". . . the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling through." - Mary Shelley
June 10, 1816. Originally called the Villa Belle Rive, the Villa Diodati was a manor close to Lake Geneva. Rented in the summer of 1816 by Lord George Byron, what began as a summer's outing in the country quickly bled into history. On June 10th, the initimate gathering of Lord Byron, Claire Claremont, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later Mary Shelley), Percy Shelley, and Dr. John Polidori converged around a fire. A conversation delving into the unknown filling the manor, it fired fertile imaginations. The chatter extending far past the witching hour, it culminated in a challenge issued by Lord Byron. Daring each guest to create a ghost story, the inclement weather and subsequent verbal exchanges played a pivotal role in helping these tales emerge.
June 16, 1816. Six days later, on the night of June 16, 1816, a waning gibbous moon rose in the southeastern sky at 12:01 AM. This moon perfectly coinciding with Mary Shelley's recollections, it was on this night that she experienced her infamous nightmare. The waking dream centering upon the image of a mad doctor inducing a dead body to rise by an application of electricity, it was what started her writing the story the world would know as Frankenstein.
"What is a day, an hour, a week to someone that is dead?" - Anonymous
On June 17th, the stories crafted were shared. Not read at the Villa Diodati, it was done at a soiree held at Madame Odier's. This the occasion where I enter through the closed curtain of time, the round of storytelling was documented in the notes of Dr. Polidor. The location and attendees of this occasion central to my tale, he writes:
"June 17. - Went into the town; dined with Shelley etc. here. Went after dinner to a ball at Madame Odier's; where I was introduced to . . . Countess Potocka . . . The ghost-stories are begun by all but me." - Dr. Polidor
"I was introduced to Countess Potocka." Yes, it is this phrase that puts the noose around my neck, and moves me back in time with feet not touching the ground. Countess Potocka, the woman referenced in this passage, is a direct ancestor of mine. The female members of the Potocki family appearing with an "a" instead of an "i" at the end of their name, it's the first place I learned of my family's connection to this literary curiosity, but there would be more disclosures to come. To sufficiently explain the strange sequence of events that continue to unravel the shroud encasing this mystery, it is here I am forced to hurtle to another point in time.
"Childe, childe, why did ye begin?" - Old Gaelic verse
1999. It is the year I first started to write, and when I made my decision to attempt to make it a career. Ravenous in devouring as much information as possible, I read all the material pertaining to the supernatural that I could. My first work begun, I ventured forth to feed my hunger. Wandering into a shop once located in the Flatiron District in NYC, it was called The Magickal Childe. An occult bookshop and more, it offered hard-to-find editions of esoteric writings. Originally contacting the establishment for information on Walpurgisnacht, once there I began browsing numerous essays on magick.
My eyes noting a tarot card reader, I decided to dive in and find out what the elemental forces had to say about my new career path. Asking my question, the reader shuffled the cards, prompting me to cut the deck in three's. Spreading the cards in a Celtic cross, he began. Giving an overview of the book I was working on, he correctly hit on a change central to the plot. Making the alteration that very morning, it was because of this accuracy that I began to trust more in his skills. Continuing, he delved deeper, hitting on more truths. Thinking he was done, I discovered that he'd saved the best for last. Pulling a tantalizing tidbit out of a tall, black hat, he stated that the cards revealed a "ninth degree black magician" around me - a magician that was dead. Having passed over to the other side, this adept was nonetheless trying to help me with my writing. More than surprised by this turn of events, I asked who this person was. Shuffling the cards again, he tried a new spread to gain some understanding. Maintaining that the dead magician was a "real son of a bitch," he offered more clues - the two most notable being that he was most likely a Freemason . .. and a relative of mine.
