[Illustration: Wire service stories from 1949 document the possession and exorcism of "Douglas Deen" upon which Blatty based his enormously successful novel, The Exorcist.]
TAT Journal Issue 12
CONTENTS
The best-seller and hit movie were based on fact - the actual case of a Maryland boy's possession and exorcism in 1949.
Until we learn the limitations of our thinking in approaching reality, we will remain mental cavemen.
Theories of trickery and self-hypnosis fail to explain how firewalkers the world around can step through hot coals without being burned. Their feat defies our concept of "reality."
They are musical virtuosi, human calculators, mechanical geniuses - and severely retarded.
A chilling tale by the famous encyclopedist of esoteric lore.
The link between planetary movements and body chemistry.
Western doctors have reluctantly admitted that acupuncture works. But can they accept the "why"?
The eyes are windows of the body as well as of the soul.
Part II of How to Chart Your Own Horoscope: The Planetary Aspects.
Recent brain/mind research explains how religions begin with "right brain" visions and evolve "left brain" creeds.
Modern Life-after-death research is incomplete without a study of this ancient guide to the Bardo realm.
TAT Journal is published by the TAT Foundation, a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation, that was established to provide a forum for philosophical and spiritual inquiry, based upon the principle that cooperation with fellow inquirers expedites one's own search. The TAT Foundation supports workshops, seminars, study groups and related services. The views and opinions expressed in the TAT Journal are not necessarily those of the editors or of the TAT Foundation. Address all correspondence, including manuscripts to TAT Foundation. Manuscripts will be returned only upon request and when accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope.
Editor: Louis Khourey;
Contributing Editor: Mark Jaqua;
Advertising: William Weimer;
Circulation: Doron Fried;
Production: Robert Cergol.
©1981 TAT Foundation. All rights reserved.
The Truth Behind The Exorcist
by Joseph Jacobs
FEW PEOPLE ARE AWARE THAT there is a true story behind William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. The best-seller and box-office smash left people thrilled and scared - telling themselves that it was only a fairytale, yet perhaps deep inside, feeling that there was some truth between the lines of the Hollywood fantasy. In fact, The Exorcist was based on the true story of the apparent possession of a 14-year-old Mt. Ranier, Maryland boy in 1949.
In more general terms, The Exorcist appealed to ancient fears and beliefs within us all. Mankind has believed in demon spirits and possession for untold thousands of years and it is only recently that psychology and science have scoffed at these archetypal beliefs. We may find that our psychologists can no more adequately explain possession than have ancient shamans and Catholic priests. Is possession a fact or superstition? Although it relegates possession to superstition, does psychology have a theory adequate to explain possession beyond simple denial by foot-stamping beration of "medieval nonsense"? Either possession is fact or fiction; it cannot be both.
[Illustration: Wire service stories from 1949 document the possession and exorcism of "Douglas Deen" upon which Blatty based his enormously successful novel, The Exorcist.]
The case upon which The Exorcist was based concerned a young boy, Douglas Deen (pseudonym), who lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C. The phenomena began with poltergeist knocking and scratching - as accurately related in The Exorcist - shortly after the death of an aunt who was close to the boy. The Deen family was Lutheran and when the phenomena became more agitated the family pastor, Reverend Winston, agreed to take the boy into his home. During the night the phenomena intensified and the boy's bed would vibrate and move across the floor. If the boy sat in a chair it would often tip itself over. Pastor Winston said that when things moved everything moves "as a unit." Bed coverings and bed would move in unison. Winston believed the case too difficult and felt the boy needed psychiatric help, so he was sent to Georgetown University Medical Center. No improvement was realized there and an appeal was made to Catholic authorities for an exorcism. The boy was moved to St. Louis where Jesuit Father William Bowdern, pastor of Collegiate Church of St. Louis, was appointed to perform the exorcism by Archbishop Ritter.
Father Bowdern has been extremely reticent to describe what took place during the exorcism but some information has come from other persons connected with the exorcism. Numerous supernormal manifestations were reported, ranging from a host taking off and flying about the room and then landing back on its silver platter to fluent use of Latin by the boy. It is also reported that the boy reduced the Father's Roman Ritual to confetti by merely touching it with his finger. The only abnormalities Father Bowdern would publicly admit were that odd markings would often appear on the boy's chest sometimes taking the form of the word "hell."
Blatty claimed that he saw Bowdern's personal diary of the case before writing The Exorcist, but when interviewed by "Newsweek" magazine Bowdern retorted to this, "I have never talked with Blatty and never will." Bowdern was very antagonistic to the attention the case was receiving following The Exorcist and told the "Newsweek" reporter, "I have lived in dread of calls from people like you. It started with the book and then the movie, and if it keeps up some fine lives are going to be ruined. The boy in the case has grown into a fine man with a lovely wife and children."
If possession is a fact not adequately explained by other theories, then we may still not know what actually does the possessing. At present, psychology denies the reality of possession yet it has no comprehensive theory to explain it. All great theories are simple in nature and when any belief-system or paradigm gets too cumbersome it is usually time for simpler theories to surface. Early twentieth century physics was a morass of confusion until Einstein took a grand step and simplified many problems in a three-letter equation, E=MC2. Psychology is in such a shambles at present. It is likely that a person going to a dozen different psychologists will get a dozen different prescriptions for his problems. This is not truth; it is speculation and a guessing game with a person's life at stake. Psychologists cannot even agree on what is a problem and what is not. Psychology involves itself in all too superficial thinking and is easily swayed by public opinion. Materialistic-oriented public opinion denies the non-material so it becomes impossible for psychology to consider a non-material explanation for possession.
To explain possession, psychologists postulate different "selves" within the person and that one can become controlled by one or another of these "selves." It is explained as a dissociation of the personality with certain aspects breaking off and forming autonomous units with a character of their own. In Possession and Exorcism T.D. Oesterreich makes an analogy to explain this dissociation theory of possession:
"The true state of things is essentially the same as when I converse mentally with someone and in imagination hear him reply, by which means a conversation may be enacted. In these circumstances the arguments of the other person may also have a character of compulsion. In the case of possession there is nothing more than an extraordinary accentuation of this phenomena... The subject loses control over a considerable number of his states, and it is this part of his personality which plays the obsessive role of a demon."
This theory, of course, does not explain phenomena such as levitation and clairvoyance which accompany some possession cases. If man has many "selves" why does he only identify with one self? Whose "will" may be motivating the other "selves"? Would the will of a separate entity possessing an aspect of the person's personality describe dissociation more adequately? If a person's will and motivation are divided up among several different selves then his "I" or self-identification should also be divided. This is not the case. The possessed feels he is doing battle with something outside himself.
THERE ARE OTHER APPARENTLY authentic cases of possession as extraordinary as the Mt. Ranier case upon which The Exorcist was based. One of these occurred in Earling, Iowa in 1928. In Robert Pelton's Confrontation With the Devil we find a direct narration of this case from Catholic priest Joseph Steiger. Steiger was present at the entire 23-day ordeal and aided Father Theophilius Riesinger who was the exorcist. In this case we have a first-hand account of real-life happenings that rival The Exorcist in their fantastic nature. We cannot determine beyond doubt that this case is true but authenticity is lent to it by the fact that Steiger relates a tale in which he does not appear in too favorable light. It seems the supposed "demon" created a negative effect in Steiger so that he was fighting exorcist Riesinger nearly as much as the demon.
At about the age of 14 the woman in question began exhibiting disturbing symptoms. She could not take communion or involve herself in church affairs without becoming agitated. Her condition became worse over the years and it was discovered she understood several languages without being schooled in them. When blessed in Latin she would fly into a rage but when non-liturgical Latin was spoken it caused no reaction. She could also unerringly discern holy water from unblessed water and was unable to eat food that had secretly been blessed by a priest. Her case came to notice of church authorities and an exorcism was approved for her at the age of 40 in 1928. Father Theophilius Riesinger asked permission to perform the exorcism at Father Steiger's parish in Earling and this was agreed to.
