by Joe Nickell
Fancy: Mrs. Winchester, grief-stricken but having inherited her husband’s fortune, sought out a Boston medium to contact his spirit. The medium, Adam Coons, relayed the message, somehow rediscovered by Susy Smith (1967): “This is a warning. You will be haunted forever by the ghosts of those who have been killed by Winchester rifles, unless you make amends to them.” She was instructed to head west, guided by her husband’s spirit. However, another source states that it was not a male medium but “a seeress” who provided Mrs. Winchester with the message (again, somehow rediscovered): “There is a curse on your life.It is the same curse that took your child and husband . . . that has resulted from the terrible weapon that the Winchester family created. . . . [B]uild a house not only for yourself but also for the spirits of those who have fallen before that terrible weapon. As long as you build, you will live. Stop and you will die” (Winer and Osborn 1979, 33-49).
Fact: It has never been proven that Sarah Winchester ever consulted a “Boston medium,” whether male or female. One local historical writer maintains that after her husband’s death, Mrs. Winchester was indeed grief-stricken. “Doctors and friends urged her to leave the East, seek a milder climate and search for some all consuming hobby. One physician did suggest that she ‘build a house and don’t employ an architect.’” That researcher concedes, “Perhaps she was a spiritualist,” but insists, “Miss Henrietta Severs, her constant companion for years, always firmly denied she had any Spiritualist leanings” (Rambo 1967, 8).
Fancy: Sarah Winchester’s “curious building techniques” resulted from her desire “to control the evil entities and keep them from harming her.” For example, “[o]ne stairway, constructed like a maze, has seven flights and requires forty-four steps to go ten feet” (Smith 1967, 38). Some interior rooms have barred windows, the floor in one room is comprised of trap doors, and there are doors and stairs that lead nowhere (Rambo 1967; Murray 1998, 59). Fact: The winding stair, with its two-inch-high steps, had nothing to do with ghosts and everything to do with Mrs. Winchester’s severe arthritis and neuritis. The low steps were built to accommodate her diminished abilities (just as elevators were later installed when she was forced to use a wheelchair). There is an equally simple explanation for the curiously barred interior windows: they were once exterior windows, but the constant additions to the house relegated them to the inside. The doors and stairs that lead to dead ends are similarly explained. As to the floor with trap doors, those are in a special greenhouse room; they were designed to open onto a zinc subfloor so that runoff from watered plants could be drained by pipes to the garden beneath (Rambo 1967; Winchester 1997; Palomo 2001).
FIGURE 16-3. “Switchback” staircase takes 44 steps and 7 turns to advance less than 10 feet upward, and was supposedly created to baffle spirits. The wall at the right, though, shows the silhouette of the original steps; they were replaced to accommodate Mrs. Winchester’s debilities. (Photograph by Joe Nickell.)
Fancy: Sarah Winchester’s blue séance room, her “secret rendezvous with the spirits,” was off limits to her huge staff of carpenters and servants. There, at midnight—while a bell in a tower was rung to summon spirits—she donned one of 13 ceremonial robes she wore when communing with the entities. She also held parties for the spirits, offering them caviar, stuffed pheasant, and other dishes served on gold plates which she otherwise kept in her safe. Sometimes, late at night, “ghostly music” was heard “wafting from the dark mansion” (Winchester 1997, Rambo 1967, Winer and Osborn 1979). Fact: According to historical writer Ralph Rambo, whose father had helped with the landscaping of the mansion grounds, the allegedly sacrosanct “seance” room “was also utilized as a bedroom at various times by Mrs. Winchester’s foreman, the chauffeur, the head Japanese gardener and his wife” (1967, 8-9). In addition, the bell was used, not for midnight spirit assembly, but as a call to and from work and as an alarm in case of fire. There is no evidence that Mrs. Winchester had 13 ceremonial robes; that fiction was probably based on the total of 13 hooks in the room’s two closets, though some of them are placed implausibly low for robes. When the safe was opened after her death, there was no solid-gold dinner service, only mementos, including a lock of her baby’s hair. Acknowledging the “legend” of the plates that were supposedly used to serve exotic dishes to phantom guests, a Winchester Mystery House publication (Winchester 1997) states: “On the other hand, this theory might have come from rumors about the mansion’s well-fed servants!” The “ghostly music” has an even simpler explanation: When she was unable to sleep, Mrs. Winchester often played the pump organ in the Grand Ballroom.
