Editor’s note: Every weekday in October, former Mystery House blogger Stephen will post an excerpt from his in-progress guide to the Winchester Mystery House. Previous entries can be found here.

Stop 7: The Seance Room

The seance room underwhelmed me the first time I encountered it. The books I’d read as a kid led me to expect an elaborate banquet hall, reachable only by way of a secret entrance. The real room measures only a few yards across, and has simple wood panel walls. Cramming thirty tour guests inside does nothing to enhance its mystique, but exiting the room through a secret passageway of sorts does add a little kick to the tour.

The room contains a few other oddities, including a door that opens to reveal closet with no floor. Stepping into the closet would deposit you in a first floor kitchen sink. It also boasts thirteen coat hooks, sometimes claimed to have held ceremonial robes for use in communing with the spirits.

To the best of my knowledge, no proof of Mrs. Winchester’s devotion to Spiritualism exists, and according to San Jose historian Ralph Rambo, her nurse/secretary denied that she had any spiritualist leanings, but if she had practiced spiritualism she would not have been unusual among wealthy Americans and Europeans in the nineteenth century.

This fact often comes as a surprise to modern day tour guests at the mansion. Spiritualism was already well established by the time of the Civil War, and respectable people regarded forays into the spirit world as a legitimate form of scientific inquiry. In fact, Mary Todd Lincoln held seances in the White House (some attended by the president) in hopes of contacting her own dead child.

Mrs. Winchester, having lost two loved ones, had more than enough cause to explore the popular new ’science’ of communicating with the spirits. To me, it would be surprising if she hadn’t attempted such communication, but I doubt we’ll ever know if she truly did it in the Seance Room.

As you leave the seance room, you’ll pass through the ’secret exit’ into a dark, unfinished room. Come back tomorrow to learn the secrets of…. THE UNFINISHED DRESSING ROOM!