The woman was laid on a bed and was held down by several nuns from the adjoining convent since it was expected the subject would become violent. The woman became and remained unconscious through the first recitation of the ritual. When the second recitation began, all "hell" broke loose:
"With lightning speed the possessed dislodged herself from her bed and from the hands of her guards; and her body, carried through the air, landed high above the door of the room and clung to the wall with a tenacious grip. All present were struck with a trembling fear. Father Theophilius alone kept his peace.
"'Pull her down. She must be brought back to her place on the bed.' Real force had to be applied to her feet to bring her down from her high position on the wall. The mystery was that she could cling to the wall at all! It was through the powers of the evil spirit, who had taken possession of her body.
"Again she was resting upon the mattress. To avoid another such feat, precautions were taken and she was held down tightly by stronger hands.
"The exorcism was resumed. The prayers of the Church were continued. Suddenly a loud shrill voice rent the air. The noise in the room sounded as though it were far off, somewhere in a desert. Satan howled as though he had been struck over the head with a club. Like a pack of wild beasts suddenly let loose, the terrifying noises sounded aloud as they came out of the mouth of the possessed woman. Those present were struck with a terrible fear that penetrated the very marrow of their bones.
"'Silence, Satan. Keep quiet, you infamous reprobate!'
"But he continued to yell and howl as one clubbed and tortured, so that despite the closed windows the noises reverberated throughout the neighborhood.
"Awe-struck people came running from here and there: 'What is the matter? What is up? Is there someone in the convent being murdered?'"
Uncanny phenomena continued to occur. The woman could not take food and was fed intravenously, yet she continually vomited foul substances 10 to 30 times a day. The appearance of these substances ranged from "macaroni" to "tobacco leaves." Her body reportedly bloated at times until it appeared it would burst. She would also increase tremendously in weight, to such an extent that the iron legs of her bed bent to the floor. Clairvoyant abilities were also demonstrated. Pastor Steiger once hid a church relic on his person and the "demon" speaking through the woman immediately screamed for him to get the relic out of the room and related where he had it hidden.
In one incident either the "demon" caused an accident or clairvoyantly knew it had happened. Father Steiger was returning to the convent in his new car from a house call nearby. He described a "black cloud" that came between him and the road and he was caused to hit a bridge railing. When Steiger, in shaken condition, returned to the convent it was discovered that the possessed had accurately described what had happened to him and claimed credit for the accident. The "demon" said that the only reason he had not killed Steiger was because of the intervention of Steiger's patron saint, Joseph!
The pace of the exorcism quickened and Father Riesinger asked the other attendants to aid him by doing penances and fasting. Daily prayer services were held for the possessed in the church. Father Riesinger amazingly performed the last three days and nights of the exorcism non-stop without rest. He was reportedly a man of iron constitution but at completion of the exorcism had lost much weight and looked like a walking corpse. Upon recitation of the last ritual the woman was said to have suddenly raised vertically in her bed with only her heels touching the mattress. With a sudden screaming wail she fell back in her bed and the exorcism was completed.
Phenomenal aspects are not treated at all by the dissociation theory of possession. In many cases raised welts appear on the possessed's body and may take the form of words or figures. In the Mt. Ranier case the word "hell" appeared on the boy's chest. Such phenomena are explained by psychologists as a form of autohypnotic control of the body. Some skilled hypnotists are able to cause their subjects to form welts or to cause catalepsy or insensitivity to pain. Supposed examples of autohypnosis are the cases in which Christian mystics develop bleeding stigmata. These non-healing wounds on hands and feet are said to be autohypnotically produced through the mystic's complete identification with Christ.
Gradual changes in the body such as welts and sores can be explained by autohypnosis (ignoring for the moment that we actually do not know what hypnosis is!) but instantly appearing teethmarks inflicted by supposed demons can not be explained so simply. There was such a well-documented case from the Philippines in May, 1952. The case involved an adolescent girl who was taken into police custody for vagrancy. She began behaving erratically and screaming that she was being bitten by two "things." The following is an excerpt from the prison's Official Medical Report recorded by D. Mariano Lara, Professor of Legal Medicine, University of Santo Thomas, Manila:
"I find it difficult and near impossible to accept anything of a supernatural character... Equipped with a magnifying lens and an unbelieving mind about this biting phenomena, I scrutinized carefully the exposed parts of her (Clarita Villanueva's) body, the arms, hands, and neck, to find out whether they had the biting impressions. I saw the reddish human-like bite marks on the arms... At that very instant, this girl in a semi-trance loudly screamed repeatedly... I saw, with my unbelieving eyes, the clear marks or impressions of human-like teeth from both the upper and lower jaws. It was a little moist in the area bitten on the dorsal aspect of the left hand, and the teeth impressions were mostly from the form of the front or incisor teeth. Seeing these with my unbelieving eyes, yet I could not understand nor explain how they were produced as her hand had all the time been held away from the reach of her mouth...
"In full possession of her normal mind, I asked her (Clarita Villanueva) who was causing her to suffer from the bites. She answered that there are two who are alternately biting her; one big, black, hairy human-like fellow, very tall, with two sharp eyes, two sharp canine teeth, long beard like a Hindu, hairy extremities and chest, wearing a black garment, with a little whitish piece on the back resembling a hood. His feet are about three times the size of normal feet. The other fellow is a very small one about two or three feet tall allegedly also black, hairy and ugly."
Several accounts of the case also appeared in Manila's "The Daily Mirror" and "The Manila Chronicle." People were reportedly watching her at all times when the bites appeared and it was deemed impossible that she could have been biting herself. She was exorcised by a Christian evangelist in the area and reportedly had no more difficulties afterward. Interestingly, she had conversed with the evangelist in English, but after the exorcism she no longer understood a word of English and had to resort to an interpreter.
IS IT SO UNSCIENTIFIC TO POSTULATE that there may be creatures that live in an invisible dimension? Science deals with material objects, things that can be measured and physically observed. Science, in effect, is stating that what it cannot see or measure does not exist. We will never be able to physically measure a thought, yet we know that thoughts exist. The subtle can measure the coarse but the coarse cannot be used to investigate the subtle. We can "measure" the physical universe with our thoughts but we can never measure thoughts with physical matter or instruments. Thoughts are of a superior and more subtle substance than coarse physical matter such as instruments are made of. If entities and demons are formed of a more subtle substance than physical matter, we will never be able to measure or detect them with physical mechanisms. If demons exist, they may be composed of the same "substance" that thoughts are composed of and thus only detectable mentally through the effect they have on our minds and behavior.
A question that arises is that if demons are non-material how are they able to effect material changes such as levitation and causing objects to fly through the air? It would seem that an intermediary substance would be needed, a substance on the border of the material and non-material. Many phenomena similar to those in possession are found in spiritualism and are attributed to the use of "ectoplasm" by the discarnate entities involved. Ectoplasm is said to be extruded from the medium's or sitter's body during the seance. The medium temporarily puts herself under the control of these entities in a voluntary form of possession in which some identical phenomena are produced as in involuntary possession. Ectoplasm is regarded by spiritualists as a semi-material vital fluid of the body. The use of this vital fluid by the supposed discarnate entities during the seance usually proves very tiring to the medium. Dr. W.J. Crawford, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Queens University, made extensive tests concerning ectoplasm from 1917 to 1920. He discovered that there was a distinct loss of weight in all participants during a seance due to loss of ectoplasm. This average loss in a sitting was approximately ten ounces per person.
Another question that might arise in considering the demon-hypothesis is just why would a demon want to possess a person? Three potential reasons come to mind: (1) enjoyment of passions and activities though the use of the host's body; (2) an energy "rake-off"; or (3) simply a diabolical nature. If discarnate humans are the source of possessions then they may wish to experience earthly pleasures or vices that can no longer be experienced in whatever nether-world they are trapped. This could be a sort of enjoyment by proxy using someone else's body.
Occultists have always claimed that spirits are attracted by human and animal life-energy. This is the rationale behind sacrifices at magical ceremonies or pagan religious rites. This life-energy would seem to serve as a food for these spirits. When an animal is killed in a sacrifice his life-energy would be liberated. The Jewish scholar Maimonides wrote that when his countrymen wished to communicate with their "departed ones" they would do so by digging a hole and filling it with fresh blood. After they did this the spirits would come to answer all their questions. It could be inferred that humans give off this vital energy at all times, perhaps in the form of the spiritualist's ectoplasm. A possessing entity would be able to feed off this vital energy of the host. The loss of weight in a spiritualistic seance would tend to support this theory.
