Monday, 8 April 2019

Strindberg’s string of misfortunes: Part V

Previous articles in the series inspired by Colin Wilson’s references in The Occult to an episode in August Strindberg’s autobiographical novel Inferno cover some of the misfortunes that Strindberg brought upon himself by deliberately using occult techniques in an attempt to influence his family remotely.

This article will cover a few more incidents of particular interest. It describes some minor accidents and bizarre and offensive behaviour by random strangers that ruined Strindberg’s enjoyment when he visited a café and a restaurant.  

After describing one accident, Strindberg assures the reader that he is speaking the truth. I believe that Strindberg is indeed telling the truth in his accounts of all these incidents. You couldn’t make all this up! The small details are very convincing, and once again there are some familiar elements in his stories.

Strindberg and the café incidents
Not long after he had performed his evil action, Strindberg experienced a string of small but very annoying and sometimes amusing - although not to him - incidents every time he went to a certain Paris café. 

Strindberg’s main pleasure in life at the time was to sit with a glass of absinthe, a cigarette and some newspapers under a chestnut tree on the terrace of a café that he favoured. He would go in the early evening to relax for an hour or so after finishing his day’s work; he favoured a particular spot that he thought of as his place. Then it all started to go wrong:

“...this hour of a visionary happiness, for from this evening onwards it is disturbed by a series of annoyances which cannot be attributed to chance. ... I find my place, which has been reserved for me daily for nearly two years, occupied; all the other chairs are also taken. Deeply annoyed, I have to go to another café.”

He returned the next day, only for this to happen:

My old corner ... is again vacant, and I am again under my chestnut behind the Marshal, feeling contented, even happy. My well-concocted absinthe is there, my cigarette lighted, and the Temps spread out.

Then a drunken man passes; a hateful-looking fellow, whose mischievous, contemptuous air annoys me. His face is red, his nose blue, his eyes malicious. I taste my absinthe, and feel happy not to be like this sot.... There! I don't know how, but my glass is upset and empty. Without sufficient money to order another, I pay for this and leave the café. Certainly it was again the Evil One who played me this trick.

Friday, 5 April 2019

Something about Project Gutenberg

Many articles on here say that a particular book is available on Project Gutenberg. This post contains some basic information that someone who is unfamiliar with the enterprise may find useful. 

Project Gutenberg websites host thousands of free-to-read books that are in the public domain. Their copyrights have expired. They can be read online in various languages, formats and editions. Books can even be downloaded from the digital library.

There is a lot of general information about Project Gutenberg in Wikipedia and on the Project websites themselves. It is best for interested people to go direct to the sources and look at the rules, the catalogues and the search and other options, but I want to say a few things about my experiences of using this wonderful resource. 

prefer paper books, preferably with the original illustrations, but have little space for a library of my own. Project Gutenberg is an ideal place to find the classics, some old friends and books whose printed versions are very expensive or unavailable. Some of the eBooks even have illustrations.

I may want to refer to certain books from time to time; going to Project Gutenberg saves me from having to keep getting them from the public library or storing my own copies. It is often much easier to search the digital copies for remembered topics or phrases than it is to try to find something in a printed book.

Tuesday, 2 April 2019

August Strindberg and his Inferno

Colin Wilson’s book The Occult provided the lead for a series of articles about the string of misfortunes that the playwright August Strindberg brought upon himself by consciously and deliberately using occult techniques in an attempt to influence his family remotely.

Although there are a few more misfortunes still to come, I have taken time out to cover a few associated points and issues. 

One very obvious question to ask is how much of what Strindberg wrote in his book Inferno is actually true. There is also the problem of the accounts of his experiences getting changed or lost in translation.

Problems with the Inferno book
Colin Wilson gives a good summary of some of the incidents; his account made me want to read the whole story for myself. I was delighted to find Inferno available in the public domain on Project Gutenberg. However, there are some drawbacks that other people interested in going to directly to the source should be aware of.  

August Strindberg was Swedish; he wrote Inferno in French; there are many different English editions and translations available, with a variety of introductions.

Inferno is a novel. It is autobiographical, but Strindberg’s stories about incidents in his life may have been invented, exaggerated or distorted, possibly for concealment or for dramatic purposes.

Strindberg jumps around in time and from place to place and country to country, so it is not always easy to see when and where an incident happened and whether or not it can be directly connected to his evil action against his family.

Strindberg sounds melodramatic and paranoid for much of the time. He frequently mentions a ‘Hidden Hand’ that he believes guides events and intervenes in his affairs, for good and evil. He was an absinthe drinker and is said to have suffered from schizophrenia. This makes it difficult to take some of his ramblings and ravings seriously; it also makes it difficult to determine whether or not something actually happened, and if so whether or not it had any real significance.

