The Healing Powers of A Horse Whisperer

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

We covered in our last article, how Rasputin was able to ease the pain and heal Alexei. How did he do it though? As with most anything when it comes to this crazy, drunk, and sex-crazed character no one genuinely knows how he was able to help the young prince. A matter of historical record is that he was able to keep the boy from dying even from a distance, again and again. Rasputin received a large amount of money from the crow sisters, which he used to buy a large home in Pokrovskoye which he traveled too often. Alexei was injured while Rasputin was away from the palace and neared death. Alexandra fearing for her sons’ life was frantic to have Rasputin return at once, she sent a telegram to him requesting him to return, and Rasputin replied, “Your son will live, make sure he rests, and don’t let the doctors bother him too much.” Alexei once again was recovering well the next day, because of Rasputin. Often Alexei would be injured in one way or another and Rasputin would be either too drunk (as he had resumed his drinking sometime around 1908) to go see him or would be at his home in Pokrovskoye and would tell Alexandra that the boy would survive and to let him rest. Theories about how he was able to help Alexei range from hypnosis to keeping doctors from giving him Aspirin. Rasputin did have a reputation as a decidedly talented hypnotist, one thing that historians and eye-witnesses comment on is his eyes. Rasputin is described as having small, dark, beady eyes, and they would be one of the keys to his success. When someone would challenge Rasputin, he would stare at them until the person either became so uncomfortable that they backed down and left, or they asked him what he was doing, and then he would leave. This trick of his was viewed as him hypnotizing people into not challenging him, and is theorized as his way of healing Alexei, by putting the boy into a hypnotic state it allowed him to rest and heal without the pain. This, grievously, does not explain plenty of times he was nowhere near Alexei and healed him.

Another theory involved Rasputin’s natural gift with horses. Another term for horse whisperer was blood-stilling. Essentially what this term means is that the blood-stiller would be able to calm down and slow the blood flow of the horse. In one story a member of the aristocracy claimed to have seen a peasant attack another with an ax, causing the victim to bleed profusely. A blood-stiller rushed in and was able to still the man’s blood, saving his life. The theory goes that Rasputin was able to transfer his gift with horses into calming Alexei and stopping the bleeding. Now the most probable theory is that, because Aspirin was the new wonder drug that was a solution for everything, notably pain, and is a natural blood thinner, that Rasputin somehow knew this and kept Alexei away from Aspirin. This theory also gives a line of reasoning about how he was able to help from great distances when he wasn’t around. To keep himself included in high society and power he never told anyone, he believed Aspirin to be the reason doctors could not Alexei. No one knows the truth behind Rasputin’s ability to help the boy, but when he was not around Alexei was at death’s door and when he was around Alexei was as healthy as he could be.

Now while Rasputin was helping Nicholas and Alexandra keep their son alive. No one else knew why this weird drunk guy was around the palace all the time. Alexei’s hemophilia was still a profoundly guarded secret, the prime minister didn’t know about it, and when he asked Nicholas about why Rasputin was there. Nicholas is quoted saying, “There is nothing I can do.” this painted a picture to everyone that Rasputin had some sort of blackmail over the royal family or worse yet that Nicholas couldn’t control his wife. Had Alexei’s condition not been a secret, it’s possible that Rasputin would have been viewed as a peculiarity of the czars, who was solely there as he was able to help Alexei. Instead, the secret behind why he was there, became a breeding ground for rumors.

Now, Rasputin had become overconfident in his position amongst the aristocracy. He was always one to be nothing more than himself and the first impression for copious high-class, that of a small-town boy does good had utterly worn off. His attendance of affairs of state meetings and other gatherings he had no reason to be at, confused and angered a majority of them. In 1909 Rasputin and a man named Iliodor went on a trip to Pokrovskoye. On this trip, Iliodor would transform from friend to foe. Rasputin was a drunken loudmouth, he would poke fun at Iliodor this entire trip about how much sex he was having while Iliodor wasn’t. He made outlandish claims about the royal family as well, saying Alexandra would kneel at his feet and that Nicholas referred to him solely as “Little Christ”. Now Iliodor had risen through the ranks of the church as a pious, homophobic, antisemitic monk, for the historical times this meant he took his role in religion zealously. Rasputin consistent with his role of being the odd one out when it came to almost anything, had grown from his fear of homosexuals and actually had a lot of candidly homosexual friends, he also had a plethora of Jewish friends as well. Iliodor viewed this as an oversight but didn’t care all that much, nor did he care about Rasputin making fun of him, but when Rasputin started talking about the royal family that was serious, and he joined to fight against Rasputin.

Join us again in part five for the conclusion of Rasputin. We will cover some attempts to rid the royal family of him along with more fun stories about the Horse Whisperer.