If demons are regarded as the source of possession then there is no doubt that they are diabolical in nature. In most cases they seem to represent everything conceivable that is anti-human and anti-divine. A diabolical nature is especially demonstrated in this horrifying account related in an article by James O'Donald:
"Mrs. Mary Rogers was found in her wooden cabin deep in the forests of Alaska. Police said the woman's hands were clenched to her head, her face contorted grotesquely and the cabin itself was in shambles.
"In a matter of a few months, several friends said that the woman changed from a happy mother filled with life, hopes, and dreams to a haunted and unkempt shell of a human being. The friends, who live not far from her cabin which located about 200 miles from Anchorage, said she had been possessed with powers she herself did not understand. She had also told her friends that she had met the devil and that it was he that gave her those powers.
"One friend, Brenda Breshahan, who visited the woman on one occasion shortly before her death, said she often spoke of death and afterlife. 'Whenever she mentioned the word "death," the television set went on and off of its own accord, even though the cabin lights didn't flicker.'
"Everything in the house was torn to shreds, as though a cyclone had hit it, said Magistrate Sheldo Sprecker who visited the scene after the body was discovered by the police. 'Objects were smashed and thrown about,' he said. 'No human hands could have done this.' Sprecker further stated that the coroner found no signs of brain disease or any evidence that the woman took her own life."
The possible existence of other-dimensional entities is not too far fetched an idea for science and psychology to consider. If the demon hypothesis is true then psychology will bury itself under ungainly, confusing and unworkable concept-structures in trying to deny it. If psychology can advance so as to develop a unified and verifiable theory explaining possession and its paranormal manifestations then the belief and practices of our ancestors will be rightfully relegated to history. A present psychology has not done this, and its multitude of theories and differing practices might provide us with little more assurance than the "superstitions" of the shaman and priest.
The Primitive Mind of Man
by George Ellis
"PRIMITIVE" YOU SAY? THE WRITER must be mad, a reader might think. But - yes - primitive for we no less than those we term "primitive" look upon thinking as true expressions of reality. They too manipulated reality as best they could according to their knowledge, thinking that their activity did then express reality. Has thinking changed so much? Do we not still hold "reality" in thought - ideas and beliefs? Did not the cave-dweller find philosophy in his own power or that of some supervening authority - God? Is not the purpose of life seen in some idea or other regardless of the mind-of-thought doing the thinking?
We are primitive because we believe that our thoughts are our touch with reality. We find reality in ideas - until disillusionment reveals as false what passed for true. Without disillusionment we believe in those cultural notions that express our society as being representative reality. We are all psychologically conditioned to beliefs - fixed ideas. We defend our meanings, supporting them with all the "evidence" of our knowledge. We live for and sometimes die for these notions even as did the very first of men.
We are primitives because we have yet to understand the limitations of our thinking as expressing reality. We live on the edge of mind in a superficial field of thought calling these interpretations drawn from knowledge - reality. However, we do not honestly believe that which we call reality is for we spend much of our time seeking confirmation that reality is what we say it is. This is primitive, for it supposes that reality is nothing more than what the mind-of-thought makes of it, that it has no majesty beyond our personalized meanings. But it must have some missing meaning or we wouldn't frequently change our ideas or become disillusioned with what we believed reality. Certainly the mind of man has never put together an ideal that passed the test as reality. And correctly so, for reality is still the mind's notion of that which is perfect and eternal unto itself while at the same time, and in time, pretending to itself that it holds a true representation of reality.
To live life in knowledge as we do, believing that our conclusions that terminate in beliefs are then reality, is to live in an illusory world of mind that defines reality to itself. The mind-of-thought has as its center self-knowledge that gives meaning to experiencing according to its own conclusions. It is in such fixed meanings as conclusions provide that we lose our touch with reality, for the mind-of-thought sees only what it has concluded, rejecting whatever challenge reality presents. As we are psychologically conditioned to repetitiously reinforce conclusions, it is only when conclusions break down in the absence of support that our error of belief is seen for what it was.
Ideas must produce a desired result or we soon find substitute ideas more to our liking. For ideas serve the believer who desires what he has not, in the idea. God is a powerful idea for those persons without power. When men achieve their own power base the idea of God loses its hold over them. Where there is power and wealth God is mocked, however lip-service is paid. Science and technology form another power base towards personal godhood. To be sure, the old ideas die a slow death in their loss of strength as we achieve personal might, but they do pass on into oblivion and if we wonder at all over them it is to ask how we could have ever held such notions.
Obviously early man went through very much the same thought processes however less complicated than our own. Such thought that seeks reality within its own knowledge must ever remain primitive, which is to say enclosed to conclusions.
Faith in knowledge is primitive for knowledge leads only to more knowledge that becomes its own end of meaning. "God" is an idea born of knowledge, characterized out of knowledge. The idea is both servant and master for such is the nature of knowledge that it provides and protects, seemingly securing us against that vast unknown. We are idolators of knowledge, with God as the crowning symbol of our heathen worship, for there is no trueness in faith in knowledge as a purposeful life. All philosophers are false prophets whose knowledge leads the blind to follow the blind, whether political, religious or sectarian. Each pretends to speak in reality's name, and each is a liar and the truth is not in them. Knowledge is knowledge and, therefore, a false reality that seduces the faithful whatever the creed. If you think that you have entered into the heart of humanity in some belief or other, you have not; if you believe that you can describe the God of Love, you see only your own mind's desire. If you seek power, (only the weak seek power), if you desire to be known as this or that, you pretend to reality giving yourself a false name; if you live in knowledge you must be unfaithful to that which is your trueness. You cannot serve two masters.
In the abstract, the primitive society of long ago differed little in its pursuit of life than today's version. True, the cave-dweller had to be preoccupied with physical survival and probably took great satisfaction with success in a world where creature devoured creature and the elements were the enemy of all. Even then life went to the strong of body, the quick of mind. And the possessive of mind who staked out territories, formed clans, created gods to supplement their own limitations.
Changing appearances is no change to a mind that understands. The ability to change this into that however utilitarian or physically beneficial is not its own absolute-reality. To think is never to create but to recreate what is into what we would then have it be. The modern cave-dweller cubicled in his highrise is not so unlike his first forebearers that drove animals from their lairs and set up housekeeping. If we have less need for defense against the ravages of nature we more than make up for this conquest in our subjugation and service to a demanding society that tortures our psyche to its own conformity. Times may change conditions in their appearances and to what seemingly is a radical move, but mankind remains the more or less obedient slave to its storehouse of knowledge. So it has ever been even up until now.
THEY SAY THAT KNOWLEDGE doubles or triples every ten years or so. For the most part this means scientific and technological knowledge that reach into the very bowels of the earth and beyond, to say nothing about examining our minute parts. But what do the professionals tell us about our mind-of-thought without which there would be no knowledge bank of tremendous information? Not much that is worth knowing. Comparatively psychology is a backwards science, if it is that. It describes and then attempts to interpret its descriptions according to norms themselves arbitrarily arrived at. The inventor of the wheel was a greater servant of mankind than all the behavioral people since Freud fathered the formal approach to psychology. In the end, what we need to understand most - the mind-of-thought - suffers from overload as the primitive processes have reached their peak of complexity reducing all of us to a channeled specialty. Yet we swill knowledge like so many hogs at a trough. We live in a verbal sea of news, information trivia, gossip and the like. Our minds center on this and that raising these subjects into importance, never even wondering why. It is enough to fix our minds on something for the pleasure or satisfaction we have learned it brings. One can only wonder whether the lesser creatures do not suffer less frustration and misery than mankind.
Surely the meaning of one's life should be more purposeful than dedication and service to some idea or other. Yet societies and cultures never rise above their own idealized notions, remaining more or less fixed in these beliefs as reality-based. The crime of it all is that each of us is from birth on psychologically conditioned to see ourselves within some subculture setting that for the most part provides us with expression - identity. We speak for and from our societal conditioning believing our teachers even as they in their childhood believed their teachers. Apparently this collective imitation of the cultural form by the members has always been the case.
