Lazar von Hellenbach

Lazar von Hellenbach, lithograph by Josef Anton Bauer , 1867

Lazar Freiherr von Hellenbach , also Lazar Baron von Hellenbach and Lazar Freiherr Hellenbach von Paczolay (born September 3, 1827 at Páczolaj Castle in Neutra County ( Obsolovce , Slovakia ); † October 24, 1887 in Nice ) was an Austrian politician, philosophical and socio-political Writer and one of the most famous occultists of his time. His works are considered the first thoughtful attempt to develop a philosophy based on parapsychological observations.

origin

The Hellenbach family was originally called Czech and came from Slovakia. It was first mentioned at the beginning of the 16th century. The brothers Daniel and Jeremias Czech were elevated to the status of Austrian knighthood in 1643 . In 1651 the family received the predicate Hellenbach, which became a gender name and in 1702 the imperial baron status . Lazar was the only surviving son of Wilhelm von Hellenbach from his marriage to the Croatian noblewoman Marija Adamivić Čepinska. Wilhelm directed a private orchestra with which he undertook extensive concert tours. His wife lived mainly in Vienna , where Lazar von Hellenbach also grew up.

Life

Hellenbach Castle. Marija Bistrica (Croatia) - view from the southwest

As early as 1842, Hellenbach began studying law and camera science in Prague , which he completed in 1846. He also dealt with philosophy, natural sciences and classical literature. In 1848 he served as a lieutenant in a Hungarian regiment . He then sold the Paczolay estate and moved to the Sveta Jelena estate of his mother's family in Croatia . In 1851 he took over the management of this property and married Klotilde Jelačić. As a result, he came into the possession of a castle at Marija Bistrica , which is still owned by the family today and is known as "Hellenbach Castle".

Between 1860 and 1867 Hellenbach sat in the Croatian state parliament , where he campaigned as a moderate unionist and liberal for unification with Hungary . Disappointed with the Croatian-Hungarian settlement , he withdrew from politics in 1868. Since 1869 he lived in Vienna and devoted himself as a private scholar to his scientific studies and publications. As a tireless publicist, Hellenbach wrote a number of articles, brochures and books on economic, political, social and philosophical issues. In 1885 he returned to Croatia. His last essays appeared in the theosophical journal Sphinx .

Hellenbach allegedly died of a stroke in Nice in 1887 . His granddaughter Helena Hellenbach However, according to which he took his own life after he trusting in his safe payment system in the Casino of Monte Carlo had lost his fortune.

philosophy

Lazar Freiherr von Hellenbach (approx. 1898)

Hellenbach was based heavily on Arthur Schopenhauer . He took over his dynamic conception of matter and strongly separated soul and consciousness from one another. He viewed the latter as a brain function that dies with death . On the other hand, he attributed transcendental properties to the soul , which allow it to survive the physical death of man.

“The soul is nothing simple, nothing immaterial, nothing metaphysical; what else it is, where it comes from, how it comes about, we don't know, if only because we could never understand it. We have to content ourselves with knowing that the human being is the temporal manifestation of a soul, which, if perhaps not an eternal one, at least has a long and different existence beyond our comprehension. "

- Lazar B. Hellenbach : A Philosophy of Common Sense , p. 268.

As evidence of his view, Hellenbach cited the existence of spiritualistic phenomena. He developed a theory according to which the soul is a “metaorganism” between the physical body and the spiritual I, which is immortal in a four- or zero-dimensional sphere and develops in its embodiment on the basis of experiences. Birth and death seemed to him only to be a change in the form of perception. Hellenbach had adopted the theory of a “fourth dimension” of space from the astrophysicist Karl Friedrich Zöllner , with whom he was friends. He explained paranormal abilities and phenomena such as clairvoyance, telepathy or thought transmission. With his philosophy he mainly influenced Carl du Prel , who took over from him the idea of ​​a "transcendental subject". Hellenbach in turn derived his ethics from the transcendental nature of man.

