Among the numerous articles that
the esotericist Franz Hartmann wrote, he related three stories of vampirism
that came to his knowledge, and which I transcribe below:
FIRST STORY
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.
(Lucifer
Review, May 1889, p.241-242)
Observation
This is the most
common case of vampirism, where an individual sucks the vitality energy from
another person through different techniques.
SECOND STORY
It is said that true cases of vampirism are now exceedingly rare in
civilized countries; but this question is difficult to decide, as the secrets
of the grave are not always open to inspection.
I believe that one such case has come under my observation. A certain
lawyer at L___, known as a great sensualist, died of apoplexy, and twenty years
afterwards his grave at the cemetery was opened. The body was found to be
without sign of putrefaction, and exhibited a healthy color as if it were still
alive.
The preservation could not be attributed to the condition of the soil;
because all the bodies in the neighboring graves were decomposed. It may
therefore be supposed that this was a genuine case of vampirism, and that the
animal astral part of that man kept the physical body in a state of vegetative
life by means of the nervous force which it abstracted from living beings, and
infused it through the unbroken astral cord into the corpse.
(The
Occult Review, July 1909, p.17)
Observation
This is a
very strange case of true vampirism where occultists explain that after death
and under certain particular circumstances, the person's soul does not separate
from his physical body, but remains bound by the silver cord.
And this person's
soul becomes a kind of astral spectrum that can wander around, and even become
visible, and steals the lifeblood of living people to keep their physical body
in a state of hibernation.
THIRD STORY
On June 19, 1909, there appeared in
a prominent Vienna paper (the Neues
Wiener Journal) a notice (which I herewith enclose) saying that the castle
of B___ had been burned by the populace, because there was a great mortality
among the peasant children, and it was generally believed that this was due to
the invasion of a vampire, supposed to be the last Count B___, who died and
acquired that reputation.
The castle was situated in a wild
and desolate part of the Carpathian Mountains and was formerly a fortification
against the Turks. It was not inhabited, owing to its being believed to be in
the possession of ghosts, only a wing of it was used as a dwelling for the
caretaker and his wife.
Now it so happened that when I read
the above notice, I was sitting in a coffee-house at Vienna in company with an
old friend of mine who is an experienced occultist and editor of a well-known
journal and who had spent several months in the neighborhood of the castle.
From him I obtained the following
account, and it appears that the vampire in question was probably not the old
Count, but his beautiful daughter, the Countess Elga, whose photograph, taken
from the original painting, I obtained.
My friend
said:
«
Two years
ago I was living at Hermannstadt, and being engaged in engineering a road
through the hills, I often came within the vicinity of the old castle, where I
made the acquaintance of the old castellan, or caretaker, and his wife, who
occupied a part of the wing of the house, almost separate from the main body of
the building.
They were a
quiet old couple and rather reticent in giving information or expressing an
opinion in regard to the strange noises which were often heard at night in the
deserted halls, or of the apparitions which the Wallachian peasants claimed to
have seen when they loitered in the surroundings after dark.
All I could
gather was that the old Count was a widower and had a beautiful daughter, who
was one day killed by a fall from her horse, and that soon after the old man
died in some mysterious manner, and the bodies were buried in a solitary
graveyard belonging to a neighboring village.
Not long
after their death an unusual mortality was noticed among the inhabitants of the
village: several children and even some grown people died without any apparent
illness; they merely wasted away; and thus a rumor was started that the old
Count had become a vampire after his death.
There is no
doubt that he was not a saint, as he was addicted to drinking, and some
shocking tales were in circulation about his conduct and that of his daughter;
but whether or not there was any truth in them, I am not in a position to say.
Afterwards
the property came into possession of a distant relative of the family, who is a
young man and officer in a cavalry regiment at Vienna. It appears that the heir
enjoyed his life at the capital and did not trouble himself much about the old
castle in the wilderness; he did not even come to look at it, but gave his
directions by letter to the old janitor, telling him merely to keep things in
order and to attend to repairs, if any were necessary. Thus the castellan was
actually master of the house and offered its hospitality to me and my friends.
One evening
myself and my two assistants, Dr. E, a young lawyer, and Mr. W, a literary man,
went to inspect the premises. First we went to the stables. There were no
horses, as they had been sold; but what attracted our special attention was an
old queer-fashioned coach with gilded ornaments and bearing the emblems of the
family.
We then
inspected the rooms, passing through some halls and gloomy corridors, such as
may be found in any old castle. There was nothing remarkable about the
furniture; but in one of the halls there hung in a frame an oil-painting, a
portrait, representing a lady with a large hat and wearing a fur coat.
We all were
involuntarily startled on beholding this picture; not so much on account of the
beauty of the lady, but on account of the uncanny expression of her eyes, and
Dr. E, after looking at the picture for a short time, suddenly exclaimed:
- "How strange!
The picture closes its eyes and opens them again, and now it begins to
smile!"
Now Dr. E is
a very sensitive person and has more than once had some experience in
spiritism, and we made up our minds to form a circle for the purpose of
investigating this phenomenon. Accordingly, on the same evening we sat around a
table in an adjoining room, forming a magnetic chain with our hands. Soon the
table began to move and the name “Elga” was spelled.
We asked who
this Elga was, and the answer was rapped out:
- "The lady, whose picture you have seen."
- "Is the
lady living?" asked Mr. W.
This
question was not answered; but instead it was rapped out:
-
"If Mr. W
desires it, I will appear to him bodily to-night at two o’clock."