And this poses the question ...can mankind rise above its primitive thought processes that so effectively are passed on from generation to generation? History says - "No." Academic psychology says, "No." What hope is there then for the Children of this World, stumbling around in the darkness of primitive thinking?
Not much. Faith in knowledge and the processes of thinking perpetuates the very system of thinking. The illusion of knowledge is that it is of or leads to a fuller reality. This, mankind has always believed. Knowledge never sees beyond knowledge believing in its own expansion, accumulation, assimilation. Knowledge always evaluates according to its own prior findings, adding to or subtracting from as the case may be. Knowledge always operates from a fixed position accepting this in such and such a context, rejecting that as meaningless. And so we live out our lives experiencing little of reality as reality but rather interpreting experience to that which is now memory's recall of what had been experienced. The mind has all kinds of meanings that claim some foothold on reality but little of reality itself.
The primitive mind-of-thought by its very nature cannot entertain reality for knowledge recreates reality to itself. Reality is and we are either one with it or in separation from it as we are when we interpret reality to our knowledge. Not to understand the limitation of our interpretation fosters upon the mind-of-thought a false reality that passes for the true because it functions as we believe reality should. We see certain "evidence" that supports findings in conclusion, accepting the results as "reality." However, appearances are deceiving no matter how wide the acceptance, how sure the "proof." The mind's eye that thinks that it reflects some clear showing of reality mirrors only its own limited conclusion based in knowledge that is always its own limited conclusion.
If this activity of the mind-of-thought concludes in reality, what then do we term that vast, unknown, seemingly infinite and eternal field of material knowledge it draws upon? Is reality then nothing more than we agree upon? Is the infinite and eternal motion of which we claim the center nothing more than raw stuff waiting for mankind's utilization? Is the mind-of-thought, then, God naming the creatures and things of this world and others?
Such a reality is the conclusion of a primitive mind that lives solely by the false light of illusory findings, a mind conditioned to primary beliefs that then seeks fulfillment in the manipulation of reality to its own end.
The primitive mind is characterized by insecurity and seeks to insure its safety in defensive conclusions. Which is why the primitive mind reflects an illusory world rather than reality. Because it is motivated out of fear of the unknown the primitive mind must perpetuate the known - knowledge. Knowledge then is "reality" and we all spend the better part of our waking lives reinforcing our knowledge that creates an illusion of reality. Only serious disillusionments dispel our false beliefs of reality; and then only long enough until we provide ourselves with some substitute belief... such is our faith in knowledge as a reflection of reality. Mankind has never learned that it has always served a false god - knowledge.
No one lives that does not mourn within himself some great loss, as the mind-of-thought out of touch with reality must silently cry, "Surely there is more to life than this!" Yes, it is the press of reality upon us forces us to question our most sacred beliefs, become dissatisfied with limited pleasures and satisfactions that once pleased some idea or other. Life lived in our ideas is never enough as each of us who has suffered disillusionment well knows. It is only in learning the lesson that life is its own true motion and not the activity of ideas that we more fully express reality. But a few persons ever graduate from their psychological-me: knowledge personified. We all have faith in what we know as a first line of defense. We all believe that knowledge is our savior, that we can be redeemed if only we can achieve a desirable pattern of knowledge. It should be plain enough to see: Faith in knowledge is our downfall as it is misguiding as an approach to reality. Knowledge must ever stand between us and reality for it pretends to be what is. To understand the limitations of knowledge is to understand your thought processes that lead to conclusions. This is the beginning of awareness that reality is other than what we think; this is the beginning of dissolvement of ideas and beliefs that see themselves in separation to reality; this is the beginning of the end to the primitive mind of man.
The Mystery of Firewalking
by Alan Fitzpatrick
MANY OF US ARE fascinated by that which we cannot explain. Though the awe for the unknown we experience as children may have been tempered with maturity, when an event occurs such as a premonition, an ESP experience, or a vivid dream that defies our sense of reasonableness, we are intrigued by what appears to be the incredible, or supernatural, if we don't deny the experience altogether. Such is the case with firewalking, one of the most dramatic and mysterious of paranormal phenomena that has been witnessed by man and recorded throughout history.
Firewalking is the ability of some individuals to be able to walk barefoot over the hot coals of a fire. What makes this phenomenon so unusual and separates it from the pathological cases of self-immolation is that successful firewalkers perform such feats without being burned. The lack of evidence of any burns defies logic and common sense and has made firewalking the object of a great deal of speculation and study in recent years. In the past, firewalking attracted little scientific interest because it was believed by westerners to be nothing more than clever trickery. Most who observed it in far eastern countries were either local religious adepts and their followers, or those spectators with overly morbid inclinations who felt that they were about to witness pagan sacrifice.
The unquestionable belief by the skeptical that the firewalker was about to be severely burned could hardly be called unreasonable in view of the basic law of nature which states that fire burns flesh when the two come in contact. Yet documented accounts exist that show some firewalkers can, in fact, walk hot coals without any burns. To add to the credibility of these accounts are cases of several uninitiated firewalkers who attempted to duplicate the previous successes and were subsequently severely burned. Of those from the west who have been witness to the incredible phenomenon of firewalking around the world, none have been able to find a suitable explanation for that which they have seen.
Many have proposed theories along physical, psychological, religious and metaphysical lines to attempt to unravel the mystery and answer the disturbing questions that they all ask. Why are some firewalkers not burned? Are the mechanics of successful firewalking simply trickery or are there hidden factors known only to the practitioner? These questions and many more that are raised by firewalking are haunting for us all, for at the heart of such inquiry is the realization that the unexplainable challenges our belief in an orderly view of the world, by being the exceptional case that science has been unable to dissect into factors of cause and effect. As such, understanding firewalking may tell us a great deal about the true nature of reality itself, rather than just satisfying our curiosity about the mysterious.
WHERE AND HOW the practice of firewalking originated is historically obscure though many firewalkers believe that the practice probably began in Central Asia, one of the ancient cradles of civilization. Firewalking is known to have been wide-spread in all ages, usually practiced in conjunction with religious ceremonies. Firewalking survives today in India, Greece, Spain, Japan, China, Bulgaria, Ceylon, Thailand, Fiji, and Tibet. It is mentioned as a practice in many early historical records. Pliny the Elder, a Roman (A.D. 23-79), traced firewalking to an ancient Roman family, the Hirpi, and tells us that "at the yearly sacrifice to Apollo performed on Mount Soracle (they) walk over a charred pile of logs without being scorched." Other early writers such as Virgil and Strabo made reference to firewalking as part of a religious rite.
The earliest documented account of firewalking is the biblical reference found in Daniel 3:23-27 that many of us are familiar with. Three religious zealots, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego were accused by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, of refusing to worship him, the gods, and golden images that he had decreed all his constituents must worship or face the penalty of death. When questioned by the king for the grounds of their heresy, they replied that they worshiped their own god, who would protect them from the king's destruction. In anger, the king ordered his furnace heated to seven times its normal temperature and commanded his men to bind the three heretics and cast them into it. Because the fire was exceedingly hot, several of the men who cast the three into the fire perished themselves. To the astonishment of the king, Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego rose to their feet and began walking about soon after they were thrown into the furnace. "Lo I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt." When they were called to come out of the furnace by the king, the three were examined for burns (the fourth was said to look like an angel though it disappeared and could not be verified). "And the princes, governors, and captains and the king's counselors being gathered together saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of the head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed them." Asked how they were able to do so they answered that it was due to their faith in their god. Nebuchadnezzar then released the three and was converted to their god, who apparently was more powerful than his own.
A more recent account of firewalking is reported by Dr. Krechmal in "Firewalkers of Greece" (Travel, October 1957). Dr. Krechmal had been in Greece several months as a Fulbright professor when he heard stories of a village in northern Greece where the people, nominally members of the Greek Orthodox church, still practiced firewalking as a ritual celebration passed down from their Macedonian ancestors of two or three thousand years before, who were said to worship the sun and fire.
