neural structures involved in fear, and how fear can affect decision making processes. The neurocircuitry supporting fear conditioning has been extensively investigated in animal models and humans and highlights the central role of amygdala in fear acquisition, storage, and expression. The amygdala triggers the release of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol, which increase heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, helping the body prepare to enact fight or flight. Very often the effects of fear on cognition are beyond our control. It is easier for emotions to invade our thought processes than it is for us to take cognitive control of our emotions because the amygdala is better at driving the prefrontal cortex than vice versa. Although there may be some experiences of fear that agents find tolerable, enjoyable, or even worth seeking (exempli gratia, horror movies, haunted houses, roller coasters), experiences of genuine and sustained fear for the wellbeing of one’s self, one’s loved ones, or fear for the security of one’s environment are all forms of suffering. To be fearful in these senses is to suffer. These physiological components of fear experiences have been shown to alter a variety of everyday cognitive processes. Fear has been shown to alter processes of visual perception, risk perception, and information uptake. Fear has been shown to sometimes radically alter individuals’ practices of decision-making. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

Perhaps unsurprisingly, experiences of fear sometimes prompt individuals to make more risk-averse decisions, and to be more pessimistic about the likelihood of beneficial events in the future. Fear in some cases alters study subjects’ capacity for making decisions by making them excessively focused on the possibility of catastrophic events. This means that fearful subjects are not able to proceed in decision-making as they ordinarily would, because they are held up by fear of risks or devasting outcomes. As such, fear can certainly have serious effect on belief, and in some cases, can have epistemic costs. In conjunction with the ways fears can augment what agents see, perceive as dangerous, how agents process information, and make decisions, fears can certainly alter individuals’ beliefs in relation to processes of perception, information-processing, and decision-making. If a fearful individual is more likely to visually process only some parts of their environment, or to be able to take in more limited amounts of new information, this can limit what they know about their environment. If a fearful agent is more likely to perceive some object or event as risky than their non-fearful counterpart, their beliefs about that object or event may not accurately reflect the actual risk posed. Fear can have serious implications for what agents believe, and for how accurately those beliefs reflect reality. In some cases, this can amount to epistemic damage. Fear can also disrupt agents’ ways of relating to others: subject can become more suspicious of others, less trusting, and more circumspect. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Both fears directly related to one’s relationship (exempli gratia, fears of the person with whom one is in relationship, or fears that something bad may happen to them) and unrelated fears (exempli gratia, fears of some other perceived danger) can stall one’s ability to relate to others: they can distract individuals, make one unable to focus on treating others well, or disrupt one’s capacity for trusting ways of relating. If fear can have these effect, causing suffering, fundamentally altering even one’s most basic capacities for visual perception, risk perception, information uptake, making subjects less sure of themselves and their futures, making it difficult or impossible to relate to others in practiced ways, it seems unsurprising that serious experiences of fear can, in some instances, be disorienting.  In addition to the ways fears can disrupt these foundational capacities, they can also make one question who one is, and how one should continue to act in everyday life. Disorientation is sustained, difficult experiences that make it hard to go on. Disorientations regularly follow devasting experiences like the loss of a loved one, serious illness, trauma, o oppression, and they can also follow more neutral or beneficial events like migration, feminist education, queer identification, or consciousness-raising. In all cases, to be disoriented is to feel up in the air, and unsure of oneself, in more or less debilitating ways. Disorientations are not one-time events: they may be triggered by discrete events (exempli gratia, the death of a loved one), but to be disoriented in this sense is a sustained experience. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

Less metaphorically, to be disoriented is to have difficulty making plans, feeling secure and confident in one’s actions, or being able to go about one’s daily life with ease. Think of the common feelings following the loss of a loved one or diagnosis of a serious illness: who am I now? How can I go one with my life? My home and job may not feel comfortable anymore. I may struggle to feel happy, and be constantly questioning myself and my decisions. Disorientation is used to capture a sense in which major life experiences can make it hard to know how to go on in the sense of becoming unsure of how we should identify ourselves, what we should believe, what projects we should pursue, and what actions we should prioritize. Psychopathological offenders also use panic to get victims to do what they want. An offender may scare a large group of people and keep repeating a fearful trigger word to get others to shout it and warn people, until there is total chaos in what was a peaceful environment. A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by the news medica, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or politicians that target the source of panic. In this way, moral panic can foster increased social control. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