Knowing of no such predecessor that matched that description in my family tree, I could neither confirm nor deny the information given. Therefore, I paid and thanked the reader and went home, the reading rattling around in my head for the next few weeks. As fate would have it, the book I was working on required that I do more research. Locating an out-of-state bookseller who specialized in arcane topics, I called him up, ordering several books. About to end the discussions, he asked me if I were any relation to a Count Jan Potocki. Havng done a genealogy project in the 3rd grade, I had run across the name. I answered that he was indeed an ancestor of mine, and asked him why he was inquiring. He replied that he was inquisitve because Count Jan Potocki was also an author - one that had written an occult masterpiece called The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Taken aback by the news, the bookseller went onto say that Count Potocki had been a high-ranking Freemason - one that had landed in hot water for revealing the secret initiation in the fictional work. The wheels in my head clicking, I wondered if this were the mysterious ancestor that the tarot reader had been referring to.
Immediately ordering the book, when it arrived, I read it straight through. Also beginning my own research, it confirmed that Count Potocki was indeed a high-ranking member of several secret societies. Well-versed in the Black Arts, he seemed to fit the description of the person described. Rushing back to The Magickal Childe for another reading, I explained that I had previously been there a few weeks ago. Reminding the reader of what he'd told me of a ninth degree black magician helping me to write, I withdrew the copy of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa from my pocket. Placing it on the table, I asked if the author of this book were the man he was referring to. Shuffling, he spread out the cards, confirming that Count Jan Potocki was indeed the one helping me in my craft. Satisfied that this was indeed the person, the reader stressed that Count Potocki wanted me to use his name. When I asked why, he emphatically stated that "he would like it."
Doing the exact opposite, I was loath to tell anyone that an ancestor of mine was a brilliant author. My work pretty meager, I could well imagine it wouldn't stand up to a direct comparison. More than certain that I would come out on the losing end, I continued to write and hone my craft in isolation.
"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." - John Lennon
A few years passing, the story the tarot reader told me settled into my mind. Sinking as sediment in water, it was processed as no more than a fanciful urban legend. Life continuing, I adhered to my usual routine. Returning home from work one day, I planned on spending a quiet evening spent alone. Opting to watch a documentary on PBS, it purportedly celebrated the writing of Frankenstein. Relaxing into the story and the cushions of my couch, revelations were the last thing I was expecting, but they were what I found. Jolted by a piece of information revealed by the host of the show, it acted like a bolt of lightning, putting another lighted candle on the cake of mysterium. The genial guide helpfully detailing a recounting of the day preceding Mary Shelley's nightmare, I learned that Mary Shelley had lunch that day. Her companion? Countess Potocka.
"He smiled in a ghastly manner, and said faintly, 'It is not yet time!' - Parceptua, an Alchemist
Thinking back to Countess Potocka's presence at the reading of the ghost-stories, I began to put the pieces together. Quickly wondering if it were something that Countess Potocka said during that lunch that got Mary Shelley's mind spinning, had the remark produced Shelley's nightmare? If it had, it would make sense of the tales to be read to her - especially if she'd had a hand in their creation. Attempting to connect the dots of what was transpiring, I dug into her history as if unearthing a grave.
Countess Potocka was a writer and a poet. Born in 1776, she wrote memoirs that recorded her escapades as a belle of Paris. Also including a lengthy passage of her exploration into the unknown, it detailed an interaction with the infamous Count Potocki. Stating that she knew him to be a high ranking Freemason, she constantly begged him to reveal the society's secrets. Promising that he would, he instead set a trap for her to fall into. Staging an elaborate, fraudulent seance, he attempted to scare some semblance of propriety into her. The farce used to level her interest rather than prevent it, he tried to teach her that a neophyte needed to be more exclusive in discerning what was fake from what was real - if they were to succeed.
In reading the memoirs, another thought occurred to me. Since Count Potocki was the adept, and the Countess a mere child, what if Countess Potocka were only a conduit? What if the real provocateur at the Villa Diodati were the Count himself? Having died in 1815, was it possible for a someone to impress his will and influence events where he himself is not present except as a ghost? Can the dead lead?