Out of curiosity, Dr. Krechmal traveled to the village Langedah to observe the ceremony which was held for three days in the spring. In the town square he found a large area that had been enclosed with wire. Men in the center of this arena fired a large stack of logs in a pit. When the fire had burned down to coals a procession of musicians entered the enclosure. Behind them followed a group of boys carrying candles and then several barefooted villagers holding icons. The villagers began dancing, and soon several of them ventured into the burning pit and shuffled across. Krechmal says "the first villager to walk through the burning embers, and they were burning, was a gaunt man of about thirty-five, who seemed to be the leader of the active firewalking participants. His eyes appeared glazed, and he seemed to be in the throes of a form of the religious hysteria or ecstasy reported from time to time in some journals."
Krechmal photographed several of the firewalkers while in their trance-like state. Unsure of the reality of what he was seeing, Krechmal checked the fire. "I tested the embers and found them to be unbearably hot to my hand, although the performers seemed completely unaffected by them." He was awed by the spectacle, and concluded it to be a strange and ancient religious ritual, where adherents were not burned from firewalking.
A more detailed account and discussion of firewalking was reported by Dr. Leonard Feinberg in his article "Firewalking in Ceylon" (Atlantic Monthly, May 1959). Feinberg, as a professor at the University of Ceylon in 1956-57 had an opportunity to study directly the religious ceremonies of the island, including the firewalking ritual. Feinberg had previously witnessed firewalks at two private occasions, but not on the scale of the mass firewalk that he attended in honor of the Hindu god Kataragama, held at a local temple in a jungle settlement in southeast Ceylon. Kataragama, to many Ceylonese, is officially the god of war and revenge and, according to Feinberg, was probably more fervently worshiped and feared than any other god in Ceylon by Buddhist and Hindu alike. Devotees petitioned Kataragama for assistance in their personal lives in exchange for vows to walk the fire. As much as three months prior to the ceremony, amateur firewalkers began their preparations, not by practicing firewalking, but by vows of sexual abstinence, vegetarian diet, and daily prayer, to achieve the proper state of mind for their walk which would be a test of faith.
[Illustrations: A Greek firewalker in a trance-like state, photographed by Dr. Krechmal in the Macedonian village of Langedah.]
[While kerosene-drenched logs burn to coals, village musicians play for firewalkers and onlookers.]
On the night of the firewalk, Feinberg described the crowd of spectators gathered as "feverishly tense" by midnight. The fire in the twenty by six-foot pit has been burning down from logs for four hours. The crowd, according to Feinberg, "surged away from the pit slowly and steadily... slowly because every inch of the temple grounds had been packed for hours, and steadily because the heat from the pit was becoming unbearable." At about two a.m. the crowd parted to make room for two women to pass through. One carried in her bare hands a clay pot full of burning coconut husks. The other carried a pot of burning husks on her head, native-style. Neither showed any signs of burns or scorching on their hands or hair, when Feinberg examined them. He noted that neither woman seemed to be feeling any pain, but appeared to be abnormally excited and staggered through the crowd, as if in a trance. Next, a long procession of firewalkers and religious adepts led by a priest arrived next to the pit. Feinberg says that the fire, by this time, had "stopped spurting flames and the pit consisted of a red hot mass of burning wood, which attendants were leveling with long branches. The heat of the fire was still intense; within ten feet of the pit it was difficult to breathe." Feinberg witnessed eighty persons walk the fire including women. Some skipped lightly through, some danced, others shuffled or strolled. "One man stumbled suddenly and the crowd gasped; he fell forward, hung for a ghastly moment on the coals, then straightened up and stumbled on." After the firewalk, the performers went to a spot near the temple where ashes from the fire were smeared on their foreheads by the priests. Several of the walkers displayed no signs of burns whatsoever. Yet of the large group that Feinberg observed, twelve people were burned badly enough to go to a hospital, and one of them died. The successful walkers claimed their success to be due to complete, absolute faith in Kataragama, and they felt that the failure of the others was due to either inadequate religious preparation or lack of faith. One of the failures was known to be a Protestant minister who reasoned that the faith of a Christian was at least as strong as that of a Hindu. When he volunteered to walk the fire to prove his point he was severely burned and doctors barely managed to save his life. Feinberg discussed various theories concerning firewalking but could come to no conclusions himself for the successes.
An even more spectacular account of firewalking and religious preparations for it appeared in the National Geographic magazine issue of April, 1966 in "Ceylon," written by Senior Assistant Editor Gilbert Grosvenor and his wife. They had been traveling Ceylon, and by chance heard of a firewalking ceremony to be held in a nearby village. The ceremonies were held in the private courtyard of a local villager named Mohotty who had vowed to the god Kataragama to walk the fire yearly in exchange for fulfillment of his prayers that murder charges against his father be dropped. The ceremonies began with dancers rubbing themselves with sacred ash and then, as the Grosvenors observed, "as they stared with glazed half closed eyes, they forced steel skewers through each others cheeks." When the skewers were later removed, no sign of blood or a wound could be found. The devout Mohotty then submitted himself to various spikes, lashings, and meat hooks applied to various parts of his body that when removed left no marks or blood.
The fire pit was begun in the early evening. By midnight, it was a mass of red hot embers, which Ed Lark, a member of the Geographic team, measured with an optical pyrometer and found to be 1328'F. Chanting native dancers then arrived at the fire and circled the embers, preparing for a firewalk. The first firewalker was a young man who danced across the coals, digging his feet into the embers. Another walker stopped to scoop up handfuls of coals and throw them over his shoulder. The Grosvenors watched twenty people in all participate, including men, women and children. Mohotty crossed the fire pit four times, twice with his own young son on his shoulders. Afterwards, Mohotty willingly allowed his feet to be examined and photographed by the Grosvenors, and no signs of any burns or blisters were to be found. When Mohotty was asked for his "secret" he answered, "Faith, total faith in my gods." Grosvenor, a pragmatic individual, wrote that he couldn't sleep after the "incredible sights" that he had seen. "What we saw was real, as real as the faith upon which these believers base their immunity from pain of steel or flame." He was unable to explain the performances by hypnosis, drugs, tricks or gimmicks.
THESE ACCOUNTS OF firewalking give perhaps the best impression of the nature of the actual phenomenon, of when it occurs and why. If accepted at face value, they are bewildering, for we find that some firewalkers are not burned, and yet they base their success simply on faith. Many skeptics of firewalking deny that a religious explanation of firewalking is needed. They claim that the phenomenon can be explained as a result of trickery on the part of the firewalker combined with his intimate knowledge of some simple conductive properties of heat.
Many investigators believe that the soles of the feet of most firewalkers are extremely tough and thick due to the fact that most of them live in Southeast Asia where they are accustomed to walking barefoot daily, often on hot surfaces due to the equatorial sun. Feinberg verifies this fact and says that Orientals have been known to "put out cigarette butts with their toes and when marching in parades, step on burning husks which have fallen out of torchbearers' fires." Thus, the thick skin on their feet, like leather, prevents them from being burned in firewalking.
In conjunction with the thick skin on their feet, many believe that firewalkers utilize perspiration from their feet, moisture applied, or an ability to induce their feet to perspire heavily, prior to the firewalk. This layer of perspiration insulates the soles of their feet further, and as the researchers of "Firewalking Figured Out" (Human Behavior, September 1978) believe, "acts as a buffer between the hot coals and the soles of the feet."
Still others, while admitting these theories to be true, believe that the real factor is that firewalkers treat their feet with special ointments that not only toughen the skin but insulate it with fire retardant non-heat conducting properties, much like asbestos. Victor Perera, in his article "The Firewalkers of Udappawa" (Harpers, May 1971) interviewed reputable sources prior to a firewalk. One claimed that the secret was that "they rub eucalyptus oil on their feet in order to insulate them." Many skeptics agree that the issue of these religious rites are not always left up to the gods. Albertus Magnus, philosopher and magician, formulated a recipe for the purpose of protection from fire. Powdered lime was made into paste with the white of an egg and then mixed with radish juice, juice of the marsh mallow, and the seeds of the fleabane. A first coat of this mixture would be applied and allowed to dry. When a second coat was applied, the area was to be moistened with diluted sulphuric acid to make it impervious to heat and burn.