Sunday, 31 March 2019

Strindberg’s string of misfortunes: Part IV

The previous articles in the series inspired by an episode in August Strindberg’s Inferno and Colin Wilson’s account of it in The Occult give details of some of the unpleasant experiences that Strindberg brought on himself by deliberately using occult techniques in an attempt to influence his family remotely.

Such activities are asking for trouble. They surround the practitioner with bad energy and evil influences which affect not only them but also the people around them.

This article uses some minor incidents from Inferno to illustrate this point. They seem very significant to me because they provide independent confirmation of what I have read elsewhere; I have also experienced something similar myself.

Bad energy and Strindberg’s little girl
The following incident took place after Strindberg got back together with his wife and little girl. His daughter was two and a half years old at the time:

During the evening meal the following incident happens. In order to help my little daughter, who cannot yet help herself, I touch her hand quite gently and kindly. The child utters a cry, draws her hand back, and casts at me a glance full of alarm.

When her grandmother asks what is the matter, she answers, ‘He hurts me.’ In my confusion I am unable to utter a word. How many persons have I deliberately hurt, and hurt still, though without intending it.

Some people have a very damaging effect on others because of what they are surrounded with and broadcasting.

At least Strindberg felt bad about hurting his child; some parents add insult to injury by punishing their children for shrinking from and avoiding them.

Thursday, 28 March 2019

More about Stella Benson’s travel nightmares

The novelist Stella Benson travelled the world. She saw some beautiful buildings and scenery, she gained a variety of new experiences and she met some interesting people. Travelling provided her with plenty of good material for her writing, but she paid a high price in suffering, discomfort and danger.

She turned some of her bad travel experiences into good stories and treated them lightly, presenting them in her articles as amusing and interesting adventures, evidence that she was doing something exciting with her life, rather than as the ordeals and nightmares that many of the incidents undoubtedly were.

This article contains a few more examples of her experiences and some thoughts about the issues that the accounts of her journeys raise. I wonder why she would put herself through so much; I also wonder how much of it she did in the right spirit, as opposed to just going through the motions. I wonder whether she thought that it was all worth it. 

In Stella Benson’s own words

Nobody but a true fool tries to cross the United States in a Ford car in the middle of winter."

Also we had another loss. Money in an inner coat pocket is safe enough in circumstances that permit a man to stand dry and upright as his Maker intended him to stand. But tip that man in and out of a Ford foundering in floods, load him with wet kit-bags, bend him like a hairpin, bereave him of hope and dignity—and where is that money at the end of the day? Where indeed is it? We had nothing now but a few dollars, which I found, sodden, in my breeches pocket.

Arriving that evening at a small cheerless hamlet, cold, soaked and exhausted, we were given a room full of holes, through which the draughts whistled... We were soaked, shivering, and sad.

Monday, 25 March 2019

Strindberg’s string of misfortunes: Part III

The previous articles in the series inspired by Colin Wilson’s account in The Occult of an episode from August Strindberg’s Inferno describe some of the unpleasant experiences that Strindberg brought on himself by deliberately using occult techniques in an attempt to influence his family remotely.

One of these experiences was being persecuted by noise. This article gives some more details of his ordeal.

Taking the problem with him
Strindberg eventually left the noisy hotel where people played pianos in the rooms next to his - he had to pawn some belongings to pay the bill - and went to live in a monastic establishment for Catholic students where women and children are not permitted.

Surely he would get some peace there.

Not a chance! Not with the bad energy that was surrounding him. 

Even though it was against the rules of the house, a family soon took up residence in the room next to his. He heard people quarrelling and babies howling. This reminded him of the ‘good old days’ when he was with his own family.

Strange and sinister sounds
The family left, but weird things happened in an adjoining room. The new occupant mirrored Strindberg’s actions:

The Unknown never speaks; he appears to be occupied in writing on the other side of the wall which divides us. Curiously enough, whenever I move my chair, he moves his also, and, in general, imitates all my movements as though he wished to annoy me. Thus it goes on for three days

On the fourth day I make the following observations: If I prepare to go to sleep, he also prepares to go to sleep in the next room; when I lie down in bed, I hear him lie down on the bed by my wall. I hear him stretch himself out parallel with me; he turns over the pages of a book, then puts out the lamp, breathes loud, turns himself on his side, and goes to sleep. He apparently occupies the rooms on both sides of me, and it is unpleasant to be beset on two sides at once.

The same man was shadowing Strindberg on both sides? Even weirder.

The noises here were disturbing not because they were deafening but because they were synchronised with Strindberg’s actions and movements.

Saturday, 23 March 2019

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.