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters - Fransisco Goya
I suppose the first question to ask in searching for an answer should be whether Count Potocki had knowledge of the subjects written. A solution to this at least confirming if they he were capable of such skullduggery in projecting his will, it would be an apt starting point. Dutifully performing an investigation, the answer came back as a resounding, "Yes." Well-versed in all such matters, he was indeed a master of the occult.
Finding that he'd been educated in both Geneva and Lausanne, the location of his education provided more clues. Proving that he'd spent time in the exact area, I was wondering if the Count had ever spent time at the Villa Diodati. The Villa built in 1710, the date afforded him at least the opportunity to have warmed his feet in front of the fire.
Further, we have embedded in a Professor Dowden's notes, that Mary Shelley had sat listening to two poets talking about the principle of life and galvanism. many believing this conversation crucial in instilling the genesis of the frightful tale, it is never revealed who those two poets were. While some assume it to be Byron and Shelley, Countess Potocka was also considered a poet. Was it she and Byron that exchanged heretical ideas?
The subject of the galvanism again drawing us back to Count Potocki, it is interestingly to note that Jan Potocki exchanged a series of letters with Giovanni Fabbroni, an early scientific pioneer. The communication still housed in historical museums, Fabbroni was the first to note chemical changes induced by the application of electricity. Expounding on Galvani's groundbreaking experiment that caused a dead frog's limbs to move by the application of elevtricity, it was Fabbroni that introduced the theory that a "chemical operation" was responsible for the activation of life within the body. One more nail in the coffin, the correspondence confirm that the eccentric Count was well aware of this hypothesis and of galvanism.
This information validating that Count Potocki could indeed have "influenced" the conversation that peppered Mary Shelley's mind with heinous implications, but what about vampires? Could he also have been responsible for flavoring that soup with a skeleton's bone?
Yes, indeed. In fact, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa introduced the vampire into French literature. Concerning cabals, secret societies, and initiation, it is a tale similar to nature to A Thousand and One Nights or Boccaccio's Decameron. The tale's protagonist a young Walloon officer named Alphonse, he's mysteriously detained as a highway inn while travelling to join his regiment in Madrid. Finding himself in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, the stories are recorded during a period of sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript discovered forty years later in a sealed casket, by that time the characters have been transformed through disguise, magic and illusin. The story rife with hauntings and seductions, it is a land where you can trust no one since anyone may be a vampire.
Illustrations depicting Kabbalistic imagery went their way through this novel. Hypnotic and arcane - magic, shape-shifters, erotica, and subversion are interwoven in this masterful tapestry. The Gothic tale wedded in atmosphere, two succubae attempt to seduce the wayfarer into renouncing his religion. Thinking he has had a tryst with two sisters, he wakes up to find himself under the gallows.
"The scent of death is everywhere." - Luc Quievre, a Shaman
1815. Count Potocki's death a suicide, he filed and shaped a strawberry knob taken off a sliver bowl into a bullet. Shooting himself in the head, he became "the man who shot himself with a strawberry." Leaving a not, he alludes to being a werewolf, but it is only a coded clue. Werewolves and vampires part of the fabric of Freemasonry, they signify something decidedly different than the usual categorization.
Death. While death is usually a finality; for an adept it is only a beginning. Not an ending, it is a release from form. Death the hidden path of the Kabbalah to be walked, it is only a continuation . . . a test of mastery. The spark of resurrecting the dead amongst the teachings, it is concealed in Gevurahh, the terrible aspect of God. If Count Potocki were truly the adept claimed, he undoubtedly would have this knowledge, and the wisdom to be able to stroll long after his physical body were buried. This notion peculiar, surely it is not on Halloween. The season to talk of death and resurrection, it leads us to our final piece of evidence: a residue called the Darvell Fragment.
But what of Lord Byron's offering?