A mechanical explanation is offered from another source by Feinberg. He quotes Joseph Dunninger, a well-acquainted observer of firewalks in Japan. Dunninger asserts that the trick used by firewalking Shinto priests in Japan consists of making the fuel in the trench shallow in the center and deep on the sides, and starting the fire in the center. By the time the walking begins, the fire has burned out in the center while still blazing at the edges. The priests simply step out on the cool ashes on the center. Feinberg does not tell us how Dunninger obtained his information and if he tried the fire out for himself.
Another variation of this theory is that the firewalkers make the fire shallow in the center and then wait until a layer of ash forms on the surface. This, they say, explains why most firewalkers delay until the "right" moment. Perera quotes a source at the firewalking that he observed who believed that "the layer of ash on the surface shields them from any coals." Thus, the success of the walker would depend on his timing and a clever knowledge of the fire.
Perhaps the most popular mechanistic theory of all is the "poor heat conductor theory" supported by many researchers and, oddly enough, by Mayen Coe, an American firewalker, who is said to have traversed fiery pits thirty feet long and eight inches deep, and sometimes taken sixty strides over the pits burning at 1,200' F. Coe rejects the "perspiration" theory and says that "iron and molten metals are producing only radiant heat" which would explain why fire eaters at carnivals are able to lick red hot metal pokers. In those cases, a layer of perspiration or moisture would insulate the flesh from the heat. "But red hot coals are generating heat by oxidation," says Coe. "Due to the gases formed, it is unlikely that a film of perspiration can form a vapor cushion as a protection in firewalking." He believes that moist flesh would stick to coals rather than being insulated from them. Coe does believe, however, that the coals of the fire reach a point where only pure carbon is left, which is burning fiercely hot. At that point, if air is excluded, the charcoal is immediately extinguished. Coe says, "walking on coals in this condition cuts off oxygen at the point of contact and momentarily extinguishes the radiant glow. It is important that the coals be raked and tamped down slightly so that only the soles of the feet make contact." This, Coe feels, is the secret to firewalking.
IN ATTEMPTING TO substantiate and test many of the physical and mechanistic theories of firewalking, in 1935 and 1936 the London Council for Psychical Investigation arranged two series of fire walks at Surrey, England to test hypotheses under scientific conditions. The Council invited a number of physicians, chemists, physicists, and Oxford professors to examine every stage of the proceedings, beginning with the fire pit arrangement. At the first Surrey test a Hindu named Kuda Bux walked uninjured through a fire pit measured at 430' C. or about 800' F. on the surface, and 1,400' F. in the interior. In the 1936 test, Ahmed Hussain walked over a fire pit that was slightly hotter than the previous. Both Bux and Hussain insisted that their secret was "faith" and Hussain claimed that he could convey immunity to anyone who would walk the fire with him. A professor in attendance shed his shoes and by holding Hussain's hand, was able to walk the fire without injury, though several other volunteers, who walked the fire behind Hussain out of contact with him, were burned.
The results of the Surrey tests were conflicting. The scientists had filled the fire pit evenly and maintained a controlled temperature, thus disputing the belief that the secret was due only to a clever preparation of shallow coals in the center path of the firewalker. Also, the ash layer theory as the primary factor was proved false. Furthermore, the physicians and chemists who examined Bux and Hussain prior to the walk had washed their feet and maintained close supervision to affirm that no chemicals were applied to the feet prior to the walk, thus being responsible for the phenomenon. And just prior to the walk, their feet were checked and dried so that no moisture on the surface could account for any vapor protection.
[Illustration: Kuda Bux walking through a firepit on September 17, 1935 during the test organized by the London Council for Psychical Investigation.]
To the many skeptics who held that the secret was due to the thick, tough skin on the feet of the firewalkers, the physicians who examined Bux and Hussain described, in their official report, that their feet were very soft and not calloused at all.
The Council at Surrey could not come to any unanimous clear conclusions. Some scientists agreed that firewalking could be explained in terms of certain physical facts. They theorized that firewalking could be a gymnastic feat operating on a principle that a limited number of steps on a poor conductor of heat, being wood coals, might not result in the burning of flesh, if the time on contact was very short. The time of such contact could not be more than half a second per step. They conceded, though, that "successive contacts cause an accumulation of heat sufficient to cause injury and with fires whose temperature is 500' C. or more, only two foot contacts can be made with each foot without erthema or blistering," as stated in the official report. Their findings were jeopardized since both firewalkers at Surrey had taken more than two steps per foot without the slightest sign of blistering or burn. Further doubt on the Council's theory of a limited number of steps was cast by independent observers of different firewalks. Dr. Krechmal, in northern Greece, noted that several of the firewalkers he observed "shuffled through the coals" thus giving the impression that they took many prolonged steps rather than a few skips over the fire, without burns resulting from the extended contact with the heat. The Grosvenors observed similar shuffling of some of the firewalkers, including Mohotty who made four crosses of the long 1378' F. pit, twice with added weight on his shoulders, thus taking many steps, with an accumulation of heat conducted, and yet without even the slightest burn or blister. Coe's belief that the fire was hottest on the exterior and would be extinguished when cut off from oxygen from the contact of a step was challenged by the Surrey researchers who found the fire to be hottest below the surface. The Grosvenors had observed one of the firewalkers dig his feet into the fire and stir the flame, thus creating more heat rather than extinguishing it, without suffering burns. Perera, in his account, noted that the villagers filed across the pit, often "loitering" on the coals until they are pushed ahead from behind. With the temperatures of most fire pits, hot as they are, it would seem unlikely that sufficient heat would not be conducted after a period of time even if the surface had been momentarily cooled by the step contact to cause burns or blistering on those who take their time. In the case of Mohotty not even the slightest trace could be found.
In addition to the complete lack of burns on the feet of some firewalkers, other interesting evidence of fire immunity at the ceremonies displaces any heat conductivity theory altogether. Feinberg observed, much to his disbelief, two women who carried red-hot pots of burning embers, one in her hands, and the other on her head in Ceylonese fashion. The prolonged contact with flesh on the hands of the one woman should have left blisters and burns. The other woman, who had a great deal of heat conducted to the flesh and hair on her head from the pot, showed no sign of scorching on either. Feinberg could not explain it. The Grosvenors observed a similar type of fire immunity when one of the firewalkers, while crossing the pit, scooped up coals with his hands to throw them over his shoulder, without burns. And in addition, they witnessed Mohotty defy blood, pain and wound marks when he pulled a cart attached to hooks piercing the skin of his back, while walking in spiked sandals and metal skewers piercing his cheeks - all with no blood flowing, nor any sign of marks from wounds when spikes and hooks were withdrawn.
PAUL BREWSTER, A RETIRED professor who has studied firewalking and looked for an explanation of fire immunity, found that Thracian firewalkers sometimes kneel down in prayer in the center of the hot coals for several minutes without burns during their celebration of the miracle of St. Constantine, who was believed to have walked fire to save the sacred icons from a burning church in A.D. 1250. He noted that the physical theories do not begin to explain the strange cases of fire immunity such as how fresh flowers that some firewalkers carry with them over the fire also emerge unscorched.
Such strange incidences of fire immunity are not always connected to firewalking alone. History records many unusual but obscure events that are well known to Christians and occultists alike. St. Francis of Paula in 1508 is said to have held red hot cinders in his hands and said to amazed spectators that "all creatures obey those who serve God with a perfect heart." L. Claris, a Camisard leader during the rise of the Huguenots against Louis XIV of France, while in a state of undetermined possession and in front of six hundred men, is said to have put himself on top of a burning pyre. The flames rose above his head but he continued to speak, and didn't stop until the fire burned down. He was examined by Col. Cavalier and found to be unhurt without any marks of burns.
In the works Convulsionnaires of St. Medard - Histoire des Miracles by P.F. Mathieu, he records a Marie Sonet, called the Salamander, who on several occasions stretched herself out on chairs over a blazing fire and remained there for half an hour, with neither herself nor her clothing being burned. On one occasion she thrust her booted feet into a fire until the soles of both boots and stockings were reduced to ashes, though her feet unhurt, thus demonstrating some sort of control over the fire immunity. Lord Adare, in his Experiences With Spiritualism observed the medium and psychic D.D. Home put himself into a trance and then hold his face into the flames of a bright coal fire, stirring the embers with his hands and moving his face about the coals as though he were bathing in water, without any signs of burns.
