18 Grief As An Opening

When Hilma was 18, her younger sister Hermina died from the flu in 1880

HIlma’s family was Protestant, but her family also recognized Hilma had psychic gifts that apparently ran in the family:

“…her father’s grandfather, before taking his last breath, had prophesized one of his son’s death — Hilma’s uncle, who died at sea. In her parents’ eyes, blinded by rigid Protestant dogmas, experiences with the occult were not to be openly discussed in the family. There had always been an awkward reaction to the visions she had naively shared as a child.1” ( Johan Klint as quoted by Luciana Pinheiro in Colors of the Soul)

Many writers suggest that her sister’s death was the catalyst for Hilma’s interest in Spiritualism.

Spiritualism in the late 19th century was popularized by the work of Swedish theological and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, the theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the prolific writings of British socialist, women’s right activist and theosophist Annie Besant, among others.

Fashionable in the late 19th century, it attracted over 8 million followers in the U.S. and Europe, including Mary Todd Lincoln, Queen Victoria, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens.

Spiritualist believed that the spirits of humans continued to exist after their death and that anyone with practice could be a medium and communicate with the dead. Spiritualist meetings combined discussions about theosophy with séances involving communication with the spirits of dead.

In 1879, a year before Hermina’s death, Hilma joined the Spiritualist Literature Association in Stockholm. I suspect Hilma’s curiosity, wide-ranging intellect and experiences with unseen realities, would have lead her to discovered spiritualism, even if her sister hadn’t died.

But I also know, from my own experience of loss, that grief is a kind of painful and powerful awakening. 

Often the things that break you down, that break your heart and can’t be undone, are also what breaks you open.