Moral panics are often centered around people who are marginalized in society due to their race or ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, or religion. As such, a moral panic often draws on known stereotypes and reinforces them. It can also exacerbate the real and perceived differences and divisions between groups of people. Moral panic is well known in sociology of deviance and crime and is related to the labeling theory of deviance. Manipulators also use confusion as a method of control. One hypnotic process that stands out in this context is called, “the confusion technique.” This method can be employed by manipulators to induce a trance-like state by overwhelming the listener with a barrage of information that does not quite connect logically. They talk incessantly, and eventually, you submit and do what they want. Why do some people do this? The goal is to disorient you to the point where you seek any relief. When the instruction finally simplifies, offering a clear action, your brain latches on, grateful for direction instead of confusion. This is the essence of the confusion technique: it leads you through a maze until you are so desperate for a way out that you will latch onto the first clear directive which is often what the manipulator wants you to do. Confusion can be a manipulation that preys on our desire to escape discomfort, offering a solution that aligns with a manipulator’s wishes. Being aware of such techniques is crucial. The confusion technique is often employed without conscious intent; many manipulators are not studying manuals about unethical influence. They have simply learned that their method yield results they want. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

The freedom to follow the commands of reason is a psychological problem. Let us return to our example of the man who is confronted with the choice of either smoking or not smoking this cigarette or, to put it differently, to the problem of whether he has the freedom to follow his rational intention. We can imagine an individual whom we can predict with near certainty that he will not be able to follow his intention. Assuming he is a man deeply bound to a mothering figure and with an oral-receptive orientation, a man who is always expecting something from other, who has never been able to assert himself, and because of all this is filled with intense and chronic anxiety; smoking, to him, is the satisfaction of his receptive craving, and a defense against his anxiety; the cigarette, to him, symbolizes strength, adultness, activity, and for this reason he cannot do without it. His craving for the cigarette is the result of his anxiety, his receptiveness, etcetera, and is as strong as these motives are. There is a point where they are so strong that the person would not be able to overcome his craving unless some drastic change went to occur in the balance of forces within him. Otherwise we can say that he is, for all practical purposes, not free to choose what he had recognized to be better. On the other hand, we may imagine a man of such maturity, productivity, lack of greed, that he would not be able to act in a way that is contrary to reason and to his true interests. He also would not be “free”; he could not smoke because he would feel on inclination to do so. This is a state of beatitude in which man is not free to sin. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Freedom of choice is not a forma abstract capacity which one either “has” or “has not”; it is, rather, a function a person’s character structure. Some people have no freedom to choose the good because their character structure has lost the capacity to act in accordance with the good. Some people have lost the capacity of choosing the evil, precisely because their character structure has lost the craving for evil. In these two extreme cases we may say that both are determined to act as they do because the balance of forces in their character leaves them no choice. In the majority of men, however, we deal with contradictory inclinations which are so balanced that a choice can be made. The act is the result of the respective strength of conflicting inclinations within the person’s character. It must be clear by now that we can use the concept “freedom” in two different senses: In one, freedom is an attitude, an orientation, part of the character structure of the mature, fully developed, productive person: in this sense I can speak of a “free” person as I can speak of a loving, productive, independent person. In fact, a free person in this sense is a loving, productive, independent person; freedom in this sense has no reference to a special choice between two possible actions, but to the character structure of the person involved; and in this sense the person who “is not free to choose evil” is the completely free person. #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