A spectacular case of fire immunity was reported in the New York Herald in its September 7, 1871 edition which documented that a fifty-eight year old Negro blacksmith named Nathan Coker, in the presence of a committee of people, placed a white hot iron shovel upon the soles of his feet and kept it there until the shovel became black. With it heated red-hot again, he laid it on his face and licked it with his tongue until it cooled, without any injury to his flesh. This unusual incidence of fire immunity, and the others like it, if taken at face value and considered real, could not be explained by any physical or mechanistic theories alone. Such baffling cases forced Paul Brewster to conclude that there are "no easy answers" to firewalking, if conventional avenues of investigation are to be pursued.
MANY OBSERVERS OF firewalking have noticed peculiar facial expressions on the participants which they have arbitrarily called trance-like gazes or looks. Mohotty remained "expressionless" when pierced by hooks and later when walking the fire. Feinberg noticed the women carrying fire pots to act strangely and stagger about "as if abnormally excited." Perera noted that "the expression of the firewalkers range from trance-like ecstasy of their leader to stoical indifference." Krechmal reported that of the first man to step on the firepit, "his eyes appeared glazed." Such observations have suggested to psychologists that firewalkers induce hypnotic trance states or have them induced by priests to give them indifference from pain and remove the fire entirely from their conscious minds. This would occur by the priest or leader inducing hypnosis through suggestive or mechanical techniques. Psychologists consider this likely since they point to the fact that many observers such as Perera notice that some firewalkers' eyes roll up in their heads just prior to the walk, and this would indicate that such a person might have been hypnotized by a fixation of the eyes upon an object, a technique which is common in hypnosis. They also notice that most firewalkers have a waiting period prior to their performance when they are separate from the spectators and devote themselves to prayer, song, or dance, in the company of the priest. This, psychologists feel, is important to the firewalk since it is the time of last minute instructions when the priest induces or strengthens hypnosis. Depending upon the suggestibility of the subject and the type of suggestion used, the firewalker may or may not know that he is in trance, or even where he is, or what he is about to do. He may be operating under the belief that he is about to walk over a bed of flower blossoms, as suggested by Perera, when he interviewed a firewalker after his performance who commented that the fire felt "like warm red flowers." After the performance, when the priest puts a mark of holy ash upon the firewalker's forehead, he might be breaking hypnosis and returning the fellow to his normal consciousness. Psychologists maintain that this would explain why most firewalkers are unable to explain in any detail how they walked the fire, but simply respond with "total faith," a logical answer from someone whose conscious memory had been "blocked" during the hypnotic state; the subject is now left with the feeling that he was under the influence of something, which he has been told is the power of a god.
[Illustration: Komar (Vernon E. Craig) who performed the hottest firewalk ever recorded in 1976. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the firepit temperature was 1494' F.]
To Vernon E. Craig, known as Komar the firewalker, his own ability is a mystery. Though he was able to endure the hottest recorded firewalk of 1,494' F. without any burns at the International Festival of Yoga and Esoteric Sciences, held at Maidenhead, England in 1976 and reported in the Guinness Book of World Records, he admits privately that he doesn't know how he is able to do it, but acquired the strange ability by accident. According to psychologists, Komar would be using a hypnotic state, that could have been learned from someone else, could be self-induced, or might actually be an accidental ability for him to slip into hypnotic trance at certain times.
Hypnosis would also explain why some firewalkers are failures. They obviously would not be under complete hypnotic trance, and by coming out of hypnosis, or by never having been deeply under it, would be unable to walk without pain. The Protestant minister would have confused his religious faith with that of the firewalker, who was only calling an actual hypnotic state his "total faith."
The hypnosis theory of firewalking seems plausible to explain how the firewalker would be able to walk fire without experiencing pain, but could hypnosis prevent physical burns too? Controlled studies with self-relaxation techniques and hypnosis show that, through suggestion and post-hypnotic suggestions, a person is able to heighten the perceiving quality of the senses, gain or lose control of voluntary muscles in the body, influence involuntary muscular, vascular, and nervous systems such as slowing down the heartbeat or calming the brain waves, and become impervious to pain, so that operations, childbirth, and dental work can be done on a patient without anesthesia. Simeon Edmunds, in his book Hypnotism and Psychic Phenomena maintains that the ability of hypnosis to affect the body may be greater than we think:
"It is possible not only to inhibit pain by hypnosis but, by means of suggestion, to cause it. Thus, if a hypnotized subject were touched on the arm with a lighted cigarette, if told that it was not alight he would feel no pain, but if told that an unlighted one was alight and would burn him he would react exactly as if he were being burnt by it. Many authorities claim that in this way it is possible for an imaginary burn to produce a severe blistering, whilst a real one leaves practically no mark."
Edmunds doesn't support his statement that "a real one leaves practically no mark" with any research evidence that would prove that the hypnotic state is the complete secret to the lack of burns in firewalking. Practically no mark is not the same as the evidence of no marks whatsoever as photographed on the feet of Mohotty the firewalker, by the Grosvenors. Many hypnotists agree that while hypnosis can produce wonderful physiological effects in the body of the subject, it still operates within a set of physical laws, so that while hypnosis can slow minor bleeding through suggestion, it cannot regrow new limbs when the originals are severed in accidents, nor can it prevent death by suggestions to prolong life processes. Though hypnosis could be used to convince a subject that a body that he was plunging a knife into was only a "sack of potatoes" and thus to commit murder, the person stabbed would not be able to prevent his injury by using hypnosis on himself to believe that the knife was only made of rubber, or by hypnotizing the man with the knife to believe that the knife was rubber. Hypnosis cannot change steel to rubber nor prevent steel from piercing flesh when it is thrust, and these seem to be the extent of the laws upon which hypnosis operates. If a type of mental trance or hypnotic state were being used by firewalkers, it would have to be a type of "super" hypnosis to prevent burns.
AT THE SURREY TESTS, the two firewalkers did not have the advantage of religious ceremonies or priests to prepare for their firewalks, thus precluding hypnosis induced from external sources would be necessary for success. Of course many believe that self-suggestion or autosuggestion is possible and that the firewalker may have his own intimate prearranged set of mental associations or fixation techniques to be able to put himself into trance prior to his firewalk. States of hypnosis induced by autosuggestion could explain how fakirs of the east are able to lie on beds of nails maintain a single posture for days, or slow their bodily functions down to appear "corpse-like." Some occultists believe that through a profound state of concentration attained by autosuggestion, a person is able to separate his consciousness from his body and leave it like a vacant shell, until returning his conscious or "astral" form. This might be what firewalkers do. Such a theory may be possible although "leaving the body" a vacant shell would not necessarily protect it while one was gone. Even a dead body will burn.
Some hypnotists believe that it is not the firewalker at all that is hypnotized but the crowd or spectators, into believing, through mass hypnosis, that the firewalkers are doing so. True mass hypnotism would be a simultaneous induction of hypnosis in a group of people by the priests. Edmunds contends that such an occurrence is possible when he says that "it is true that the emotional atmosphere of the political meeting or of the revivalist gathering is conducive to a state of heightened suggestibility, in which the politician or preacher is able to "put across" ideas which, under normal circumstances, his audience would be far less likely to accept." Edmunds believes that the hypnotist at stage demonstrations deliberately strives to build a "belief state" atmosphere in his audience about the fact that he is a hypnotist and that "hypnotism" is about to occur, so as to make his performance more impressive. Edmunds says that mass hypnotism is often put forward as the explanation of the famous Indian rope trick, the suggestion being that the "fakir" hypnotizes the entire audience and then suggests the vision to them of a boy climbing up a rope and disappearing. Thus the audience only believes that they have seen an astonishing phenomenon as in firewalking.
