One must delve into the sometimes-wicked minds of top management in Corporate America to understand the powerplay and politics in order to understand these executives. Whether you have always been one to see the best in this World or not, you will come to understand that every person may not be what they seem to be. If only to make them look better, many people are out not only to take something from you but to try to keep you down. These people try to make their evil deeds and use other to get in positions that they do not deserve. Many people in television news are being discredited by others for following the path of darkness. However, using negativity will only bring negativity upon you. It is possible to understand darkness without being part of it. Manipulation is the art of making people think they actually want to do or say something that they really do not. Using insidious tactics to turn a person’s mind around to benefit oneself is an unfair act that can leave a victim confused. Some people genuinely do not understand what made them say or do the thing they did. And all the while, the manipulator knows what they did wrong. Sometimes people say things that seem to support an individual to make the victim think on the terms they want them to. They try to seductively persuade a person to behave in a way that they usually would not or say things that they never would say. One might wonder how terrorist groups get any followers at all. When the people are able to conspire and use social engineering, they are able to assert themselves as authorities and use the threat of hell to keep their followers in line. #RandolphHarris 1 of 20

It is always in your best interest to know and understand when people are trying to subtly use coercion. When people know that you can see through them, they will leave you alone. However, often these manipulative individuals are part of groups of others like them and think they are too intellectual for anyone to recognize their evil intentions. People who display an unhealthy level of narcissism pretend to empathize with others, but they actually have no care or concern about you. Their belief is that this is their World, and everyone in it is their servant. Machiavellianism is the practice of deceptive manipulation. These confidence men and women want to use—exploit people to serve them and their missions. They often times have no moral character nor the mortality people are typically born with, or are taught as they develop. Psychopathy is one of the most important character traits people use to become successful and it is often an attribute of people in television news. These people can pretend to be the most charming people you have ever met. However, the charm is not always there; it is used as a lure to get the victim into the presence where the suspect will impose their will on the victim once they are in a compromising or unsafe situation. Once a suspect has control over their victims, they will do things without caring about the outcome, or who might get hurt in the process. This is due to their selfish nature. The suspect with feel no guilt, embarrassment, or remorseful for the victim because they do not care. Therefore, do not allow people to bait you. #RandolphHarris 2 of 20

People are often used, abused, and drained of all their emotional and financial resources because they are naïve or seeking love and these are traits monsters will take advantage of. Do not let someone ruin your World or the World of someone you love as the psychopath did in Tyler Perry’s film Acrimony. Do not become hard on yourself because you have fallen prey to a monster. However, do not seek revenge, it is best to accept that you have been taken advantage of and move on. Most everyone has fallen victim of some sort of crime in their lifetime. Learn from past mistakes. Know that in most cases people did not change. Everything happens for a reason. If you are naïve, then it is probably because you have a trusting nature and/or were brought up in a home and community where you did not see or experience a lot of evil. As an adult, it is important to watch for the signs that you are being victimized or manipulated. People you love and trust may even victimize for profit or to save themselves. When you are told or asked to do something you feel uncomfortable doing, unsafe doing, or that is not your responsibility to do, just say “No.” When questioned about why you will not do it, just say, “Because I do not want to.” If a person tries to convince or persuade you into making a bad decision, just let them know that you have to go. Say, “Goodbye.” It takes practice standing up for yourself, but it is better than ending up dead, losing something or someone you love, or going to prison. #RandolphHarris 3 of 20

Often times people will use love or loyalty to manipulate you. One way to respond to this is by saying, “I love your affection, but it is not something that you can use to control me.” When someone wants something from you, they will often lie. If you do not feel comfortable or do not want to, just let them know that you cannot get involved in that situation because it may be a violation of the law, your morals and/or ethics. Even if this person loves you, do not let them trap you into a situation because they may be trying to set you up after the fact. Be careful of people who withdraw from you and ignore you when you are not willing to do something you want. This is a tool they will use to manipulate you by telling you if you comply with you, they will give you the love they know you deserve. These manipulators want you to feel terrible for not complying with them. You have to remain strong and calm. Let them learn that they cannot manipulate you. A calm voice and reasonable response always helps to get someone’s attention. However, sometimes you just have to walk away from a situation. There are time when there is nothing you can do to escape the situation, so removing yourself from the equation may be the best thing to do. What holds true of groups holds true also of individuals. In ever person there is a potential of archaic forces which we have just discussed. Only the thoroughly “evil” and the thoroughly “good” no longer have a choice. Almost everybody can regress to the archaic orientation, or progress to the full progressive unfolding of one’s personality. In the first case we speak of the outbreak of severe mental illness; in the second case we speak of a spontaneous recovery from illness, or a transformation of the person into full awakening and maturing. #RandolphHarris 4 of 20

