Blavatsky H.P. - A Story of the Mystical: Difference between revisions

One morning in 1868 Eastern Europe was startled by news of the most horrifying description. Michael Obrenovitch, reigning Prince of Serbia, his aunt, the Princess Catherine, or Katinka, and her daughter, had been murdered in broad daylight, near Belgrade, in their own garden, the {{Page aside|164}} assassin or assassins remaining unknown. <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Mihailo Obrenoviæ (1823-68) was the youngest son of Prince Milon Obrenoviæ (1780-1860). After the abdication of his father in 1839, and the death of his elder brother, Milan Obrenoviæ, the same year, he ascended the throne of Serbia. His ambitious program of self-assertion abroad and reforms within, alienated Turkey and Austria. Heavy taxation imposed upon the people strengthened the party which had forced his father to abdicate. In August, 1842, Vucic the leader of the malcontents, forced him to leave Serbia, and Alexander Karageorgevic was elected in his place. In 1858 Alexander was dethroned in his turn, and Milos Obrenovic recalled to the throne. On his death in 1860, Mihailo succeeded him. His policy was wise and moderate; he entertained plans for a union of various Slavonic tribes in South-East Europe, and obtained the withdrawal of the last Turkish garrisons from Serbia April 18, 1867. On May 29/June 10, 1868, he was assassinated in the park of Koshutnyak, at Topcider, near Belgrade.—Compiler.]}}</ref> The Prince had received several bullet shots and stabs, and his body was actually butchered; the Princess was killed on the spot, her head smashed, and her young daughter, though still alive, was not expected to survive. The circumstances are too recent to have been forgotten, but in that part of the world, at that time, the case created a delirium of excitement.

In the Austrian dominions and in those under the doubtful protectorate of Turkey, from Bucharest down to Trieste, no high family felt secure. In those half-oriental countries every Montecchi has its Capuletti, and it was rumored that the bloody deed was perpetrated by the Prince Kara-Georgevitch, an old pretender to the modest throne of Serbia, whose father had been wronged by the first Obrenovitch. The Jaggos of this family were known to nourish the bitterest hatred toward one whom they called a usurper, and “the shepherd’s grandson.” For a time, the official papers of Austria were filled with indignant denials of the charge that the treacherous deed had been done or procured by Kara-Georgevitch, or “Czerno-Georgiy,” as he is usually called in those parts. Several persons, innocent of the act, were, as is usual in such cases, imprisoned, and the real murderers escaped justice. A young relative of the victim, greatly beloved by his people, a mere child, taken {{Page aside|165}} for the purpose from a school in Paris, was brought over in ceremony to Belgrade and proclaimed Hospodar of Serbia. <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[This was Milan Obrenoviæ (1854-1901), son of Milos Jevremovie Obrenovie (1829-1861), the nephew of Prince Milos (1780-1860), and by his cousin Mihailo, educated at Bucharest and Paris, and placed on the throne under a regency in 1868.—Compiler.]}}</ref> In the turmoil of political excitement the tragedy of Belgrade was forgotten by all but an old Serbian matron, who had been attached to the Obrenovitch family, and who, like Rachel, would not be consoled for the death of her children. After the proclamation of the young Obrenovitch, the nephew of the murdered man, she had sold out her property and disappeared; but not before taking a solemn vow on the tombs of the victims to avenge their deaths.

“I have found,” he remarked in the course of the conversation, after I had made him share my seat of hay, “one of the most wonderful subjects in this lovely Thebaide. {{Page aside|167}} I have an appointment to-night with the family. They are seeking to unravel the mystery of a murder by means of the clairvoyance of the girl. . . . She is wonderful; very, very wonderful!”

“Wait,” she whispered, “till the star is set, and the ninth hour completed. The Vourdalaki <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[Also known as vlukolak and vukodlak among Slavonian people. —Compiler.]}}</ref> are hovering around; they may spoil the influence.”

As soon as the vaporous double had soaked itself through the pores of the girl, the Gospoja had, by a rapid motion of the hand which was left free, drawn from under her pelisse something which looked to us suspiciously like a small stiletto, and placed it as rapidly in the girl’s bosom. The action was so quick that the mesmerizer, absorbed in his work, had not remarked it, <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[H.P.B. must have often thought in French, even when writing English. This is a case in point. She means “had not noticed it,” but uses the equivalent of the French word “remarquer” which carries a different meaning in English.—Compiler.]}}</ref> as he afterwards told me. A few minutes elapsed in a dead silence. We seemed a group of petrified persons. Suddenly a thrilling and transpiercing cry burst from the entranced girl’s lips. She bent forward, and snatching the stiletto from her bosom, plunged it furiously around her in the air, as if pursuing imaginary foes. Her mouth foamed, and incoherent, wild exclamations {{Page aside|172}} broke from her lips, among which discordant sounds I discerned several times two familiar Christian names of men. The mesmerizer was so terrified that he lost all control over himself, and instead of withdrawing the fluid, he loaded the girl with it still more.

{{Style P-Signature|HADJI MORA. <ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[In her {{SB-page|v=1|p=118|text=Scrapbook, Vol. I, p. 118}}, H.P.B. pasted a cutting of this story and signed her name under this pseudonym. Concerning the veracity of the facts outlined by H.P.B., and other data relevant to this story, the student is referred to H.P.B.’s letter written to A. P. Sinnett in the early part of 1886 and numbered Letter No. LXI, in the volume entitled The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, published in 1924.<br>

Some years later, when this story was republished in The Theosophist, Vol. IV, January, 1883, John Yarker, the well-known Mason, wrote a brief account of similar experiences he had had with sensitives (ibid., March, 1883, pp. 149-50). To his inquiry as to the genuineness of the narrative, H.P.B. added in a footnote: “We assure our learned correspondent that every word of our narrative is true.” —Compiler.]}} </ref>}}