Quotes:Vay, Adelma von

Zirkoff, Boris

Vay, Baroness Adelina von (also Adelma and Adelheid), German mystic, healer and writer, born at Tarnopol’ in Galicia, October 21, 1840. She belonged to the distinguished family of the Counts Wurmbrandt-Stuppach, her father being a military man who died in her infancy. Her mother remarried and the family moved to Prussia where Adelina and her sister Rosa received a very thorough education. When twenty, she married Baron Eugen von Vay and they settled in Styria, travelling extensively from time to time in various European countries.

From girlhood, Adelina von Vay was a psychically sensitive person, and, under the influence of a magnetizer, engaged in automatic writing. She gradually developed mediumistic faculties and, together with her husband, was drawn into Spiritualism. Many of her experiences are outlined in her work: Studien über die Geisterwelt (Leipzig: Oswald Mutze, 1874; x, 408 pp., 8vo, which is listed as the 2nd edition). This work, which includes a portrait of the author, contains some of the messages she is supposed to have received from various personages who had died. She also wrote Geist, Kraft, Stoff (Vienna: R. Lechner, 1870; transl. into English as Spirit, Power, and Matter, Cleveland, Ohio, 1948, inch portrait), and contributed a number of articles to such journals as the famous Psychische Studien of Leipzig, Licht, Mehr Licht of Gotha, and Hungarian Spiritualistic magazines.

Adelina von Vay engaged in a far flung correspondence with various scholars and thinkers of the day, and became known as a magnetic healer, an art which she praticed very successfully. It is not known how and when H.P.B. became acquainted with 669 Madame von Vay, whom she always calls Adelma von Vay, but it is obvious that she considered her a close friend and spoke of her with much esteem and admiration. In a brief review of a booklet entitled My Visit to Styria, by Caroline Corner (London: G. Burns, 1882), published in The Theosophist (Vol. IV, March, 1883, p. 146), and which deals with the author’s visit to the home of the von Vays, certain sentences may have been written by H.P.B. herself, even though we have no definite proof of it. It is stated therein that:

"...the details of home-life in the residence of her host and hostess present us with ampler proof, if such were needed, that joy and peace sit by the hearth where life is consecrated to works of beneficence, and the chief pleasure is in filling each day with good deeds and kind words. The Baroness Adelma von Vay is known throughout Europe and America as a psychometer and crystal reader of great endowment, a mesmeric healer of the sick poor, and a clever writer (in the German language) upon psychological subjects. Her family, as well as the Baron’s, is one of very artistocratic relationships, but she has everywhere the reputation of being the incarnation of benevolent and unassuming kindness. Her portrait in our album had quite prepared us to accept as literal Miss Corner’s description of her face and character—‘a beautiful and charming woman— with a countenance beaming with benevolence, cheerfulness, and intelligence .... a veritable humanitarian, comforting the afflicted and distressed. The peasant population maintain an implacable faith in her power to alleviate pain. From far and near, they bring their sick for her tender ministration . . . The Baroness’ bright face is ever a welcome sight in all the homesteads of the poorest and lowliest in the district, and many lips breathe blessings upon her for her goodness and charity.’ Thanks, Miss Corner, for enabling us to hold up before her Asiatic brothers in Theosophy so sweet a portrait of this tender sister of humanity.”

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 4, pp. 668-669