The bureaucrats and the upward path

Recent developments in the war with the bureaucrats  who behave like cult members have reminded me of something I wrote in an article about the three paths that people take.

I said this in connection with the path that spirals upward:

“One horrible manager who left the company I was working for was replaced with someone similar. The only good thing that could be said about her was that she wasn't as bad as her predecessor, but this was a still sign of an upward move. I had done my best to deal appropriately with the first unpleasant boss; I had changed and she hadn't, so she could no longer play her games.”

This is similar to what has happened in the last few days: not one but two very unpleasant bureaucrats have resigned from the project that threatens my and my neighbours’ future. 

They have been replaced by people who are easier to deal with. They are still the enemy, but they are less unscrupulous, less lacking in integrity and more pleasant than their predecessors.  They may all be in on it, but the new people are not so deeply in as the old ones were.

I am sure that these departures are no accident and that unseen influences have been at work.

Strindberg and his cult-pushing secret friend: Part III

There is more than one way of looking at the story of August Strindberg and his secret friend.

Not only can we see it as a falling out between a cult member and the person he targeted for cultivation and recruitment, we can also treat it as an occult war between two black magicians. Either way, we have two men quarrelling in a very uncivilised and low-class way.

These scenarios or interpretations of events are not mutually exclusive; they all have relevance to the case. This final article in the series will cover these different dimensions of Strindberg’s story.

The cult member and the target

The secret friend’s persistence is sinister. Surely a normal, decent person would have realised long ago that Strindberg was just not buying Madame Blavatsky and her ideology and given up trying to sell to and recruit him.  He sounds just like one of those Multi-level Marketers who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer! 

Strindberg says that this man was very anxious for him to give a good opinion of Blavatsky’s book. His reaction to Strindberg’s criticism is a classic, textbook example of a cult member’s behaviour when the cult leader or the ideology is criticised or someone refuses to join after being targeted.

So why exactly was this man so determined to recruit Strindberg and why did he react the way he did when he finally failed?

I get the impression that some cult members are controlled - or even possessed - and under orders; I sense fear in addition to anger: they behave as if they will be terribly punished if they don’t complete their assignments successfully. They will pay for it if the targeted prey escapes.

Strindberg and his cult-pushing secret friend: Part II

The story in his autobiographical novel Inferno of August Strindberg’s relationship with his ‘secret friend’ has few original elements; much of it is depressingly familiar, even when read for the first time.

While Inferno was an unexpected place to find independent confirmation of some of my ideas about games cult members play, I was not at all surprised to find yet another example of the ‘falling for a false image and going from worship to total disillusionment' syndrome or to see that Strindberg’s ‘friends’ usually turned into what he called false friends, faithless friends, former friends and enemies!

Feuding occultists are nothing new either.

Part I ended with the start of what Strindberg called a ‘paper war’, with Strindberg’s secret friend and benefactor revealing his true intentions and threatening to call on occult powers to force Strindberg to accept the theosophist Madame Blavatsky as his teacher.

So what did Strindberg do next?

Strindberg’s counter-threat

Strindberg’s response to the threat shows that the two men deserved each other! Like really does attract like.

Strindberg replied that he would call on occult powers of his own if the secret friend tried to interfere with his destiny! As a warning, he told his secret friend about what had happened ten years earlier to a man who tried to influence him against his will. This man sounds rather like the secret friend:

“This man...in spite of his display of sympathy, was not really my well-wisher. An absolute tyrant, he wanted to interfere with my destiny, to tame and subdue me, in order to show me his superiority.”

Same game, different player it seems. This man received some severe, family-related blows; Strindberg suggests that he brought this trouble on himself because he played with fire when he tried to interfere in Strindberg’s life.

The secret friend did not give up easily; he was not deterred by this implied threat.

Strindberg and his cult-pushing secret friend: Part I

Previous articles cover August Strindberg’s ‘friendships’ with the man he called the ‘Danish painter’ and with the ‘mystery man’; now it is time to look at Strindberg’s relationship with someone he called his ‘secret friend’.

Strindberg had a history of falling out with people and breaking off relationships. He tells us in Inferno that the Danish painter became his enemy and that he and the down-and-out mystery man cooled off and never saw or heard from each other again. Then there was the correspondence with Nietzsche that lasted for only a short time.

It is easy to deduce from this what would eventually happen in the case of the secret friend. According to Strindberg, this man turned not just from a friend into an enemy but from an angel into a demon! 

My guess is that the secret friend was a demon all along but for a while concealed his real nature behind a mask of benevolence.

This case is of interest not only because of what it says about Strindberg’s pattern of relationships and the sort of people he became involved with, but also because this secret friend behaved like a cult member. I was surprised to recognise in this story some elements previously featured in articles about cults. I detected the Sole Supplier Syndrome for example; the infuriating  Superiority Syndrome is much in evidence, and so is the dreaded Attack-dog Syndrome!

Strindberg’s ‘secret friend’

Stella Benson had her imaginary Secret Friends; Strindberg had someone he called his ‘secret friend’ who offered financial and other support, playing, as he said, “...a decisive rôle in my life as mentor, counsellor, comforter, judge, and, not least, as a reliable helper in various times of need.”

So why would this man do all that for someone he had never met? Did he have ulterior motives and a hidden agenda, or was he just a benefactor, a patron who recognised Strindberg’s talents and wanted to encourage and assist him?

The answer seems obvious to me: the secret friend cultivated the relationship with Strindberg because he was after something. I have highlighted some key statements that give the game away.

David St. Clair’s string of misfortunes

I first learned about August Strindberg’s string of misfortunes from Colin Wilson’s book The Occult.

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.

Today is Rafael Sabatini’s birthday

The novelist Rafael Sabatini was born on this day, April 29th, in 1875 in Italy.

I have always thought of Rafael Sabatini as a member of a special trinity. Like the other two members John Buchan and Anthony Hope, he provided food and fuel for the imagination and a chance to escape from the mundane world. He gave a taste of romance, excitement and adventure, often in glamorous and historic settings, to people who had little chance of getting anything like it in real life.

John Buchan was also born in 1875, and by coincidence there are significant occasions in February for all three men: Anthony Hope was born on February 9th; John Buchan died on February 11th and Rafael Sabatini died on February 13th.

I put Rafael Sabatini above Anthony Hope and below John Buchan when it comes to both my enjoyment of their books and finding them a good source of material for articles about unseen influences.

Previous references

Although his books do not inspire commentary the way John Buchan’s do, Rafael Sabatini has been mentioned in a few articles. His wise words about equality have been quoted; the tragic deaths of his son and step-son and his obvious favouring of heroes with black hair over their rivals with blond hair have also been discussed.

To mark the occasion, I want to say a little more about Sabatini and his books.

Stella Benson, two men, and great disillusionment

Strindberg’s ignoring of his initial feelings of mistrust when he met the mystery man who became his ‘former American friend’ has reminded me of what I read about the negative feelings on both sides when the novelist Stella Benson first met the man who was to become her husband.

Reading about various people who fell for a false image and let wishful thinking and other factors distort their perceptions has reminded me of the man who at first made a very positive impression on Stella Benson, only for her to be devastated when she learned that he was not only greatly inferior to but in some ways the exact opposite of what she thought he was.

It is the points, issues and patterns rather than the people that are of interest here; the underlying scenarios, unseen influences and connections are more important than the details.

The information comes from Joy Grant’s biography, which is based on Stella Benson’s letters and diaries.

The first meeting

Stella and her future husband reacted much the same way when they first saw each other. They had premonitions, and not good ones. She didn’t want to go anywhere he was going, and the feeling was mutual: he couldn’t get away fast enough!

They came to revise their opinions of each other, but it might have been better for both of them if they had not ignored their initial misgivings.

Stella Benson’s marriage

Stella Benson, like Stella Gibbons, married a man who was younger than she was. The age gap was five years in Stella Gibbon’s case, but Stella Benson’s husband was only 18 months her junior.

In both cases, the husband’s family was not impressed; the Stellas failed to pass muster in their eyes.