Rasputin’s Murder Foretold

"Count" Louis Hamon was best known by his stage name of Cheiro. A celebrated clairvoyant and mind reader, he was widely courted by royalty and other notables earlier this century for his amazingly accurate readings.
In 1905, for example, in the course of a meeting with the controversial Mad Monk of Russia, Cheiro warned Rasputin of the fate that awaited him. "I forsee for you a violent end within the palace, you will be menaced by poison, by knife, and by bullet. Finally, I see the icy waters of the Neva closing above you."
Rasputin’s subsequent checkered career as spiritual guide for Tsar Nicholas II and his family earned him enemies in Russia’s royal court. Still, he wa not suspicious when Prince Felix Yusupov invited him to his palace for dinner the night of December 29, 1916, promising an assignation with a lady of the court who wished to meet him. Refusing wine and tea, Rasputin munched instead on pieces of cake the prince had laced with cyanide. Yusupov was startled to see the monk consume several pieces without ill effect.
The prince then drew a pistol and shot Rasputin in the back. While he was leaning over the body, Rasputin’s eyes flew open and a desperate struggle ensued. Other plotters came to the prince’s rescue, a conspirator named Purishkevich pumping two more bullets into Rasputin’s body. Yusupov then battered the fallen "monk" with a steel bar.
Prince and helpers tied Rasputin’s arms and carried his seemingly lifeless body down to the Neva. Breaking a hole in the ice, they pushed his body into the river, but Rasputin came to life again. His last act was to make the sign of the cross with one hand. Then he slipped beneath the icy waters, fulfilling Cherio’s prophecy and one of his own.
Before his murder Rasputin had warned the royal family. "if I am killed by common assassins then you have nothing to fear. But if I am murdered by nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled. Brothers will kill brothers and there will be no nobles in the country."
Within the year the Bolsheviks mounted the Russian Revolution. On July 16, 1917, the Tsar and his family were murdered at Ekaterinburg. The nobles fled Russia.