Fancy: Mrs. Winchester was so reclusive that she always wore a black veil. She also refused admission to most visitors, including Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. President Theodore Roosevelt, a fan of Winchester rifles, knocked at the front door but was not recognized by a servant and hence was turned away (or insulted by being sent around to the back of the house) (Winchester 1997; Rambo 1967). “One of her few guests was Harry Houdini, who never spoke of his single visit to Winchester House” (Hauck 1996). Fact: Although Mrs. Winchester was reclusive, the single existing photograph taken of her during the 38 years of mansion construction shows her seated in her carriage, apparently gazing at the camera, without any veil (Winchester 1997, 6). There are various versions of the Teddy Roosevelt story, but Ralph Rambo (1976, 9)—who was “standing directly across the road that day”—says the president was merely driven past the house. The local Chamber of Commerce had asked permission for Mr. Roosevelt to visit, but received Mrs. Winchester’s sharp “No!” Whether Mary Baker Eddy gained entrance is uncertain (Hauck 1996; Smith 1967, 40; Rambo 1967). However, Houdini did visit the house and was admitted—even joining in a midnight seance!—but this took place in November 1924, two years after Sarah Winchester’s death. Houdini discussed his visit in an article in Portland’s Oregon Daily Journal (Winchester 1997, 42).
Fancies: In the early years of her residence, Mrs. Winchester planned a lavish reception for Santa Clara Valley residents, sending out hundreds of gilded engravings. She had servants prepare “a sumptuous midnight banquet” and hired “a famous orchestra” for entertainment, but not a single guest appeared. In 1906 the Great San Francisco Bay Area earthquake toppled the seven-story tower onto Mrs. Winchester’s bedroom where she was trapped for several hours, moaning, “Oh, God help me. The evil spirits have taken over the house.” After servants rescued her, the terrified widow fled to Redwood City and did not return for six years (Rambo 1967; Smith 1967, 41-42). Facts: The tale of Sarah Winchester’s grandiose but unattended reception for local citizens is “pure, unadulterated balderdash!” Although she was indeed trapped by the earthquake and subsequently relocated, her absence was only for a period of about six months while the house was partially repaired, not six years (Rambo 1967).
Fancy: The Winchester Mystery House is the “most haunted house in the country” (“Global” 2002), being tenanted with “thousands of ghosts and guests” (Harter 1976, 54-61) as well as “the spirit of Sarah Winchester herself” (Murray 1998, 63). According to The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (Guiley 2000, 405-7): Many visitors are haunted by various phenomena, such as phantom footsteps, odd sounds, eerie quiet, whisperings, sounds of a piano playing, smells of phantom food cooking, cold spots, doorknobs turning by themselves, and windows and doors slamming shut. The floor of the gift shop has been found mysteriously covered with water and items in disarray.
One guide characterized the Daisy Bedroom, where Mrs. Winchester was trapped by the earthquake in 1906, as the room that most frightened him. When ghost hunters Winer and Osborn (1979, 43) asked why:
“I can’t really pinpoint any one thing,” replied the guide. “But sometimes that room gets so chilly. Not the whole room but just in certain parts. And there’s that feeling when I’m in there alone like maybe I’m being watched, like I’m not alone. Some of the others told me that they get the same feeling in that room.”
Fact: The
re is no scientific evidence that the Winchester Mystery House—or any place—is haunted. As psychologist Robert A. Baker is fond of saying, tongue in cheek, there are instead “only haunted people.” The Winchester hauntees often report mere feelings, like the guide frightened by the Daisy Bedroom. I had no such feelings when I lingered in that room; in any case, they can be the products of imagination provoked by suggestion. This in turn can be attributed to the mansion’s gothic ambiance and the many legends of ghosts, which create a certain expectancy in many people.
