August Strindberg and the mystery man

Colin Wilson’s references in The Occult to the Swedish playwright August Strindberg’s autobiographical novel Inferno have inspired many articles. This one describes Strindberg’s involvement with a mysterious man, the artist previously introduced as his ‘former American friend’.

Strindberg generously took this man into his life for a while, only to be met with envy and a refusal to acknowledge his successes. Strindberg changed for the worse, both inwardly and outwardly, during the time that this man was his close and sole companion.

Was this relationship merely one that was typical of the time, the place and the people involved, or were unseen influences at work?

There are certainly a few familiar metaphysical elements in the case.

How it all began

Strindberg tells of how a stranger, an American artist, turned up in a Paris restaurant that he and his circle liked to visit.

Although this man seemed like an active and bold spirit and was like a breath of fresh air, Strindberg experienced some vague feelings of mistrust. He sensed that the confident demeanour was just a façade and all was not well below the surface.

His instincts were correct. Just about everything in this man’s life that could go wrong had gone wrong. He soon approached Strindberg for help:

“One evening the unfortunate man came into my room and asked for permission to remain there a short time. He looked like a lost man, and such in fact he was. His landlord had driven him out of his studio, his grisette had left him, he was head over ears in debt, and his creditors were dunning him; he was insulted in the streets by the supporters of his unpaid models…

Since he was also heavily in debt to the restaurant, he had to go about the streets, hungry. Among other things he confessed that he had taken morphia enough to kill two people, but death apparently did not yet want him.”

In other words, he and his life were in a complete mess.

Stella Benson’s very true words about pain

As I learned recently from reading Joy Grant’s biography, the novelist Stella Benson experienced a lot of pain in her life.

She had this to say about it:

“Pain is an extinguisher that can put out the sun.“

Her wise words immediately reminded of something someone said to me many years ago.

My then boss, who was the head of an overseas aid agency, had severe toothache. He told me that the pain was so bad that tears rolled down his face when he was being interviewed by a journalist. He said she probably thought that he was crying for the poor people of Africa, but it was just the toothache! 

He went on to say that the pain was so intense it filled the world and drove everything else out.

This is spot on. Both he and Stella Benson got it right. Pain does take over completely; everything else recedes and disappears.

Nothing else seems real. People often stop caring about anything else, and in any case have no spare capacity for dealing with anything else. I know this from experience.

How can we feel much interest in things our pain prevents us from participating in? What does it matter if ‘Hollywood values’, political correctness, diversity for its own sake and other ideologies are ruining everything? Who cares who wins the election?

So what if Kim Jong Un or Putin might launch nuclear missiles and destroy us all – we only wish he would: it would put us out of our misery!

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.”

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. 

I 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.

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.

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.

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.“