As described in the second article in
the secret friend series, the theosophist made many threats when Strindberg
refused to obey orders. In return, Strindberg threatened to use occult powers
of his own. He warned his friend that what happened to someone who had tried to
interfere with Strindberg’s destiny back in Sweden some years earlier could
happen to him too.
Strindberg gives some details of his earlier
encounter with this other man who, just as the secret friend would later do,
tried to impose his will on Strindberg from a position of superiority.
I can see some common elements in his
dealings with these two men. Some of my comments on Strindberg’s relationships
with his mystery man and other people are relevant here too.
First approaches and negative responses
First approaches and negative responses
It was the other man who made the first move.
Strindberg tells us:
“I received a letter from a friend of my
youth inviting me and my children to stop with him for a year, he made no
mention of my wife. This letter, with its affected style, its corrections and
omissions, seemed to betray some hesitation on the part of the writer in the
choice of the reasons which he alleged for his invitation. As I suspected some
trap, I declined the offer in a few non-committal polite phrases.”
This reminds me of what happened years later
when Strindberg received the first letter from his secret friend. He took
offence at its tone and sent a discouraging reply.
Second thoughts and revised decisions
Strindberg later had second thoughts. He ignored the warning signals, overcame his
fear of a trap and decided to accept the invitation:
“Two years later, after my first divorce, I
went to him of my own accord and found him living on a little island off the
coast of the Baltic Sea as an inspector of customs. His reception of me was
friendly, but his whole manner embarrassed and equivocal, and our conversation
was more like a police examination.”
I wonder whether Strindberg took the man up
on his offer because he was in dire straits at the time, catching at straws and
desperate for someone to help him. If so, he was doomed to disappointment.
He was also to have second thoughts in the
case of his secret friend.
I have learned recently that, despite the impression
he gives in Inferno, it was Strindberg who, despite his earlier reservations, made
the first move to re-open the correspondence after a gap of four years. The
second letter he mentions receiving from his secret friend was sent in response
to a second letter from Strindberg.
Perhaps he was greatly in need of help on
that occasion too.
So in both cases an initial rejection on
Strindberg’s side was followed by his changing his mind and reaching out to the
other party, and in both cases it ended in disaster.
A time of torment and a confession
Maybe both Strindberg and the friend of his youth
had ulterior motives and a hidden agenda. If Strindberg hoped to gain something
from this visit, his expectations backfired. So perhaps did those of his host,
who gave Strindberg a very hard time:
“Quite unscrupulous in his choice of means,
he tormented me for a week long, poisoned my mind with slanders and stories
invented to suit every occasion, but did it so clumsily that I was more and
more convinced that he wished to have me incarcerated as a person of unsound
mind.“
Just as happened years later with the secret
friend, Strindberg did not assert himself or state his position in the normal
way. He reacted with anger deep down inside, but made no overt threats in this
occasion. He kept a surface calm:
“I offered no special resistance, and left it
to my good fortune to liberate me at the right time.
My apparent submission won my executioner's
favour, and there alone, in the midst of the sea, hated by his neighbours and
subordinates, he yielded to his need to confide in someone. He told me, with
incredible frankness for a man of fifty, that his sister during the past winter
had gone out of her mind, and in a fit of frenzy had destroyed all her savings.
The next morning he told me, further, that his brother was in a lunatic asylum
on the mainland.
I asked myself, ‘Is that why he wants to see
me confined in one, in order to avenge himself on fate?’”
This is just speculation, but I wonder whether
any of these disasters could be connected to Strindberg’s reaction to the
original letter from this friend.
The terrible revenge
Strindberg escaped, but more horrors were to
come. His friend sent him a desperate letter:
“After he had thus related to me his
misfortunes, I won his complete confidence, so that I was able to leave the
island, and hire a house on a neighbouring one, where my children joined me.
Four weeks later a letter summoned me to my friend, whom I found quite broken
down because his brother in a fit of mania had shattered his skull.
I comforted my executioner, and his wife
whispered to me with tears that she had long feared lest the same fate should overtake
her husband. A year later the newspapers announced that my friend's eldest
brother had taken his life under circumstances which seemed to indicate that he
was out of his mind. Thus three distinct blows descended on the head of this
man who had wished to play with lightning.”
‘Executioner’ again? That’s a bit strong!
I wonder whether any of these subsequent
disasters was connected to Strindberg’s deep down reaction of fear and anger
when he was threatened and tormented during his visit.
Strindberg himself suggests that his
executioner brought the terrible misfortunes on himself by treating Strindberg
badly. I detect a ‘serves him right, he deserves all he got for attacking me’
attitude here.
Did Strindberg’s magic miss its mark?
What strikes me now is that although the
friend of his youth suffered greatly, his innocent family were the worst
hit.
Could an occult attack have missed
the mark the way it did when Strindberg tried to make his small daughter ill by
the use of black magic? The little girl was unharmed, but his older children
from a previous marriage became ill and had to go into hospital. Then there
were all the dead astronomers. Were they collateral damage in the occult
feud with the secret friend?
Who started it and why?
I wonder what happened between Strindberg and
the friend of his youth when they were both very young. Did either of them have
some grudges to pay off? Were they involved with the occult at the time?
Strindberg does say this:
“This man, whose self-love I had wounded in
one of my novels, in spite of his display of sympathy, was not really my
well-wisher.“
I wonder what gave him that idea!
So this man could well have had a grudge
against Strindberg, but surely there is more to the battle than just being
belittled in a novel and taking revenge for it.
Final speculation and afterthoughts
Strindberg habitually ignored warning signals,
much to his detriment. He was very obviously not the sort of person who learns
from experience, nor did he settle disputes in the normal manner. He might
never have got involved with the secret friend if he had, or at least this
relationship might have turned out better. The article that suggests that
having unfinished business with someone will bring an even worse person into
our lives is relevant here.
The secret friend and the friend from his
youth may have made the first moves, but who knows what Strindberg was
transmitting that they were picking up and responding to. Conversely,
Strindberg may have been the one to resume the correspondence but maybe he was
being influenced remotely. There are many examples of thoughts being picked up
and acted on in this blog.
All three men were unstable and affected by
unseen influences. They were all victims and all victimisers.
August Strindberg as a young man of 25:
