In the night of December 31st, 1888, Mr. and Mrs. Rose (the names in
this story are pseudonyms, but the facts are true) went to bed as poor people
and on the morning of January 1st, 1889, they woke up, finding themselves rich.
An uncle to whom they owed their poverty because he kept them from
coming into the legal possession of their rightful property, had died during
that night. There are some occurrences
of an occult character, connected with this event, which will be interesting to
those who wish to find practical proofs and demonstrations in their
investigations of the “night-side of nature.”
Mr. Rose is a young, but very clever, professional man in this city, who
being at the beginning of his career has, therefore, only an exceedingly
limited number of clients. His young
wife is one of the most amiable ladies whom it has been my good fortune to
meet; a spiritually minded woman and more of a poetess than an economist. She had been brought up under the most
affluent circumstances, her father being very rich, and she was the only and
therefore the pet child in her luxurious home.
It would be too complicated a task to tell how it happened that the
property which she inherited fell first into the hands of her uncle, a spiteful
and avaricious man. Sufficient to say that this man, whom we will call
Helleborus, had by his intrigues and law suits managed to keep Mrs. Rose’s
property in his hands; giving her and her husband no support whatever. More
than once they were forced to borrow money from their friends, in order to keep
themselves from starvation.
As “Uncle Helleborus” was in the last stage of consumption their only
hope was that his death would soon put an end to his law-suits, and bring them
into possession of what rightfully belonged to them.
Uncle Helleborus, however, did not seem inclined to die. Year after year he kept on coughing and
expectorating; but with all that he outlived many who had predicted his death. After making to Mr. and Mrs. Rose a proposal
of a settlement, which would have left him in possession of nearly all the
property and given to them only a pittance, he went to Meran, last autumn, to
avoid the cold climate of Vienna.
Under their embarrassing circumstances, they were much inclined to
accept the settlement; but they concluded to first consult about it a friend,
an eminent lawyer; and this gentleman (whom we will call Mr. Tulip as everybody
in Vienna knows his real name) advised them to the contrary. This enraged Helleborus against Tulip; and,
starting into a blind rage, he swore that if he found an opportunity for
killing Tulip, he would surely do so.
Mr. Tulip was an extraordinarily strong, well-built and healthy man; but
at the beginning of December last, soon after Mr. Helleborus’ departure for
Meran, he suddenly failed in health. The
doctors could not locate his disease, and he grew rapidly thinner and weaker,
complaining of nothing but extreme lassitude, and feeling like a person who was
daily bled. Finally, on the 20th day of
December last, all Vienna was surprised to hear that Mr. Tulip had died.
Post-mortem examination showing all the organs in a perfectly normal
condition, the doctors found nothing better but to register death from Marasmus (emaciation), as the cause of
this extraordinary event.
Strange to say, during the last days of his disease (if it can be so
called), when his mind became flighty, he often imagined that a stranger was
troubling him, and the description which he gave of that invisible personage
fitted Mr. Helleborus with perfect accuracy.
During Mr. Tulip’s sickness, news came from Meran that Mr. Helleborus
was rapidly gaining strength and recovering from his illness in a most
miraculous manner; but there were some people who expressed grave doubts as to
whether this seeming recovery would be lasting.
On the day of Mr. Tulip’s funeral, a prominent Fellow of the
Theosophical Society, now in Austria, remarked to Mrs. Rose:
-
“You will see that
now that Mr. Tulip is dead, his vampire will die too.”
On January 1st, 1889, Mr. Rose dreamed that he saw Uncle Helleborus
looking perfectly healthy. He expressed
his surprise about it, when a voice, as if coming from a long distance, said:
-
“Uncle Helleborus is
dead!”
The voice sounded a second time, and this once far more powerfully,
repeating the same sentence; and this time Mr. Rose awoke, with the sound of
that voice still ringing in his ears, and communicated to his wife the happy
news that “Uncle Helleborus was dead.”
Two hours afterwards a telegram came from Meran, announcing the demise
of “Uncle Helleborus” which had occurred on that very night, and calling upon
Mr. Rose to come and attend to the funeral.
It was found that Mr. Helleborus had begun to grow rapidly worse from
the day when Mr. Tulip died.
The only rational explanation of such cases, I have found in Paracelsus.
Perhaps the editor of the Lucifer revue can throw some additional light on the
subject.
(Revue Lucifer, May 1889,
p.241-242)
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