It is the task of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and various spiritual disciplines to study the conditions under which the one or the other development occurs and, furthermore, to devise methods by which the favourable development can be furthered and the malignant development stopped. It is important for our problem to recognize that, aside from the extreme cases, each individual and each group of individuals can at any given point regress to the most irrational ad destructive orientations and also progress toward the enlightened and progressive orientation. Man is neither good nor evil. If one believes in the goodness of man as the only potentiality, one will be forced into rosy falsification of the fact, or end up in bitter disillusionment. If one believes in the other extreme, one will end up as a cynic and be blind to the many possibilities for good in others and in oneself. A realistic view sees both possibilities as real potentialities, and studies the conditions for the development of either of them. These considerations lead us to the problem of man’s freedom. Is man free to choose the good at any given moment, or has he no such freedom of choice because he is determined by forces inside and outside himself? A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the free-will controversy, and no new champion can do more than warm up stale arguments which everyone has heard. #RandolphHarris 5 of 20

This is a radical mistake. I know of no subject less worn out, or in which incentive genius has a better chance of breaking open new ground—not, perhaps, of forcing a conclusion or of coercing assert, but of deepening our sense of what the issues between the two parties really is, and of what the ideas of fate and of free will really imply. Psychoanalytic experience may throw some new light on the question of freedom and thus permit us to see some new aspects. The traditional treatment of freedom has suffered from the lack of using empirical, psychological data, and thus has led to a tendency to discuss the problem in general and abstract terms. If we mean by freedom freedom of choice, then the question amounts to asking whether we are free to choose between, let us say, A and B. The determinists have said that we are not free, because man—like all other things in nature—is determined by causes; jut as a stone dropped in mid-air is not free not to fall, so man is compelled to choose A or B, because of motives determining him, forcing him, or causing him to choose A or B. determinism in this sense is to be distinguished from the kind of theory which is sometimes called “soft determinism” and according to which it is consistent to believe in determinism and in human freedom. While my position here is more akin to “soft” than “hard” determinism it is not that of the former either. The opponents of determinism claim the opposite; it is argued on religious grounds that God gave man the freedom to choose between good and evil—hence that man has this freedom. Second, it is argued that man is free since otherwise he could not be made responsible for his acts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 20

Third, it is argued, man has the subjective experience of being free, hence this consciousness of freedom is a proof of the existence of freedom. All three arguments seem unconvincing. The first requires belief in God, and a knowledge of His plans for man. The second seems to be born out of the wish to make man responsible so that he can be punished. The idea of punishment, which is part of most social systems in the past and in the present, is mainly based on what is (or is considered to be) a measure of protection for the minority of “haves” against the majority of “have nots,” and is a symbol of the punishing power of authority. If one wants to punish, one needs to have someone who is responsible. In this respect one is reminded of Mr. Shaw’s saying, “The hanging is over—all that remains is the trial.” The third argument, that the consciousness of freedom of choice proves that this freedom exists, was already thoroughly demolished by Mr. Spinoza and Mr. Leibniz. Mr. Spinoza pointed out that we have the illusion of freedom because we are aware of our desires, but unaware of their motivations. Mr. Leibniz also pointed out that the will is motivated by tendencies which are partly unconscious. It is surprising indeed, the most of the discussion after Mr. Spinoza and Mr. Leibniz has failed to recognize the fact that the problem of freedom of choice cannot be solved unless one considers that unconscious forces determine us, though leaving us with the happy conviction that our choice is a free one. However, aside from these specific objections, the arguments for the freedom of will seem to contradict everyday experience; whether this position is held by religious moralists, idealistic philosophers, or Marxist-leaning existentialists, it is at best a noble postulate, and yet perhaps not such a noble one, because it is deeply unfair to the individual. #RandolphHarris 7 of 20

