{"id":5141,"date":"2011-05-01T01:10:20","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T06:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=5239"},"modified":"2011-04-27T13:41:09","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T18:41:09","slug":"paranormal-path-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2011\/05\/01\/paranormal-path-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Paranormal Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

Built By Fear<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Imagine living in constant fear.\u00a0 Feeling as if spirits were following and threatening you and that you must spend immense amounts of time and money to appease them.\u00a0 This is how Sarah Winchester lived for 38 years until she passed away in 1922.<\/p>\n

In 1862 Sarah married William Winchester of the Winchester Repeating Arms company.\u00a0 They had only one child who sadly passed away in 1866 at only 6 months old.\u00a0 A few short years later William also passed away from tuberculosis.<\/p>\n

Sarah was very distraught and decided to see a psychic in Boston.\u00a0 The psychic told Sarah that the deaths to her family were brought on by vengeful spirits of those killed by the rifle bearing her husband\u2019s name. She advised Sarah to move out West and begin building a home to allow protection from the ghosts.<\/p>\n

Sarah moved to San Jose California in 1884.\u00a0 She had a 20 million dollar inheritance and a thousand dollar a day income.\u00a0 She bought an eight room farmhouse and began building.\u00a0 There really was no plan or blueprint.\u00a0 Workers built 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.\u00a0 Sarah wanted to make sure to confuse any \u201cbad\u201d spirits that may have followed her.\u00a0 Every night Mrs. Winchester would travel to her s\u00e9ance room to communicate with the spirits and decide upon new additions of the home.\u00a0 Traveling to the s\u00e9ance room alone was meant to be discouraging to any malicious spirits.\u00a0 She would push a button that would cause a panel to swing open, revealing another room, she would then climb out of a window that lead to the top of a staircase, she would go down the steps and then up another staircase that led back to the floor she was originally on.<\/p>\n

This was not the only trick to confuse evil spirits. Some columns in the home were built upside down.\u00a0 Rooms were remodeled often and torn down week after week.\u00a0 Stairs would lead to ceilings; doors would open into walls, and the famous door to nowhere that leads outside to a large drop.\u00a0 The house was nearly 7 stories at one time, but the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 caused great damage.\u00a0 Sarah was trapped in her bedroom for several hours.\u00a0 She felt the quake was a warning from the spirits that too much time and money was being spent on the front portion of the home.\u00a0 She boarded up 30 rooms as well as the front doors.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Winchester also had a bizarre obsession with the number 13.\u00a0 There are 13 gas jets in the ballroom chandelier, many windows have 13 panes, there are 13 bathrooms, there are 13 steps leading to the 13th<\/sup> bathroom and 13 wall panels prior to this bathroom.\u00a0 There are 13 hooks in the s\u00e9ance room and even her will was written in 13 parts and signed 13 times.<\/p>\n

When Sarah passed away in her sleep in 1922 construction ended on the house.\u00a0 This once 8 room farmhouse now covered 6 acres, had 160 rooms, 6 kitchens, 13 bathrooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, and 40 staircases.\u00a0 Found in her safe were locks of her husband\u2019s and child\u2019s hair along with copies of their obituaries.<\/p>\n

The house is currently open to the public as a museum.\u00a0 Ironically it takes just as much around the clock effort to maintain.\u00a0 Some damage from the San Francisco quake has been left as pieces of history.\u00a0 Of course ghost stories continue to hover throughout the home.\u00a0 Sarah herself is one of the most frequently sighted spirits as well as phantom workmen who seem to continue to come to build for Mrs. Winchester.<\/p>\n

Guided tours will take you throughout the home and there has been a behind the scenes tour added since my last visit.\u00a0 I will definitely have to make another trip to explore all I was unable to see before.\u00a0 This house has to be seen to be believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Built By Fear Imagine living in constant fear.\u00a0 Feeling as if spirits were following and threatening you and that you must spend immense amounts of time and money to appease them.\u00a0 This is how Sarah Winchester lived for 38 years until she passed away in 1922. In 1862 Sarah married William Winchester of the Winchester Repeating Arms company.\u00a0 They had only one child who sadly passed away in 1866 at only 6 months old.\u00a0 A few short years later William also passed away from tuberculosis. Sarah was very distraught and decided to see a psychic in Boston.\u00a0 The psychic told Sarah that the deaths to her family were brought on by vengeful spirits of those killed by the rifle bearing her husband\u2019s name. She advised Sarah to move out West and begin building a home to allow protection from the ghosts. Sarah moved to San Jose California in 1884.\u00a0 She had a 20 million dollar inheritance and a thousand dollar a day income.\u00a0 She bought an eight room farmhouse and began building.\u00a0 There really was no plan or blueprint.\u00a0 Workers built 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.\u00a0 Sarah wanted to make sure to confuse any \u201cbad\u201d spirits that may have followed her.\u00a0 Every night Mrs. Winchester would travel to her s\u00e9ance room to communicate with the spirits and decide upon new additions of the home.\u00a0 Traveling to the s\u00e9ance room alone was meant to be discouraging to any malicious spirits.\u00a0 She would push a button that would cause a panel to swing open, revealing another room, she would then climb out of a window that lead to the top of a staircase, she would go down the steps and then up another staircase that led back to the floor she was originally on. This was not the only trick to confuse evil spirits. Some columns in the home were built upside down.\u00a0 Rooms were remodeled often and torn down week after week.\u00a0 Stairs would lead to ceilings; doors would open into walls, and the famous door to nowhere that leads outside to a large drop.\u00a0 The house was nearly 7 stories at one time, but the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 caused great damage.\u00a0 Sarah was trapped in her bedroom for several hours.\u00a0 She felt the quake was a warning from the spirits that too much time and money was being spent on the front portion of the home.\u00a0 She boarded up 30 rooms as well as the front doors. Mrs. Winchester also had a bizarre obsession with the number 13.\u00a0 There are 13 gas jets in the ballroom chandelier, many windows have 13 panes, there are 13 bathrooms, there are 13 steps leading to the 13th bathroom and 13 wall panels prior to this bathroom.\u00a0 There are 13 hooks in the s\u00e9ance room and even her will was written in 13 parts and signed 13 times. When Sarah passed away in her sleep in 1922 construction ended on the house.\u00a0 This once 8 room farmhouse now covered 6 acres, had 160 rooms, 6 kitchens, 13 bathrooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, and 40 staircases.\u00a0 Found in her safe were locks of her husband\u2019s and child\u2019s hair along with copies of their obituaries. The house is currently open to the public as a museum.\u00a0 Ironically it takes just as much around the clock effort to maintain.\u00a0 Some damage from the San Francisco quake has been left as pieces of history.\u00a0 Of course ghost stories continue to hover throughout the home.\u00a0 Sarah herself is one of the most frequently sighted spirits as well as phantom workmen who seem to continue to come to build for Mrs. Winchester. Guided tours will take you throughout the home and there has been a behind the scenes tour added since my last visit.\u00a0 I will definitely have to make another trip to explore all I was unable to see before.\u00a0 This house has to be seen to be believed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}