Prince Wittgenstein on Untrustworthy Medial Predictions
Vevey, Switzerland, June 18th, 1878.
My dear Mr. Hrrison,—Allow me, for the sake of those who believe inspirit predictions, to tell you a story about incidents which happened to me last year, and about which I, for months past, have wished to talk to you, without, till now, finding time to do so. The narrative may perhaps be a warning to some of the too credulous persons to whom every medial message is like a gospel, and who too often accept as true what are perhaps the lies of some light spirit, or even the reflection of their own thoughts or wishes. I believe that the fulfilment of a prediction is such an exceptional thing that in general one ought to set no faith in such prophecies, but should avoid them as much as possible, lest they have undue influence upon our mind, faith, and free will.
A year and some months ago, while getting ready to join our army on the Danube, I received first one letter, and afterwards a few more from a very kind friend of mine, and a powerful medium in America, beseeching me, in very anxious words, not to go to the war, a spirit having predicted that the campaign would be fatal to me, and having ordered my correspondent to write to me the following words: “Beware of the war saddle! It will be your death, or worse still.”
I confess that these reiterated warnings were not agreeable, especially when received at the moment of starting upon such a journey; but I forced myself to disbelieve them. My cousin, the Baroness Adelma Vay, to whom I had written about the matter, encouraged me in doing so, and I started.
Now it seems that this prediction became known also to some of my Theosophical friends at New York, who were indignant at it, and decided to do their utmost to make it of no avail. And especially one of the leading brethren of the society, utterly unknown to me, and residing far away from America, promised, by the force of his will, to shield me from every danger.
The fact is, that during the whole campaign I did not see one shot explode near me, and that, so far as danger was concerned, I could just as well have remained at Vevey. I was quite ashamed of myself, and sought occasion, now and then, to hear at least once the familiar roar and whistle which, in my younger years, were such usual music to me. All in vain! Whenever I was near a scene of action the enemy’s fire ceased. I remember having once, during the third bloody storming of Plevna, with my friend, your Colonel Wellesley, stolen away from the Emperor’s staff, in order to ride down to a battery of ours, which was exchanging a tremendous fire with the redoubt of Grivitsa. As soon as we, after abandoning our horses further back in the brushwood, arrived at the battery, the Turkish fire ceased as by enchantment, to begin again only when we left it half an hour later, although our guns kept on blazing away at them without interruption. I also tried twice to see some of the bombarding of Giurgiewo, where all the windows were broken, doors torn out, roofs broken down at the rail- way station by the daily firing from Rustchuk. I stopped there once a whole night, and another time, half a day, always in the hope of seeing something. As long as I was there the scene was as quiet as in times of peace, and the firing recommenced as soon as I had left the place. Some days after my last visit to Giurgiewo, Colonel Wellesley passed it, and had part of his luggage destroyed by a shell, which, breaking through the roof into the gallery, tore to pieces two soldiers who were standing near.
I cannot believe all this to have been the sole result of chance. It was too regular, too positive to be explained thus. It is, I am sure of it, magic, the more so as the person who protected me thus efficaciously is one of the most powerful masters of the occult science professed by the Theosophists.
I can relate, by way of contrast, the following fact, which happened during the war on the Danube in 1854 at the siege of Silistria: A very distinguished Engineer General of ours, who led our approaches, was a faithful Spiritualist, but believed every word which he wrote down by the help of a psychograph as a genuine revelation from superior spirits. Now these spirits had predicted to him that he would return from the war unhurt, and covered with fame and glory. The result of this was that he exposed himself openly, madly, to the enemy’s fire, till at last a shot tore off his leg, and he died some weeks later. This is the faith we ought to have in predictions, and I hope my narrative may be welcome to you, as a warning for many.—Truly yours,
<Untitled> (Last Friday’s Daily Telegraph)
Last Friday’s Daily Telegraph contains a heartrending leading article on unlimited cruelty to animals, which if reprinted by the vegetarians would form the most effective pamphlet they ever issued in relation to their doctrines.
“Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake: Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes; there was silence, and I heard a voice.”—Job.
Christians among Savages.—The following paragraph is from Social Notes:—“Day by day the columns of English newspapers are polluted with the records of fresh slaughter in South Africa. Last year the horrors around Plevna and in Armenia sickened us; the year before we turned with a shudder from annals that Turkish cruelty had written in characters of blood. Are our hands so much cleaner than the hands of the Russian? Can we not on occasion display a savagery as deliberate as that of the Turk? We have deprived the Kaffir of his land, and now we complete the injury by taking away his life. Could Sultan or Czar do more? And we set about the work with such a pleasant sense of safety to ourselves; fit out our troops with Gatling guns and the most approved species of breechloader, and send them forth against a horde of half-naked savages armed with rusty muskets of which they scarcely understand the use. Naturally, the savages fall like partridges. ‘Thirty killed here—a hundred there;’ such has become the stereotyped announcement of every South African dispatch. ‘No lives were lost on our side.’ It is only when the British forces blunder into something resembling an ambuscade that the Kaffirs can succeed in doing damage. On most occasions they are slain as helplessly as sheep. We kill till outraged Nature cries out against us. The other day 400 Kaffir wives and mothers, to whom, no less than to Englishwomen, God had given souls and affections, threw themselves between our troops and those near and dear ones that English bullets were laying low.”
Editor's notes
Sources
London Spiritualist, No. 305, June 28, 1878, p. 305