Can one really claim that a man who has grown up in material and spiritual poverty, who has never experienced love or concern for anybody, whose body has been conditioned to drinking by years of alcoholic abuse, who has had no possibility of changing his circumstances—can claim that he is “free” to make his choice? Is not this position contrary to the facts; and is it not without compassion and, in the last analysis, a position which in the language of the twenty-first century reflects, like much of Sartre’s philosophy, the spirit of bourgeois individualism and egocentricity, a modern version of Max Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (The Unique One and His Property)? The opposite position, determinism, which postulates that man is not free to choose, that his decisions are at any given point caused and determined by external and internal events which have occurred before, appears at first glance more realistic and rational. Whether we apply determinism to social groups and classes or to individuals, have not Freudian and Marxist analysis shown how weak man is in his battle against determining instinctive and social forces? Has not psychoanalysis shown that a man who has never solved his dependency on his mother lacks the ability to act and to decide, that he feels weak and this is forced into an ever increasing dependency on mother figures, until he reached the point of no return? Does not Marxist analysis demonstrate that once a class—such as the lower middle class—has lost fortune, culture, and social function, its members lose hope and regress to archaic, necrophilic, and narcissistic orientations? #RandolphHarris 8 of 20

Yet neither Marx or Dr. Freud were determinists in the sense of believing in an irreversibility of causal determination. They both believed in the possibility that a course already initiated can be altered. They both saw this possibility of change rooted in man’s capacity for becoming aware of the forces which move him behind his back, so to speak—and thus enabling him to regain his freedom. Both were—like Spinoza, by whom Marx was influenced considerably—determinists and indeterminists, or neither determinists nor indeterminists. Both proposed that man is determined by the laws of cause and effect, but that by awareness and right action he can create and enlarge the realm of freedom. It is up to him to gain an optimum of freedom and to extricate himself from the chains of necessity. For Dr. Freud the awareness of the unconscious, for Marx the awareness of socioeconomic forces and class interest, were the conditions for liberation; for both, in addition to awareness, an active will and struggle were necessary conditions for liberation. Basically the same position is taken in classic Buddhism. Man is chained to the wheel of rebirth, yet he can liberate himself from this determinism by awareness of his existential situation and by walking along the eightfold path of right action. The Old Testament prophets’ position is similar. Man has the choice between “blessing and curse, life and death” but he may arrive at a point of no return if he hesitates too long in choosing life. Certainly every psychoanalyst has seen patients who have been able to reverse the trends which seemed to determine their lives, once they become aware of them and made a concentrated effort to regain their freedom. However, one need not be a psychoanalyst to have this experience. #RandolphHarris 9 of 20

Some of us have had the same experience with ourselves or with other people: the chain of alleged causality was broken and they took a course which seemed “miraculous” because it contradicted the most reasonable expectations that could have been formed on the basis of their past performance. The traditional discussion on freedom will has suffered not only from the fact that Spinoza’s and Leibniz’s discovery of unconscious motivation did not find its proper place. There are also other reasons which are responsible for the seeming futility of the discussion. Self-analysis is an attempt to be patient and analyst at the same time, and therefore it is desirable to discuss the tasks of each of these participants in the analytic process. It should be borne in mind, however, that process is not only the sum of the work done by the analyst and the work done by the patient, but is also a human relationship. The fact that there are two persons involved has considerable influence on the work done by each. There are three main tasks that confront the patient. Of these the first is to express himself as completely and frankly as possible. The second is to become aware of his unconscious driving forces and their influence on his life. And the third is to develop the capacity to change those attitudes that are disturbing his relations with himself and the World around him. Complete self-expression is achieved by means of free association. It was Dr. Freud’s ingenious discovery that free association, hitherto used only for psychological experiments could be utilized in therapy. #RandolphHarris 10 of 20

