Forget ghosts. Forget seances. Forget mazelike passageways constructed to confuse vengeful spirits. The real mystery of the Winchester Mystery House is how it’s such a fascinating study in contradictions.

Though we all grew up with the supernatural legends surrounding the San Jose house, they’re simply not true. As definitively explained in South Bay author Mary Jo Ignoffo’s 2012 book “Captive of the Labyrinth,” the mansion’s namesake Sarah L. Winchester never gave any indication in her lifetime that she was haunted by any ghosts, let alone angry ones who had been killed by the rifles that her family produced. She probably never held a séance or had any interest in spiritualism at all.

Pretty much all of the spooky mythology around her started to spread around 1895, according to Ignoffo

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