The Darvell Fragment. The mystery of what Lord Byron contributed lingers, some incorrectly insisting that he wrote the original outline for The Vampire.Dr. Polidori vehemently denying the charge, the Darvell Fragment solves the dilemma and proves Polidori correct. Dated June 17, 1816, the story written upon the fragile paper is the one attributed to Lord Byron. Thought to be the story he created to satisfy his own challenge, it's here conjecture turns to reality. The contrail of history written during the spate of days spent at the Villa Diodati, it is likened to another work. In the spirit of Samhain, I will give you one guess as to what that might be. Yes, relying heavily on portions of Potocki's manuscripts that began to surface in 1804, it is reminiscent of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Byron's story a derivative of the original macabre tale, it lacks the ghoulish claustrophob terror created by Count Potocki. The merit of the writing not the point, don't you find it curious and terribly coincidental that Byron chose that story, on that night, at that time to produce? Lending a conspiratorial tone, it is beyond credulity to dismiss it as coincidental.
"My life . . . teeming with conspiracy, it continues on." - An observation
2012. All these curiosities bring me back to this point in time. Finally following the tarot reader's advice, I am indeed using Count Potocki's name. I suppose for me the issue of why he's helping me is at the forefront. If what I have related is true, and he was indeed behind the events that transpired at Villa Diodati, what does that mean for me? Could the good Count also have instigated my venturing into writing? More specifically, can the dead arise? Can spectres haunt a life? Can ghosts influence the future?
"Tis a fearful thing to be no more, Or if it be, to wander after death . . . " - John Dryden
Having no idea of what can or cannot be, I sincerely question the impetus for my writing. In my more fanciful moments, I perhaps believe that my services were "necessary." Of course, the next logical sequence would be to wonder why. If a brilliant author did indeed need someone, why not tap into Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or any one of a large number of more talented and better known artist's subconscious for a tête-à-tête. Perhaps it is only that I knocked on a door and it was answered. Conversely, it may well have been the Count considered it more of a challenge to produce something worthy out of a lump of shapeless clay. Or perhaps the answer lies in the blood.
Whatever the reason, there is my own very non-scientific hypotheses as to why. Partly intuitive and partly deductive reasoning, there is the lingering feeling that the mysterious Count Potocki may have one more story left to tell.
* * * * *
Wendy Potocki lives and writes in NYC. If that isn't scary enough, she writes in the genre of horror. She feels creating good horror is an art form. She religiously devotes herself to pursuing it over hill and dale . . . and in the crevices of her keyboard.
She has four self-published novels: The Horns of September, The Man with the Blue Hat,
Adduné : Part I. The Vampire's Game, and Adduné: Part II. The House of Cards. The
Adduné saga is a three book series that is as much as an adventure to write as to read. "Many, many hours of research are going into making this a sweeping, exciting tale about love, revenge and the hidden power lying dormant within the soul." Book trailers for many of her works may be found on her official website . Her next planned projects are Black Adagio, The Virgin, and Zaso
In her spare time, she loves to go for long walks, drink Starbucks Apple Chai lattes, make devotional offerings to her cat names Persphone, and be stilled by the grace, beauty and magic of ballet.
For her book giveaway, she is offering a free copy of The Man with the Blue Hat
"Beth's life is perfect, but then she's constructed it to be that way. She never steps outisde the boundaries and never colors outside the lines, but something happens to crumble it all away. Something in the middle of the night. Something no one can remember. Something that brings on a spate of insomnia that affects the entire community. When Sadie, the town drunk, accuses her of being the cause, she reacts in shock and fervent denial, but Sadie is insistent. She's certain that an evil she committed is the cause of bringing ruin and calamity to their fair city. Beth knows it;s all untrue, but as the sleepless nights continue, the paranoia grows. Soon as a chorus of voices are added to Sadie's - even her best friend's. Fight against the tide rising against her, her adamant defense begins to falter when a strange man knocks on her door. Delivering an ominous message to her daughter, Kirsten, it strikes at the heart of the mystery as to what is happening in Breckenridge, portending a horrific fate that awaits them all."
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