To associate freely means an endeavour on the part of the patient to express without reserve, and in sequence in which it emerges, everything that comes into one’s mind, regardless of whether it is or appears trivial, off the point, incoherent, irrational, indiscreet, tactless, embarrassing, humiliating. It may not be unnecessary to add that “everything” is meant literally. It includes not only fleeting and diffuse thoughts but also specific ideas and memories—incidents that have occurred since the last interview, memories of experiences at any period of life, thoughts about self and others, reactions to the analyst or the analytical situation, beliefs in regard to religion, morals, politics, art, wishes, and plans for the future, fantasies past and present, and, of course, dreams. It is particularly important that the patient express every feeling that emerges, such as fondness, hope, triumph, discouragement, relief, suspicion, anger, as well as every diffuse or specific thought. Of course the patient will have objections to voicing certain things, for one reason or another, but he should express these objections instead of using them to withhold the particular thought or feeling. Free association differs from our customary way of thinking or talking not only in its frankness and unreservedness, but also in its apparent lack of direction. In discussing a problem, talking about our plans for the weekend, explaining the value of merchandise to a customer, we are accustomed to stick fairly closely to the point. From the diverse current that pass through our minds we tend to select those elements for expression which are pertinent to the situation. Even when talking with our closest friends we select what to express and what to omit, even though we are not aware of it.  #RandolphHarris 11 of 20

In free association, however, there is an effort to express everything that passes through the mind, regardless of where it may lead. Like many other human endeavours, free association can be used for constructive or for obstructive purposes. If the patient has an unambiguous determination to reveal himself to the analyst his associations will be meaningful and suggestive. If he has stringent interest not to face certain unconscious factors, his association will be unproductive. These interests may be so prevailing that the good sense of free association is turned into nonsense. What results then is a flight of meaningless ideas having merely a mock resemblance to their true purpose. Thus the value of free association depends entirely on the spirit in which it is done. If the spirit is one of utmost frankness and sincerity, of determination to face one’s own problems, and of willingness to open oneself to another human being, then the process can serve the purpose for which it is intended. In general terms this purpose is to enable both analyst and patient to understand how the latter’s mind works and thereby to understand eventually the structure of his personality. There are also specific issues, however, which can be cleared up by free associations—the meaning of an attack of anxiety, of a sudden fatigue, of a fantasy or a dream, why the patient’s mind goes blank at a certain point, why he has a sudden wave of resentment toward the analyst, why he was nauseated in the restaurant last night, was impotent with his wife, or was tongue-tied in a discussion. The patient will then try to see what occurs to him when he thinks about the specific issue. #RandolphHarris 12 of 20

To illustrate, a woman patient had a dream in which one element was a distress about something precious being stolen. I asked her what occurred to her in connection with this particular fragment of the dream. The first association that appeared was a memory of a maid who has stolen household goods over a period of two years; the patient had dimly suspected the maid, and she remembered the deep feeling of uneasiness she had before the final discovery. The second association was a memory of childhood fears of gypsies stealing children. The next was a mystery story in which jewels had been stolen from the crown of a saint. Then she remembered a remake she had overheard, to the effect that analysts are racketeers. Finally it occurred to her that something in the dream reminded her of the analyst’s office. The associations indicated beyond doubt that the dream was related to the analytical situation. The remark about analysts being racketeers suggested a concern about the fees, but this track proved to be misleading; she had always regarded the fees as reasonable and worthwhile. Was the dream a response to the preceding analytical hour? She did not believe that it could be, because she had left the office with a pronounced feeling of relief and gratitude. The substance of the precious analytical session was that she had recognized her periods of listlessness and inertia as a kind of subversive depression; that these periods had not appeared to her or others in this light because she had had no feelings of despondency; that actually she suffered more and was more vulnerable than she admitted to herself. #RandolphHarris 13 of 20

The woman also had often repressed hurt feelings because she felt compelled to play the role of an ideally strong character who could cope with everything. Her relief had been similar to that of a person who at great expense to himself has lived above his means all his life and now understands for the first time that such a bluff is not necessary. This relief, however, had not lasted. At any rate, it now struck her suddenly that after the session she had been quite irritable, that she had had a slight stomach upset and had been unable to fall asleep. The most important clue proved to be the association of the mystery story: I had stolen a jewel out of her crown. The striving to give herself and other the impression of outstanding strength had been a burden, to be sure, but it had also served several important functions: it gave her a feeling of pride, which she badly needed as long as her real self-confidence was shaken; and it was her most powerful defense against recognizing her existing vulnerability and the irrational trends accounting for it. Thus the role she was playing was actually precious to her, and our uncovering the fact that it was merely a role constituted a threat to which she had reacted with indignation. Free association would be entirely unfit as a method for making an astronomical calculation or for gaining clarity as to the means of a political situation. These tasks require sharp and concise reasoning. However, free association constitutes a thoroughly appropriate method—according to our present knowledge, the only method—for understanding the existence, importance, and meaning of unconscious feelings and strivings. #RandolphHarris 14 of 20