Politically, Hellenbach sympathized with liberal and socialist ideas. He confessed to a “socialism of the 'future'”, which, however, should not be imposed either from below or from above. In his novella Die Insel Mellonta , he portrayed a prejudice-free society in the style of Jules Verne and based on the utopias of Charles Fourier . In 1883 he published a reply to Eugen Dühring's work Die Judenfrage (1881). Hellenbach criticized anti-Semitism by explaining alleged Jewish characteristics through the circumstances under which Jews would have to live. At the same time, of course, he accepted stereotypes as facts. On the basis of Malthusian and Social Darwinist considerations, Hellenbach also spoke out in favor of euthanasia under certain circumstances in order to prevent overpopulation.

"... if the state in a general birthing house does not allow a newborn child, devoid of any consciousness, to come to life through cyanide, chloroform, cold or any other gas, with the most humane consideration for humanity and the child itself, this is different Process of the other and Malthusian obstacles through nothing but through his humanity. […] By what and when the fetus ceases to be material has not yet been definitively established and does not belong here; The only question here is whether one should take the process of annihilation into one's own hands in a humane and rational way, or leave it to the struggle for existence in a cruel and common harmful way .
[...]
Yes, gentlemen economists and legislators, wagging your tail doesn't help! You cannot get out of this dilemma, either you have to increase production and improve social organization or you have to destroy life in a painless way and in doing so carry out the selection of the better in a more humane and rational way than the struggle for daily bread that does not has the same opportunities as the struggle for existence in nature. "

- LB Hellenbach : The prejudices of mankind , Vol. 1, 3rd edition. P. 151 f ..

Hellenbach is therefore judged ambivalent. At least it is considered an example that “the” occult should not be identified with folk ideas without further ado .

spiritism

Hellenbach was one of the most prominent Austrian spiritualists of his time and dealt with occult phenomena in numerous philosophical writings. He represented a scientific-empirical approach in the spirit of Allan Kardec . Hellenbach made his first experience with a medium that made a lasting impression on him in 1857. In the following years he used two women as media and allegedly also communicated with Schopenhauer. In the decades that followed, Hellenbach collaborated and covered some of the best-known media outlets of the 19th century, including the Baroness Adelma von Vay and Lottie Fowler . He invited Henry Slade , Carl Hansen , William Eglinton and Harry Bastian to Vienna and defended them against allegations of fraud. In his own experiments he observed moving and floating objects, ghost appearances and levitations .

Special attention, however, caused séances that Hellenbach had held in February 1884 at the suggestion of Crown Prince Rudolf and Archduke Johann Nepomuk Salvator at court with the medium Bastian. The two Habsburgs had set out to unmask the medium. After doing nothing to keep the medium safe during two seances , they constructed a “ghost trap” for the third. To do this, they had the double door between the auditorium and the room in which the medium was staying lockable with a snap mechanism. So they caught the medium trying to portray a ghostly apparition. Nevertheless, Hellenbach defended his medium by pointing out that it was in a trance and had undoubtedly materialized spirits beforehand.