The second meaning of freedom is the one which we have mainly used so far, namely, the capacity to make a choice between opposite alternatives; alternatives which, however, always imply the choice between the rational and the irrational interest in life and its growth versus stagnation and death; when used in this second sense the best and the worst man are not free to choose, while it is precisely the average man with contradictory inclinations, for whom the problem of freedom of choice exist. If we speak of freedom in this second sense the question arises: On what factors does this freedom to choose between contradictory inclination depend? Quite obviously the most important factor lies in the respective strengths of the contradictory inclinations, particularly in the strength of the unconscious aspects of these inclinations. However, if we ask what factor support freedom of choice even if the irrational inclination is stronger, we find that the decisive factor in choosing the better rather than the wore lies in awareness. Awareness of what constitutes good or evil; which actions in the concrete situation is an appropriate means to the desired end; awareness of the forces behind the apparent wish; that means the discovery of unconscious desires; awareness of the real possibilities between which one can choose; awareness of the consequences of the one choice as against the other; awareness of the fact that awareness as such is not effective unless it is accompanied by the will to act, by the readiness to suffer the pain of frustration that necessarily results from an action contrary to one’s passions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Many of the patient’s difficulties in expressing his thoughts and feelings are related to the analyst. Thus the person who is unable to associate freely—whether because it would threaten his defenses or because he has lost too much of his own initiative—is likely to transfer to the analyst his aversion to the process of his chagrin at failure, and react with an unconscious defiant obstruction. That his own development, his happiness, is at stake is practically forgotten. And even if the process does not give rise to hostility toward the analyst, there is the further fact that fears concerning the analyst’s attitude are always present to some degree. Will he understand? Will he condemn? Will he look down upon me or turn against me? Is he really concerned with my own best development, or does he want to mold me into his pattern? If I make personal remarks about him, will he feel hurt? If I do not accept his suggestions, will he lose patience? It is this infinite variety of concerns and obstacles that makes unreserved frankness such an extremely difficult task. As a result, evasive tactics will inevitably occur. Th patient will deliberately omit certain incidents. Certain factors will never occur to him in the analytical hour. Feelings will not be expressed because they are too fleeting. Details will be omitted because he considers them trivial. “Figuring out” will take the place of a free flow of thoughts. He will stick to a long—winded account of daily occurrences. There is almost no end to the ways in which he may consciously or unconsciously try to evade this requirement. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

A second task confronting the patient in analysis is to face his problems squarely—to gain an insight into them by recognizing factors that were hitherto unconscious. This is not only an intellectual process, however, as the word “recognize” might suggest; as emphasized in analytical literature since Ferenczi and Rank, it is both an intellectual and an emotional experience. If I may use a slang expression, it means gaining information about ourselves which we feel in our “guts.” The insight may be a recognition of an entirely repressed factor, such as the discovery made by a compulsively modest or benevolent person that actually he has a diffuse contempt for people. It may be a recognition that a drive which is at the level of awareness has an extent, intensity, and quality that were never dreamed of: a person may know that he is ambitious, for instance, but never have suspected before that his ambition is an all-devouring passion determining his life and containing the destructive element of wanting a vindictive triumph over others. Or the insight may be a finding that certain seemingly unconnected factors are closely interrelated. A person may have known that he has certain grandiose expectations as to his significance and his achievements in life, and have been aware also that he has a melancholy outlook and a general foreboding that he will succumb to some pending disaster within a brief span, but never have suspected that either attitude represents a problem or that the two have any connection. #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

In this case his insight might reveal to him that his urge to be admired for his unique value is so rigid that he feels a deep indignation as its nonfulfillment and therefore devalues life itself: like an inveterate aristocrat who is faced with the necessity of stooping to a lower standard of living, he would rather stop living than be satisfied with less than he feels entitled to expect. Thus his preoccupation with impending disaster would actually represent an underlying wish to die, partly as a spiteful gesture toward life for not having measured up to his expectations. It is impossible to say in general terms what it means to a patient to obtain an insight into his problems, just as it would be impossible to say what it means to a person to be exposed to sunshine. Sunshine may kill him or save his life, it may be fatiguing or refreshing, its effect depending on its intensity and also on his own condition. Similarly, an insight may be extremely painful or it may bring an immediate relief. There are several reasons why an insight may produce relief. To begin with the least important consideration, it is often a gratifying intellectual experience merely to learn the reasons for some phenomenon not hitherto understood; in any situation in life it is likely to be a relief merely to recognize the truth. If such memories help one to understand precisely what factors influenced one’s development at the start, this consideration applies not only to elucidations of present peculiarities but also to memories of hitherto forgotten childhood experiences. #RandolphHarris 12 of 2019

More important is the fact that an insight may reveal to a person his own true feelings by showing him the speciousness of his former attitude. When he becomes free to express the anger, irritation, contempt, fear, or whatever it was that was hitherto repressed, an active and alive feeling has replaced a paralyzing inhibition and a step is take toward finding himself. The inadvertent laughter that frequently occurs at such discoveries reveals the feeling of liberation. Even if the finding itself is far from agreeable, even if the person recognizes, for instance, that all his life he has merely tried to “get by” or has tried to hurt and dominate other, this may hold true. In addition to producing this increase in self-feeling, in aliveness, in activity, the insight may remove the tensions generated by his former necessity to check his true feelings: by increasing the forces that were needed for repression it may increase the amount of available energies. The extent to which the patient has gained true and lasting insight into his personality, or the degree to which he has learned how to use the natural equipment of his personality in achieving more effective adaptation to future problems or stresses are vital dimensions in the patient’s total response to psychotherapy. Some of these criterion measures are relatively objective, accessible, and easy to record. Others require the development of particular methods of assessment, direct and indirect. Some are of a nature that demand clinical appraisal and subjective judgment; with these it is necessary to avoid so far as possible the usual sources of error in the fallible human observer-evaluator, especially the bias which operate if the expert responsible for an activity is asked to be a judge of its success. #Randolphharris 13 of 20