However, the value of free association for self-recognition: it does not work magic. It would be wrong to expect that as soon as rational control is released all that we are afraid of or despise in ourselves will be revealed. We may be fairly sure that no more will appear this way than we are able to stand. Only derivatives of the repressed feelings or drives will emerge, and as in dreams they will emerge in distorted form or in symbolic expression. Thus in the chain of associations mentioned above the saint was an expression of the patient’s unconscious aspirations. Of course, unexpected factors will sometimes appear in a dramatic fashion, but this will happen only after considerable previous work on the same subject has brought them close to the surface. Repressed feelings may appear in the form of a seemingly remote memory, as in the chain of association already described. There the patient’s anger at me for having injured her inflated notions about herself did not appear as such; only indirectly she told me that I was like a low criminal who violated holy tabus and robbed values precious to others. There is another aspect of the diagnostic problem that contributes to the great heterogeneity of psychotherapy patients and makes even more frustrating our almost complete lack of specific information as to what kinds of persons they are, what manner of conflict they experience, what symptoms they suffer, and what assets and abilities they manifest. We have noted ambiguities of formal diagnoses in past reports and certain subtle operations of social class membership which impair the consistency of neurotic diagnoses. These very ambiguities plus the effects of spontaneous intraclass empathy create a situation in which large number of patients in therapy are self-diagnosed “neurotics.” #RandolphHarris 15 of 20

Heterogeneity of patients in psychotherapy is increased by the absence of any adequate explicit treatment of the problem of identifying the individual who is not an appropriate candidate. This is not simply a question of prognostic differentiation. We do know some indictors from which we can predict whether psychotherapy is more or less likely to be effective with a particular neurotic. However, there is a general absence in our psychiatric and psychological texts and other professional literature of description of the quasi-neurotic, the person whose very real problem is nonetheless not neurotic and for whom psychotherapy as we ordinarily define it not an answer. We must ask if there are person who are in some way psychologically uncomfortable and maladjusted (or maladapted), who are neither psychotic nor neurotic, who would be likely to seek psychotherapeutic help, and for whom intensive psychotherapy is not indicated. The social worker knows better than the psychiatrist and psychologist the extremes of misery that the underprivileged members of our society must experience in the face of sheer physical deprivations and situational stresses. The mother who has inadequate clothing for her school-age children has a right to complain and to be depressed, but neither the fact of her complaint nor her depression makes her neurotic. The person with an alcoholic spouse is faced with a variety of torments and stresses; she deserves sympathy and counsel, but her need to evolve an adjustment to the very real problem of her chronically ill husband does not per se make her a neurotic. #RandolphHarris 16 of 20

The individual who has suffered through death the irremediable loss of a cherished companion has a painful emotional adjustment to make; it may require time and during that time he may show “symptoms” of despondency; he may need to seek emotional support, but neither his needing nor seeking is necessarily neurotic. The normal parents of a child with an intellectual disability will have emotional problems in their relations to each other and to their child; they may experience conflicts, insecurities, and frustrations; they will benefit from information and guidance, but they need not necessarily be candidates for intensive psychotherapy. These are but a few examples of very common situational stresses, with marked potential for normal emotional response and psychological discomfort. The persons suffering such stresses are very likely to respond to wise and restricted counsel. However, it is in the nature of the human personality to accept rather than reject offers of continued emotional support. If the counselor is more impressed with the symptoms of these unhappy persons than with the situation of stress which precipitate them, he can be induced to an inappropriately extended effort at psychotherapy of pseudoneuroses. Apart from the probable dissipation of time and skill needed in treatment of truly neurotic disorders, failure to give adequate attention to the circumstances underlying reactive emotional symptoms may result in failure to take steps to correct those reality factors. #RandolphHarris 17 of 20

