Baron Lazarus de Paczolay Hellenbach

1827-1887

          Hungarian philosopher of whose numerous important works Birth and Death and The Philosophy of Sound Common Sense closely concern psychical research. In the first, which was translated into English in 1886, he puts forward the original idea that no change of world occurs at the moment of birth and death, and that the only change is in the method of perception. In the second, published in 1876, he tells the story of his psychical investigations. It was in 1857 that he met with the first convincing mediumistic experience at Countess D.'s castle in Croatia. Thereafter, for six years, he engaged the services of two ladies as mediums. Through one of them he communicated with Schopenhauer. In 1870 he made the acquaintance of Baroness Adelma Vay whose powers as seeress opened up new fields of research for him. In 1875 he witnessed strong physical manifestations with Lottie Fowler. Following these he invited many well known mediums to Vienna.

Henry Slade came in 1878. The result of the sittings was published in a pamphlet: Mr. Slade's residence in Vienna; an open letter to my friends. In February, 1880, Karl Hansen, the famous hypnotist came to Vienna. To the controversy which arose in the Press, Baron Hellenbach contributed another pamphlet: Is Hansen a Swindler? A Study of Animal Magnetism. In the same year he stood up with similar vigour for William Eglinton who sat for him, under strictest test conditions, right after the Munich exposure which Baron Hellenbach considered to have been based on ignorance.

Harry Bastian paid him two visits of which in a leaflet The Latest Communications from the "Intelligible World" he gave an account. In 1884 Bastian came for the third time. The sitters were Crown Prince Rudolph and Archduke John. The Archduke seized the materialised spirit. It was found to be the medium. Of the exposure the Archduke published a pamphlet: A Glimpse into Spiritism. Baron Hellenbach countered with another: The Logic of Facts in which he essayed to clear the medium.

In the same year Baron Hellenbach invited to Vienna Frau Valeska Topfer of Leipzig, Weber Scraps of Mulsen and Margit Morgenstern of Budapest. In 1885, after a second visit from Eglinton, Baron HelIenbach gave up his residence in Vienna and returned to his second home in Croatia. Here he was engaged on another book. Of this, however, only a series of essays was published in the Sphynx under the title: Ether as a Solution of the Mystic Problem.

Source (with minor modifications): An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor (1934).