Through the joint efforts of psychiatrist, psychologists, and social workers there is presently available a sturdy armamentarium of psychometric and sociometric devices that can yield complex measures of the patient’s level of mental health. There is increasing evidence of readiness to use multiple measures in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. With all of the above evidences of the vitality of the research endeavour in psychotherapy, it is to be hoped that within the next 25 years we shall have a fair answer to our questions: Does psychotherapy work? Does a particular method of therapy work better with certain patients than another method? It is probable that, in addition to perfection of research techniques, the answering of these crucial questions will require establishment of special research clinics in order to assure the participation in the evaluation studies of therapists who represent them major schools and who presumably practice different forms of psychotherapy. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the often-voiced opinion that different approaches may be differentially effective with different problems has no led to a general pattern of staffing clinics or hospitals with therapists representing schools of apparently divergent orientation and practice. The homogeneity of the theoretical “climate” in most treatment centers is probably not so much a function of administrative policy (or oversight) as a “mating” tendency among therapists. To paraphrase the old saw about the birds, “Psychotherapists of persuasion agglutinate.” #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

This tendency toward professional cohabitation of therapists trained in a particular school is probably only a natural response to subtle psychological pressures, and it might be hypothesized that such homogeneous clinics have a higher therapeutic effectiveness on the average than would a group of therapists of diverse persuasion. Obvious differences of conviction interfere with certainty, reduce certainty depress confidence, and impaired confidence is likely to lower competence! Again and again, an “objective” and a “wile” are quite distinct. The wile is a means used by the foe to gain an objective. The evil spirits must use “wiles” to carry out their objective. Their objective is deception, but their “wiles” will be counterfeits. They are liars, but how can they succeed in getting their lies into the mind of a man? They do not need wiles to make themselves liars, but they need the wile to get the lies accepted by the self-actualized. The wiles of the ultimate negative and his emissaries are countless and fitted to the individual self-actualized. If he is to be moved by suffering from any course of action detrimental to their interests, they will play upon his sympathies by the suffering they cause to someone near and dear to him. Of if he shrinks from personal suffering, they will work upon this to make him change his course. To those who are naturally sympathetic, they will use a counterfeit love. Those who can be attracted by intellectual things will be drawn from the spiritual sphere by being driven to excessive study, or be given mental attractions of many kinds. #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

While others—those who are oversensitive and conscientious—may be constantly charged with the blame of apparently continuous failure. They lying spirits lash the person for what they themselves but, but if the believer understands how to refuse all blame from them, he can use their very doings as a weapon against them. For this conflict with the powers of darkness the self-actualized must learn by experience how to take and use the armour for the battle. The objective is clearly not victory over sin—this is assumed—but VICTORY OVER THE ULTIMATE NEGATIVE. The call to stand in armour; to stand in the evil day; to stand against the powers of darkness; to stand after accomplishing the work of overthrowing them—having overcome all—by the strength of God. The armour is provided that the child of God should be able to stand against the wiles of the ultimate negative—clearly showing that the self-actualized can be made able to conquer all the principalities and powers of hell if he fulfills the necessary conditions, and uses the armour provided for him. If it is provided for meeting a real foe, and God evidently demands a real knowledge of it on the part of the self-actualized—to whom the fact of the provision, the real fact of the foe, and the fact of the fight must be as real facts as any other facts declared in the Scriptures, it must be a real armour. The armoured Christians is armoured with truth, righteousness of life, marking and keeping peace. Self-preservation (the root meaning of the word “salvation) and control, faith as a shield, scriptures on hand and often memorized, and praying without ceasing. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