Are there persons who suffer essentially from a failure to have learned “how to live” (without having learned necessarily a pattern of neurotic adjustment)? And, for such persons is the professional psychotherapist the best teacher? Yes and no. However, psychotherapists are generally not taught to recognize their own limitations or the possible existence of individuals who would seek their help without suffering a disturbance for which orthodox psychotherapy is in fact therapeutic. We lack detailed, thorough knowledge of what the persons who present themselves for psychotherapy are really like. We know best the more common symptoms for which they ask help. We do not know in any comprehensive way the patterning of the unsolved problems which generate their symptoms. We do not have basic information on the nature of the frustrated aspirations, the conflicts of impulse and inhibition, the particular stresses of daily reality, the confusion of goals or values, the particular frictions of their personal relationships that constitute the seedbed from which their symptoms flower. We do know that susceptibility to neurotic ruptures of personality is not limited by age, by gender, or by class membership. The apparent greater incidence of neuroses in the upper social classes is not likely to prove to stem from a greater constitutional susceptibility to anxiety, to conflict, or to depression. Rather, the social class differential in rate of neuroses appears directly related to the differences in extent and nature of education. The members of the upper social classes are more prone to self-examination, are more ready to label symptoms as “psychological,” are more accepting of the possibility of being “emotionally ill,” and are quicker to seek specialized professional help. #RandolphHarris 18 of 20

As a symptom, the depression of the upper-class executive is not clinically different from the depression of the lower-class housewife. Feelings of hopelessness, loss of interest, a general slowing up of mental processes and physical activity, and tendencies to withdraw from social commerce are common to the depression of both. And if the depressive symptoms are sufficiently severe, it may happen that both the executive and the housewife will receive comparable somatic treatment (drugs, or electroconvulsive therapy) aimed at alleviation of the depression. However, the problem is not depression. The problem is whatever has caused the depression, and the causes of depression in the executive are likely to be very different from the factors that have generated the same symptoms in the house wife. There is little concrete evidence to support either the notion that anxiety is more prevalent in contemporary culture than in earlier periods of man’s history or the idea that there are more powerful, more widespread, and more omnipresent sources of anxiety in modern life. If it appears that anxiety is “too much with us, late and soon,” this is largely an artifact of a culture which has given a name to the phenomenon, defined its presence as the equivalent of deep-seated psychopathology, and suggested that it is a public health menace which can and must be eradicated. The true World attainable for the wise, the pious, the virtuous man—he lives in it, he is it. (Oldest form of the idea, relatively intelligent, convincing. Circumlocution for the proposition “I, Plato, am the truth.”) #RandolphHarris 19 of 20

True World, unattainable for now, but promised to the wise, the pious, the virtuous (“for the sinner who repents”).  (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more insidious, more elusive—it becomes woman, it becomes Christian…) The true World, unattainable, unprovable, unpromisable, and yet conceived as a consolation, an obligation, an imperative. (The old sun in the background but seen through mist and skepticism; the idea that has become sublime, pale, Nordic, Konign-bergian.) The true World—unattainable? In any case, unattained. And become unattained, also unknown. And consequently not consoling, redemptive, obligating: how could something unknow obligate us? (Gray morning. First yawn of reason. Cockcrow of positivism.) The “true World”—an idea that is no longer good for anything, no longer even obligating; an idea that has become useless, superfluous, consequently a refuted idea: let use dispense with it! (Broad daylight; breakfast, return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato’s blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.) We dispense with the true World: which World was left? The apparent one, perhaps? But no! With the true World we have also dispensed with the apparent one! (Midday; moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; highpoint of mankind; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.) I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stand, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. The Sacramento Fire Department should be celebrated for their endurance, sacrifice, courage, and compassion that is characterized by their truly heroic deeds. To help them to continue to make brave choices every day, please make a donation to ensure that they have all of their resources and provide hope and show appreciation. #RandolphHarris 20 of 20

The Winchester Mystery House

Mrs. Winchester went out into the hall one evening; to her surprise she discovered that all of the pictures had been taken from the walls of the staircase and had been deposited face down on the floor of the hallways itself. Walking sticks were seen to move. An emerald and gold ring was found outside the door of the bathroom. It belonged to no one in the house, but its hallmark showed it to have been made in Germany in 1743. The ring was gone the following day, and the house had become an echo chamber for the sounds of footsteps and doors slamming. On January 3, 1888, “The light was clear,” Mrs. Winchester wrote. “The footsteps continued, but there was no one near. I sensed someone passing me, there was a chilliness in the air, and I felt a slight pressure. Whatever it was, I knew and felt that it was essentially evil. I also knew that I resented in some way hearing and not seeing. I then heard the sound of a key in the lock, then the creak of the door hinges as the door opened. I heard the door close. A few seconds later I heard soft notes and chords from the organ in the Grand Ball Room.”

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