Strindberg’s string of misfortunes: Part II

The first article in the series inspired by Colin Wilson’s references in The Occult to an episode in August Strindberg’s autobiographical book Inferno tells how Strindberg brought major trouble on himself by deliberately using occult techniques in an attempt to influence his family remotely.

This article will give more details of some of the misfortunes.

First, something about the unforeseen side effects of the evil procedure that Strindberg performed.

Off-the-mark magic

It is very common for psychological black magic to backfire or miss the mark in some way. Hitting the wrong target is what happened in Strindberg’s case. 

Strindberg hoped to get a telegram from his wife asking him to come at once because his little girl was ill. No telegram arrived; his devious plan to make his child fall ill to give him an opportunity to get back together with his family had failed.

However, his procedure had an unexpected side effect:

“In the course of the spring ... I received a letter from the children of my first marriage, informing me that they had been very ill in hospital.”

Strindberg believed that the illness of his older children was no coincidence. He was convinced that he had caused it with his special powers:

“At an earlier period, in the great crisis of my life, I had observed that I could exercise a telepathic influence on absent friends.”

“When I compared the time of their illness with my mischievous attempt at magic, I was alarmed. I had frivolously played with hidden forces, and now my evil purpose, guided by an unseen Hand, had reached its goal, and struck my heart.”

All this reminds me of what Joyce Collin-Smith said about the Maharishi Yogi, although the Maharishi appeared to get away with everything and suffered no backlash, no misfiring  and no side effects. 



To his credit, Strindberg felt remorse, realised that he had been playing with fire and used the incident as a warning to others against getting involved with the occult:

“I do not excuse myself, and only ask the reader to remember this fact, in case he should ever feel inclined to practise magic, especially those forms of it called wizardry, or more properly witchcraft, and whose reality has been placed beyond all doubt...”

He also felt that the punishment was too severe for the crime, that he did not deserve all that he got:

“I wish neither to do myself an injustice, nor altogether to acquit myself of wrong-doing, but I believe that my evil will was not so evil as the counterstroke which I received." 

So what did he get? What did this evil counter-stroke consist of?

Money and the fee that got away

Strindberg said that just before everything went wrong, money was flowing in. It was not long before he was in desperate circumstances; his life was very restricted for want of funds.

He moved many times, often in an attempt to escape what he saw as persecution by noise, which meant that his mail had to follow him around all over Europe. One letter that arrived too late would have secured his future: it offered him a huge sum of money for an order connected with an exhibition, but unfortunately he had missed the deadline.

He said that the loss of this money was a punishment for an evil deed that he had committed. Learning about the enormous fee he might have earned certainly hit him where it hurt most.

Persecution by noise

Strindberg was beset with more than money problems. He was driven frantic by noise. People played pianos in three of the rooms adjoining his in the hotel he was staying in:

“Three pianos! and I cannot leave the hotel, for I have no money. Cursing heaven, these ladies, and my fate, I go to sleep. The next morning I am awoken by an unexpected noise. They are hammering nails in the room which is near my bed; then more hammering begins on the other side. A silly trick quite in keeping with the character of these female pianists, nothing more! But when after supper I lie down to sleep as usual, there ensues such a din overhead that some of the plaster falls from the ceiling on my head.”

It could well be that his fragile state made him extra sensitive to noise; it could also be that the energy around him was affecting his fellow hotel guests for the worse. It could be that he was being tormented by evil entities that he had called up; they have ways of making their presence felt, and unbearable noise is one of them.

There is more to say about the noise persecution that Strindberg endured, and there are other misfortunes and material of interest still to be covered.