As well, it would be unusual if such a rambling old house did not have drafts, temperature variations and fluctuations, and odd noises caused by changing temperatures, the settling of an old structure, and other causes, including seismic activity. “Whisperings” can easily be imagined, or can be the product of wind or other causes. The sounds of ghostly music can similarly be imaginary. In at least one instance, “piano music” was “heard” in the house by one person but not by her companion (Winer and Osborn 1979, 46-47); on another occasion, a “psychic” claimed to hear “organ music” although others who were present did not (Myers 1986). Actual music may even be perceived, as from a radio in a passing car. So bent on fostering mystery are some that, when odd noises are not forthcoming, the absence of them—an “eerie quiet”—will do.
In one instance, “a shadowy figure emerged from the inner recesses of the huge mystery house,” but turned out to be a Winchester staffer (Winer and Osborn 1979, 46). A tour group saw an elderly woman sitting at a kitchen table, which the guide only later decided was a ghost (Myers 1986, 48); more likely, she was just a straggling member of another tour taking a brief rest. (Whether the woman was really “dressed like” Mrs. Winchester, as later recalled, could be a misremembering caused by suggestion.) The occasional apparition may be nothing more than the welling-up of a mental image deriving from a daydream or other altered state of consciousness, which is then superimposed upon the current visual scene. This phenomenon is especially common to those who have traits associated with a fantasy-prone personality (Nickell 2000)—like “psychic” Sylvia Browne who described being watched by two spirits from across a room (Winchester 1997, 42).
FIGURE 16-4. Investigator Vaughn Rees points to damage from the 1906 earthquake in the Daisy Bedroom. The room’s austere appearance may help foster the creepy feelings that some claim to experience there. (Photograph by Joe Nickell.)
A caretaker’s being awakened one night by an unlikely sound— that “of a screw being unscrewed, then hitting the floor and bouncing onto a carpet runner” (Winchester 1997, 42)—might be due to a “waking dream.” This especially real-seeming occurrence is actually a common type of hallucination that takes place in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep (Nickell 1995). Additional reported ghostly or odd occurrences may have still other mundane explanations, such as reported food smells (wafting from the gift-shop restaurant?), “mysterious moving lights” (reflections, as from one of the mansion’s art-glass windows framed with glittering “jewels”?), a water-soaked floor (a leak, or spill or condensation or prank or even vandalism, among other many other possible causes), and so forth (Winchester 1997,19; Murray 1998; Myers 1986, 45-51).
Once the idea that a place is haunted takes root, almost any unknown noise, mechanical glitch, or other odd occurrence can become added “evidence” of ghostly shenanigans, at least to susceptible people. They often cite “unexplainable” phenomena, but they really mean “unexplained,” a condition that does not in any way imply or necessitate the supernatural. To suggest that it does is to engage in a logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance—the stock-in-trade of credulous para-normalists and outright mystery-mongering writers.
Not everyone is susceptible. My docent, a senior tour guide at the Winchester Mystery House (Palomo 2001), has had no experiences herself, although, if others are to be believed, she has had endless opportunities. From three decades of ghost investigating, 1 have noted a pattern suggesting that as the level of individuals’ ghostly experiences rises, so does their propensity for imagination and fantasy (Nickell 2000)— evidence, it seems, for “haunted people.”
REFERENCES
Global Halloween Alliance. 2002. Happy Halloween Magazine, vol. 3, no. 3:http://www.halloweenalliance.com/ magazine/ vol3iss3_wmh.htm
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2000. The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. 2d ed.New York: Checkmark Books.
Harter, Walter. 1976. The Phantom Hand and Other American Hauntings. Engle- wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Hauck, Dennis William. 1996. The International Directory of Haunted Places. New York: Penguin Books.
Murray, Earl. 1998. Ghosts of the Old West. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.
Myers, Arthur. 1986. The Ghostly Register. Chicago: Contemporary Books.
Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
------------ . 2000. Haunted inns. Skeptical Inquirer 24, no. 5 (September/October): 17-21.
Palomo, Cathy. 2001. Senior Tour Guide, Winchester Mystery House. Personal communication, 24 October.