Fonts

• Laws of Social Movement. Attempt at a history of mankind. Förster [et] Bartelmus, Vienna 1864.
• A philosophy of common sense. Thoughts on the nature of human appearance. Braumüller, Vienna 1876.
• Individualism in the light of contemporary biology and philosophy. Braumüller, Vienna 1878.
• Mr. Slade's stay in Vienna. An open letter to my friends. Fischer, Vienna 1878.
• The prejudices of mankind. Rosner, Vienna 1879.
• The prejudices of the common mind. Rosner, Vienna 1880.
• The Hungarian-Croatian Conflict. Self-published, Vienna 1883.
• The anti-Semitic movement. Better, Leipzig 1883.
• The logic of the facts. A reply to the brochure 'Insights into Spiritism' by Archduke Johann. , Leipzig 1884.
• A philosophy of common sense. Thoughts on the nature of human appearance. 2nd Edition. Mutze, Leipzig 1887.
• The magic of numbers as the basis of all diversity and the apparent fate. 4th edition. O. Mutze, Leipzig 1923.
• Birth and death as a change in the form of perception or the double nature of man. 3. Edition. O. Mutze, Leipzig 1925.
• The magic of numbers as the basis of all diversity and the apparent fate. Self-rel. d. Author, Vienna 1882.
• Laws of Social Movement. : Attempt at a history of mankind. L. Rosner, Vienna 1879.
• and Karl DuPrel: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Mutze, Leipzig 1893.
• The prejudices of mankind. 1st-3rd Vol. 3rd edition. Leipzig 1893.
• Cause and effect of the next war. With special consideration of the southern Slaves towards Austria and Russia. Wigand, Leipzig 1869.
• Metaphysics of love. A sketch dedicated to the fair sex. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1875.
• The occupation of Bosnia and its consequences. Fischer, Vienna 1878.
• From the diary of a philosopher. Rosner, Vienna 1881.
• The latest manifestations of an intelligible world. Rosner, Vienna 1881.
• The island of Mellonta. Rosner, Vienna 1883.
• Birth and death as a change in the form of perception or the dual nature of man. Braumüller, Vienna 1885.
• The magic of numbers as the basis of all diversity and the apparent fate. Ed. Secret Knowledge, Graz 2009, ISBN 978-3-902640-35-2 .

literature

• Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden : Hellenbach, the champion for truth and humanity. Sketches. Max Spohr, Leipzig 1891.
• Tomas H. Kaiser: Between Philosophy and Spiritism. Approaches to the life and work of Carl du Prel. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-639-05397-5 . At the same time: Lüneburg, Univ., Diss. 2008, online (PDF; 1.3 MB) .
• Anna Pia Maissen: Horses, ships and iron dreams. Croatia's transport infrastructure in the second half of the 19th century and the role of Baron Lazar Hellenbach in the railway question. In: Nada Boškovska (ed.): Ways of communication in the history of Eastern Europe . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2002, ISBN 3-412-12701-9 , pp. 475-502.
• Anton Neuhäusler:  Hellenbach, Lazar Freiherr von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 476 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Hellenbach, Lazar Frh. Von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1959, p. 258.
• Olga Plumacher: Two individualists from the Schopenhauer school . L. Rosner, Vienna 1881.
• Karl Richter: “Palingenesis” or Generationism? A critical examination of the views of Baron Lazar von Hellenbach and Dr. Carl Du Prel. Franz Wagner, Leipzig 1888.
• Helmut Zander : Social Darwinist race theories from the occult underground of the empire. In: Uwe Puschner et al. (Ed.): Handbook on the “Völkische Movement” 1871–1918. Saur, Munich et al. 1996, ISBN 3-598-11241-6 , pp. 224-251.

Web links

• Literature by and about Lazar von Hellenbach in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Lazar Hellenbach von Paczolay at Open Library
• Works by and about Freiherr Lazar von Hellenbach at Open Library
• Exhibition about the Hellenbach family
• Peter Mulacz. HISTORY OF PARAPSYCHOLOGY IN AUSTRIA - Notes for a History of Parapsychological Developments in Austria

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maissen, horses , p. 500.
2. ↑ LB Hellenbach: The prejudices of mankind , Vol. 1. 3. Edition. Leipzig 1893, p. 168.
3. ↑ Helmut Zander: Social Darwinist race theories from the occult underground of the empire. In: Uwe Puschner et al. (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Völkische Movement 1871-1918. Munich 1996, p. 226.
4. ^ Crown Prince Rudolf: The ghost trap. In: Political Letters to a Friend, 1882-1889. Edited and introduced by Julius Szeps. Vienna 1922, pp. 186-192; Johann Orth: Insights into Spiritism. Linz 1884.