Waldemar von Wasielewski


Waldemar von Wasielewski was a German writer who specialized in the occult, Goethe research, and the history of music.

Life

Wasielewski was born in 1875 in Bonn. His father, Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, was a prominent violinist, conductor and music editor. He studied natural science, history of literature, History of art, and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, earning a doctorate in Botany in 1899. He habilitated at the University of Rostock as a private lecturer from 1899-1905.
As a freelance writer, his efforts fell on music historical themes, Goethe, and especially the occult. The publisher Piper issued a volume of his poetry in 1909.
His first encounters with the field of occultism may be dated to 1912, primarily to the symptoms of telepathy reported in Sir Oliver Lodge's book The Survival of Man. In Wasielewski's first writing on the subject, Wass muss jedermann vom Occultismus wissen , the author tried to reconcile scientific methods to occult phenomena.
In 1916 Wasielewski married Maria von Bloedau, whose mediumship led him to deepen his telepathic studies. In his main work on the subject, Telepathie und Hellsehen he attempted to prove the phenomena through scientific methods and testing, aided by his wife's telepathic abilities. Involved in these experiments was the doctor and parapsychologist Rudolf Tischner.
A correspondence developed between Wasielewski and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke from Rilke's reaction to Telepathie und Hellsehen, which the famous poet read shortly after completing the Duino Elegies.
Wasielewski died on 28 February 1959 in Sondershausen.

Primary works