The non-armoured Christian is much different. One is opened to lies, through ignorance. Unrighteousness through ignorance, divisions and quarrels, reckless unwatchfulness, doubt and unbelief, relying on reason instead of God’s Word. Relaying on work without prayer. The self-actualized who takes up the whole armour of God as a covering and protection against the foe should himself then start walking in victory over the enemy. To do this he must have his spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit, so that he is strengthened with the might of God to stand unshaken—and to be given continuously a supply of Jesus as the Christ to keep his spirit sweet and pure; have his mind renewed so that he has his understanding filled with the light of truth, displacing the lies of the ultimate negative, and destroying the veil with which the ultimate negative once held it—the mind being clarified so that he intelligently understands what the will of the Lord is; have his body subservient to the Spirit, and obedient to the will of God in life and service. Let a person be brought before your tribunals who is plainly under demonical possession. The wicked spirit, bidden to speak by a follower of Jesus as the Christ, will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god. Or, if you will, let there be produced one of the “god-possessed,” as they are supposed. If they do not confess, IN THEIR FEAR OF LYING TO A CHRISTIAN, that they are demons, then and there pray for their souls, or bodies void of a soul. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

ALL THE AUTHORITY AND POWER WE HAVE OVER THEM IS FROM OUR NAMING THE NAME OF CHRIST, AND RECALING TO THEIR MEMORY THE WORD WITH WHICH GOD THREATENS THEM AT THE HAND OF JESUS AS THE CHRIST, THEIR JUDGE, AND WHICH THEY EXPECT ONE DAY TO OVERTAKE THEM. FEARING CHRIST IN GOD AND GOD IN CHRIST, THEY BECOME SUBJECT TO THE SERVANTS OF GOD AND CHRIST. SO AT ONE TOUCH AND BRETHING, OVERWHELMED BY THE THOUGHT AND REALIZATION OF THOSE JUDGMENT FIRES, THEY LEAVE AT OUR COMMAND THE BODIES THEY HAVE ENTERED, UNWILLING AND DISTRESSED, AND BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, PUT TO AN OPEN SHAME. Numberless demoniacs throughout the whole World and in your city, many of our Christian men—exorcising them in the name of Jesus as the Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate—have healed and do heal, rendering helpless, and driving the possessing demon out the men, though they could not be cured by all other exorcists, and those who use incantations and drugs. CYPRIAN expressed with confidence that they are evil spirits that inspire the false prophets of the Gentiles, and deliver oracles by always mixing truth with falsehood to prove what they say, he adds: “Nevertheless these evil spirits adjured by the living God IMMEDIATELY OBEY US, SUBMIT TO US, OWN OUR POWER, and are forced to come out of the bodies they possess.” The one under demon-power is an involuntary victim. (The willing soul is known as a medium.) The chief characteristic of demonomania is distinct “other personality” within. (This is different to demon-influence, for in this, men follow their own wills, and retain their own personality.) #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

These demons have a longing for a body to possess, as it seems to give then some relief, and they enter the bodies of animals as well as men. There are distinctly individual peculiarities of the spirits. They converse through organs of speech, and give evidence of personality, desire, fear. They give evidence of knowledge and power not possessed by the subject. In Germany, Pastor Blumhardt gives instances of demons speaking in all the European languages, and in some languages unrecognizable. In France there were some cases having the “gift of tongues,” speaking in German, Latin, Arabic. The demon possession of the body entirely changes the moral character of those they enter, compelling them to act entirely contrary to their normal behaviour. Reserved, reticent men will weep, sing, laugh, talk; meek souls will rage; ordinarily pure-tongued men and women will speak of things not to be named among children of God, and act in manner and conduct contrary to their normal dignity and behaviour—all of which they are not responsible for while under “control” of this other personality within them. In brief, they will exhibit traits of character utterly different from those which belong to them normally. There are also nervous and muscular symptoms peculiar to demon possession in the body. There is also an afflatus of the breast, which is a special mark of demon possession. Oracular utterances are given in jerks and sentences, quite unlike the calm coherent sequence of language seen in the utterances of the apostles at Pentecost. There is “levitation” of the body—well known by spiritists—when the subject will say he is quite unconscious of possessing a body; and there is invariably a passive mind. There is often a distinct voice which speaks through the lips of the subject, expressing thoughts and word unintentionally. #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