Rambo, Ralph. 1967. Lady of Mystery. San Jose, Cal.: The Press.
Smith, Susy. 1967. Prominent American Ghosts. New York: World Publishing Co.
The WinchesterMystery House. 1997. San Jose, Cal: Winchester Mystery House.
Winer, Richard, and Nancy Osborn. 1979. Haunted Houses. New York: Bantam Books.
17
Voodoo in New Orleans
New Orleans has been declared America’s most haunted city (Klein 1999, 104), and tour guides—following the imaginative lead of Anne Rice—have attempted to overlay its rich history with bogus legends of vampires and other spine-tingling notions. But perhaps the city’s oldest and most profound occult traditions are those involving the mysterious practices of voodoo. During a southern speaking tour, I was able to set aside a few days to explore the New Orleans museums, shops, temples, and tombs that relate to this distinctive admixture of religion and magic, commerce and controversy.
Voodoo
Voodoo—or voudou—is the Haitian folk religion. It consists of various African magical beliefs and rites that have become mixed with Catholic elements. It began with the arrival of slaves in the New World, most of them from the western, “Slave Coast” area of Africa, notably Dahomey (now Benin) and Nigeria. In Benin’s Fon language, vodun means “spirit,” an invisible, mysterious force that can intervene in human affairs (Hur-bon 1995, 13; Metraux 1972, 25, 359; Bourguignon 1993).
According to one writer, “The Blacks suffered under merciless circumstances—their property and their family and social structures all torn to shreds; they had nothing left—except their Gods to whom they clung tenaciously.” In Haiti and elsewhere, there was an attempt to strip them even of that, as their “heathen” beliefs were rigorously suppressed. However, the slaves “worshipped many of their Gods unbeknownst to the priests, under the guise of worshipping Catholic saints” (Antippas 1988, 2).
Voodoo’s African elements include worship of loa (supernatural entities) and the ancestral dead, together with the use of drums and dancing, during which loa may possess the faithful. Catholic elements include prayers such as the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer, as well as rituals such as baptism, making the sign of the cross, and the use of candles, bells, crosses, and images of saints. Many of the loa are equated with specific saints. For example, Damballah, the Dahomean snake deity, is identified with St. Patrick who, having legendarily expelled all snakes from Ireland, is frequently depicted stamping on snakes or brandishing his staff at them (Bourguignon 1993).
Voodoo spread from Haiti to New Orleans in the wake of the Haitian slave revolt (1791-1804). The refugee plantation owners fled with their slave retinues to Louisiana, where slaves had previously toiled under such repressive circumstances that their African religion “had all but withered.” However, oppression lessened somewhat with American rule, following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and—with the influx of thousands of voodoo practitio
ners—soon “New Orleans began to hear the beat of the drum” (Antippas 1988, 14).
Voodoo Queen
Voodoo in New Orleans can scarcely be separated from its dominant figure, Marie Laveau, about whom many legends swirl. According to one source (Hauck 1996, 192, 193):
She led voodoo dances in Congo Square and sold charms and potions from her home in the 1830s. Sixty years later she was still holding ceremonies and looked as young as she did when she started. Her rites at St. John’s Bayou on the banks of Lake Pon[t]chartrain resembled a scene from hell, with bonfires, naked dancing, orgies, and animal sacrifices. She had a strange power over police and judges and succeeded in saving several criminals from hanging.
Writer Charles Gandolfo (1992), author of Marie Laveau of New Orleans, stated: “Some believe that Marie had a mysterious birth, in the sense that she may have come from the spirits or as an envoy from the Saints.” In contrast, a plaque on her supposed tomb, placed by the Catholic Church, refers to her as “this notorious Voodoo queen.’”
Who was the real Marie Laveau? She began life as the illegitimate daughter of a rich Creole plantation owner, Charles Laveaux, and his Haitian slave mistress. Sources conflict, but Marie was apparently born in New Orleans on September 10, 1801 (Jensen 2002). In 1819 she wed Jacques Paris who, like her, was a free person of color, but she was soon abandoned or widowed. About 1826, she began a second, common-law marriage to Christophe de Glapion, another free person of color.1