Mr. W
consented, and now the table seemed to be endowed with life and manifested a
great affection for Mr. W; it rose on two legs and pressed against his breast,
as if it intended to embrace him.
We inquired
of the castellan whom the picture represented; but to our surprise he did not
know. He said that it was the copy of a picture painted by the celebrated
painter Hans Markart of Vienna, and had been bought by the old Count because
its demoniacal look pleased him so much.
We left the
castle, and Mr. W retired to his room at an inn, a half-hour’s journey distant
from that place. He was of a somewhat sceptical turn of mind, being neither a
firm believer in ghosts and apparitions nor ready to deny their possibility. He
was not afraid, but anxious to see what would come out of his agreement, and
for the purpose of keeping himself awake he sat down and began to write an
article for a journal.
Towards two
o’clock he heard steps on the stairs and the door of the hall opened, there was
a rustling of a silk dress and the sound of the feet of a lady walking to and
fro in the corridor.
It may be
imagined that he was somewhat startled; but taking courage, he said to himself:
- "If this
is Elga, let her come in."
Then the
door of his room opened and Elga entered. She was most elegantly dressed and
appeared still more youthful and seductive than the picture. There was a lounge
on the other side of the table where Mr. W was writing, and there she silently
posted herself. She did not speak, but her looks and gestures left no doubt in
regard to her desires and intentions.
Mr. W
resisted the temptation and remained firm. It is not known whether he did so
out of principle or timidity or fear. Be this as it may, he kept on writing,
looking from time to time at his visitor and silently wishing that she would
leave. At last, after half an hour, which seemed to him much longer, the lady
departed in the same manner in which she came.
This
adventure left Mr. W no peace, and we consequently arranged several sittings at
the old castle, where a variety of uncanny phenomena took place. Thus, for
instance, once the servant-girl was about to light a fire in the stove, when
the door of the apartment opened and Elga stood there.
The girl,
frightened out of her wits, rushed out of the room, tumbling down the stairs in
terror with the petroleum lamp in her hand, which broke and came very near to
setting her clothes on fire. Lighted lamps and candles went out when brought
near the picture, and many other “manifestations” took place, which it would be
tedious to describe; but the following incident ought not to be omitted.
Mr. W was at
that time desirous of obtaining the position as co-editor of a certain journal,
and a few days after the above-narrated adventure he received a letter in which
a noble lady of high position offered him her patronage for that purpose. The
writer requested him to come to a certain place the same evening, where he would
meet a gentleman who would give him further particulars.
He went and
was met by an unknown stranger, who told him that he was requested by the
Countess Elga to invite Mr. W to a carriage drive and that she would await him
at midnight at a certain crossing of two roads, not far from the village. The
stranger then suddenly disappeared.
Now it seems
that Mr. W had some misgivings about the meeting and drive and he hired a
policeman as detective to go at midnight to the appointed place, to see what
would happen.
The
policeman went and reported next morning that he had seen nothing but the
well-known, old-fashioned carriage from the castle with two black horses
attached to it standing there as if waiting for somebody, and that he had no
occasion to interfere and merely waited until the carriage moved on.
When the
castellan of the castle was asked, he swore that the carriage had not been out
that night, and in fact it could not have been out, as there were no horses to
draw it.
But this is
not all, for on the following day I met a friend who is a great sceptic and
disbeliever in ghosts and always used to laugh at such things. Now, however, he
seemed to be very serious and said:
« Last night something very
strange happened to me. At about one
o’clock this morning I returned from a late visit and as I happened to pass the
graveyard of the village, I saw a carriage with gilded ornaments standing at
the entrance. I wondered about this taking place at such an unusual hour, and
being curious to see what would happen, I waited.
Two
elegantly dressed ladies issued from the carriage. One of these was young and
pretty, but threw at me a devilish and scornful look as they both passed by and
entered the cemetery. There they were met by a well-dressed man, who saluted
the ladies and spoke to the younger one, saying:
- "Why, Miss Elga! Are you returned so soon?"
Such a queer
feeling came over me that I abruptly left and hurried home. »
This matter
has not been explained; but certain experiments which we subsequently made with
the picture of Elga brought out some curious facts.
To look at
the picture for a certain time caused me to feel a very disagreeable sensation
in the region of the solar plexus. I began to dislike the portrait and proposed
to destroy it. We held a sitting in the adjoining room; the table manifested a
great aversion against my presence. It was rapped out that I should leave the
circle, and that the picture must not be destroyed.
I ordered a
Bible to be brought in and read the beginning of the first chapter of St. John,
whereupon the above-mentioned Mr. E (the medium) and another man present
claimed that they saw the picture distorting its face. I turned the frame and pricked
the back of the picture with my penknife in different places, and Mr. E, as
well as the other man, felt all the pricks, although they had retired to the
corridor.
I made the
sign of the pentagram over the picture, and again the two gentlemen claimed
that the picture was horribly distorting its face.
Soon
afterwards we were called away and left that country. Of Elga I heard nothing
more. »
~ * ~
Thus far
goes the account of my friend the editor. There are several points in it which
call for an explanation. Perhaps the investigators of the Society for Psychical
Research will find it by investigating the laws of nature ruling the astral
plane, unless they prefer to take the easier route, by proclaiming it all to be
humbug and fraud. »
(The
Occult Review, September 1909, p.144-149)
Observation
This story is a bit
similar to the second story, but where the deceased person shows great
maneuverability, probably due to the fact that she was a practitioner of occultism
or even black magic, but I cannot tell you how genuine or invented is this story.
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