How different would be the history of the World without keeping the fire department in mind—a department that has changed or arrested the course of civilization, and the effect of which has been as far-reaching as that of wars. In every day life the human hazard, the risk of losing all of one’s Earthly possessions, is ever present. When you consider that sixty-four percent of all fires in the United States of America occur in dwelling houses, the question of an adequate fire department is brought home. With the growing number of skyscrapers, enormous factories, and a constantly growing use of chemicals in these factories, and other features of modern life that tend to make fire-fighting more difficult, the fireman’s calling has been raised to the dignity of profession. The fire department must know something of electricity and various branches of mechanics to be efficient. They must have training, skill and judgment. All fires are not alike, and the best fire fighters knows at a glance from the colour of the flames the temperature of the blaze, the amount of water pressure and the size of the nozzle to use, for an inadequate stream would only make the fire worse. Furthermore, the prevention of panics in theaters, schools, and other public buildings have become an important function of the fire department. Statistic show that more persons are killed by being trampled and crushed than actually burned. A cool heard and quick wits and special training are required on the part of the fire fighters to take such measures as will reassure and control the people. Let us make sure that the Sacramento Fire Department receives adequate funding by making a donation. Without them, there would not be a United States of America. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

The Winchester Mystery House

Spectral dogs are familiar throughout the Winchester Estate. They tend to be black, and hairy. They are known as “barhgasts.” Suicides, and hanged men, were reputed to come again in that guise, haunting the place of their death. Unbaptised babies also took that form, in order to pursue their offending parents. Mrs. Winchester’s dog known as “Zip” often appears on the estate as a spectral dog. The Winchester Mansion is apparently his lair, but not his alone. The Devil and his Hell Hounds are said to run, howling, across the estate. On 18 April 1906, many people saw and heard a hunting pack in full cry. The dogs were as black as pitch with large and staring eyes. Throughout the night, fire fighters heard the hunters sounding and blowing their horns. These black dogs have been observed jumping over hedges, and frequenting a certain path. One caretake of the mansion “saw a black dog with a chain dangling from its collar, which passed him absolutely noiselessly, and went through a closed door.”

There is a room in the Winchester Mansion, with the largest cupboard in the house, and something used to pass through the cupboard, cross the room, and walk through the wall. The “thing” was large, dark, and animal-like. There are also accounts of a dog, commonly described as white with blood dripping from its fangs. It is believed to presage death. The ghost that brings news of death is known as a “fetch.” Some dogs in the house are invisible, but their panting can be heard as they walk beside a guest; these are believed to be friendly guardians. Dogs are, in addition, held to be highly sensitive to unusual activity that human beings construe as ghost-like. The natural human body has it senses, the spirit also has its senses. There are busy senses within, examining and judging, approving and condemning, joying and grieving, hoping and fearing, after a fashion of their own, which no bodily sense can imitate. There is a spirit within which we call ourselves, and it is perfectly distinct from the body in which we dwell.

If our spirits, which are generated in or without bodies, are elaborated from immaterial substances into separate existences, constituting individual spirits, these individual spirits must be presumed to be composed of spirit substance or substances, and possessed of different faculties. Our very language implies that human spirit is an organism composed of parts mutually related, which though individually different, are generically the same. It is a well-established doctrine of Scripture, that the body is animated by an intelligent and immortal spirit, that feels and acts by means of its material mechanism, without being itself material. The activity given the name of “Poltergeist” is so well known and so frequently attested that it may seem unnecessary to detail its particular manifestations. However, as if something were trying to announce its presence, the activity generally begins with “knocking” or “rapping” in certain rooms.  Then characteristically there follow lounder or more frightened noises such as the thumping on floors and walls or the sounds of scratching. These in turn tend to be followed by noises as of furniture being thrown violently around a room that can increase in frequency and intensity within a matter of days or weeks. In one recent case there was heard the distinct noise of someone “grinding his boot heel in a scattering of grit or gravel.”

Only after the stage of sound has been passed is there evidence of actual movement. Pieces of furniture seem to shift of their own accord. Doors are flung open or violently closed. The drawers of cupboards also open and close of their own volition. Plates are smashed. Light bulbs explode or flicker uncontrollably. This activity can then be followed by the witnessing of objects being thrown into the air, apparently of their own accord. The curious thing is that if these objects strike a human being, they generally inflict no injury. However, if they strike inanimate objects, they can cause damage. What strange disorders of the night can prompt these accounts? Take pleasure in the antiques, the gardens and experience the homemaking of Victorian times. Enjoy a delicious meal in Sarah’s Café. For further information about tours, including group tours, weddings, school events, birthday party packages, facility rentals, and special events please visit the website: https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Please visit the online giftshop, and purchase a gift for friends and relatives as well as a special memento of The Winchester Mystery House. A variety of souvenirs and gifts are available to purchase.  https://shopwinchestermysteryhouse.com/