I found another case of interest in Beyond
the Occult, where Colin Wilson gives a summary of the run of ’bad luck’ experienced
by the American journalist David St. Clair.
This ‘curse or coincidence?’ case has
inspired an article because of some familiar features and resemblance to other cases.
As with Strindberg’s troubles, there is an
obvious starting point and an obvious - and metaphysical - cause. There is a
difference in that Strindberg brought his trouble on himself whereas St. Clair
was an innocent victim.
Both men experienced good patches in their
lives immediately before the trouble started: Strindberg had a few good months
in Paris, while David St. Clair lived a very pleasant life for eight years in
Rio de Janeiro before everything started to go wrong.
Strindberg endured a long period of
misfortunes, while St. Clair’s spell of bad luck did not last very long.
The misfortunes in summary
Just about everything that could go wrong in David
St. Clair’s life did go wrong, and it all happened suddenly.
He was working on a book at the time, but he
became stuck and his publisher rejected it.
An inheritance he had been expecting failed
to materialise.
A love affair went wrong, and he fell ill
with malaria.
His plans for moving to Greece had to be
abandoned.
The cause and the culprit
A psychic friend stopped David St. Clair in
the street and told him that someone had put a curse on him and that all his
paths had been closed. This reminds me very much of the ‘closing all avenues’
feature I have mentioned a few times.
St. Clair took this diagnosis seriously; he came
to suspect that the culprit was the maid who looked after his apartment.