But the odds against any casual audience being composed entirely of people sufficiently suggestible to enable a mass hypnotism and suggestion to be induced is almost impossible. The natives and villagers who had witnessed the event before could possibly have been previously hypnotized. In none of the accounts of firewalking presented by westerners do we hear evidence of a ritual involving them that we could presuppose was an induction of mass hypnosis. Most of the westerners were unfamiliar with the language or the religions of the natives to be able to comprehend any "suggestions" of firewalking immunity made by the audience or priests. All would have to speak English or all speak the native language for such a subtle conviction to be conveyed. Of course, one could say that the real believers were hypnotized, along with the crowd, and that skeptics were not. But could hypnosis fool a mechanical instrument that a fire was 1,328' F. when it was not, or deceive a camera that a man's feet were not burned when in fact they were? If the audience were only hypnotized to believe that firewalkers were walking over a fire when they actually were not, then why would, as Feinberg tells us, several of the walkers be severely burned, one to the point of death? With such evidence it is improbable that mass hypnosis is used in firewalking, although there is no doubt that a degree of hypnotic belief is evident in some of the audience and participants as well.
A strictly religious appraisal of firewalking as a "total belief in god," as the walkers tell us themselves, does not give us a great deal of insight into what they mean. When firewalkers say that their success is due to total faith in god, they do not mean a god in a universal sense. For some believe in the god Kataragama, some the god Skanda, and others, as Freeman found in southern India, believe in the god Kali. Yet not any arbitrary god to have faith in will do, as Feinberg noted in the failure of the Protestant minister's faith in his god as equal to the native's god in protecting him from injury. Some firewalkers have faith not in gods but in saints, such as the firewalkers of Greece and Thrace as reported by Krechmal and Brewster, and in spirits of the wind, such as the firewalkers of Tahiti as reported by G. Feigen in his article Bucky Fuller and the Firewalk. The hint is that the act of "total faith or total belief" is more significant than the particular god that such belief is devoted to.
In his account, "Trial by Fire," (Natural History, January 1974) James Freeman witnessed a magician who was feared by the villagers in the southern Indian village, pre-empt the regular annual firewalkers during the firewalking ceremonies and, to the disbelief of priests, walk the fire successfully without burns. When the regulars attempted to walk the fire that they had completed successfully in previous years, they were unable to do so without getting burned. Freeman concluded that the "faith" of the magician had either been stronger than that of the regulars and priests, or that his unprecedented success shook or shattered the faith of the regulars and thus lessened their ability. The implications are that some sort of formula of "absolute faith" creates a mental belief state in the firewalker that enables him to alter reality, if only momentarily, in a mind-over-matter sense, not unlike the occasional cases that appear in newspapers where a person of average physical build is able to lift the weight of an automobile off a victim in an accident to save his life. Such altering of reality by lifting incredible weight in a moment of intense stress of belief-desire to save a life is similar to the firewalker's ability to induce fire immunity for himself and his immediate surroundings as some evidence shows. Such a "super belief state" would not be the same as a person's emotional belief or identification with his god, conviction in himself, or states of hypnosis that are able to evoke fire immunity, where flesh has a possibility of not being burned.
COLIN WILSON, WHO researched paranormal phenomena associated with "gifted" individuals in his book The Occult believes that a subjective appraisal of altered mental states is the only way to approach the unexplained. The trouble with humanity, Wilson says, is that man suffers from a narrowness of consciousness that lulls him into a state of permanent drowsiness, so that he never attempts to stretch his powers to the limit. To Wilson, the factor "X" or the occult factor is the tool that is necessary to extend one's mind, a power that only five per cent of humanity uses. But attaining "super" states of mind is not necessarily the same as possessing and using psychic powers that only alter one's existing consciousness. William James, philosopher and psychologist, believed that different states of consciousness may exist, rather than just extensions or alterations of our normal one. He said that "our normal waking consciousness is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different." So that the possibility of a "super" state of consciousness would have to admit that a relationship exists between what we think is reality and what we experience as being reality. Only then could a theory, where the mind alters reality by changing one's world view in a way that supersedes the laws of nature, plausibly explain how someone could lift a car momentarily, or walk fire.
A psychologist, Robert Ornstein has restated this theme that reality is not a fixed entity and is only what we believe it to be, in his book The Psychology of Consciousness. Ornstein contends that the way we look at things through our everyday consciousness determines and limits how we think and what we see. He holds that every person has two modes of consciousness, one linear and rational, one arational and intuitive. We tend to live in a world that emphasizes the rational mode and works on a specific set of assumptions called cause and effect. Our minds screen out possibilities from a chaos of input, and excludes seeming impossibilities, thus building an agreed-upon fabric of belief with our fellow man, necessary for survival.
We all know that red means stop and green go, and convey our faith in this fact to our children. Such social beliefs about the world are only one part of a far more pervasive belief system about life itself. Ornstein believes that our ideas that result from rational modes of consciousness "act as barriers to real understanding." What we do not see as a possibility cannot exist, and we screen out far more than we accept. Yet such assumptions may only be tentative and change with time, such as the case of many discoveries in scientific fields that overthrow previously entrenched beliefs. At one time physicists held that there were only ninety-two elements in the universe and proclaimed that no more could "possibly" be found. A common belief was that the four minute mile was the limit of a man's capabilities in footrunning, and that he would never surpass such a record.
Such beliefs become "paradigms," according to Thomas Kuhn. A paradigm is the shared conception of what is possible, the boundaries of acceptable inquiry, the limiting cases. Abraham Maslow illustrates the limit of paradigms when he says that "if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail." It is only when new discovery and evidence emerge that the paradigm changes to incorporate that now accepted belief, as in the case of someone breaking the four minute mile and making it a possibility. But to hold that knowledge is or can be exclusively rational is foolish since most of the real discoveries in science come from theorists and inventors using the arational mode of thinking. It is only that we agree to call the way in which we "see" things as scientific because we can identify cause and effect operating in events around us. The fact that we "see" in our world view that fire burns flesh does not mean that it holds in all cases. Its predictability is due to the way in which we see it.
Jerome Bruner, of Harvard's Center of Cognitive Studies, doubts that the scientific mode is the only way of seeing the world. He believes that the tenet of science that the world operates in a scheme of uniform causality is only a paradigm that has grown out of agreement from man's reasoning abilities. Bruner feels that logic and reason to the mind are only the tip of the iceberg. Scientists mistake it for being all that there is, and then deduce the only assumptions that logic can make, as hot water with colored dye in it will color everything that it touches with the same hue. Our minds see reality like the dyed water, coloring everything we see, including our thoughts, with a coat of rationality. We screen and interpret according to this mold, and rarely experience the arational side. Like darkly colored sunglasses that shade certain colors and forms from our perception, so is the mind about the nature of reality. If we are always looking through the lens of the rational mode, Bruner asks, do we ever look purely with the naked innocent eye? The only way out of this dilemma, he believes, is a leap, so to speak, from the rational mode. In his Essay for the Left Hand Bruner contends that one must replace the conventional with new constructs. This leap from logic would be a leap away from the mind, as we know it. For Bruner, real discovery occurs outside the rational mode, outside the paradigm, where the mind, which is a part of the paradigm, "becomes" rather than "analyzes." This "freedom to be dominated by the object" that Bruner speaks of is a breakthrough of consciousness by transcendence.
THE FIREWALKER UNDERGOES a transformation of mind that temporarily sidesteps ordinary cause and effect reality that makes up the kind of world that we know. The firewalker knows that fire burns flesh beforehand. He is able to firewalk without burns because he sees fire not burning himself as a possibility through an "alliance with his god," according to Joseph Chilton Pearce, the author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg. When he walks fire he is "seized by his god and changed" so that the notion that fire burns flesh, that he normally carries with him as an idea and an experience, is replaced with a non-ordinary event such as communion or becoming one with his god. His ordinary notions concerning fire that originate for him within his mind and are projected out upon the external world that includes his body, are suspended for a moment, and causality is reversed. Thus such a nonordinary event as fire not burning flesh takes place, as Pearce maintains, "in the external world through the same reality function by which all events take place." For a moment the firewalker has changed the nature of reality, his own reality, by transcending it. He loses his self in his "total absolute faith" in his god. To Pearce, this experience is "profound beyond all objective truth and logical thinking."
The idea that a person can "break with reality" as we know it to be, is not new. Psychologists and psychiatrists agree that such a break can occur and they call it one's descending into madness. Their efforts are devoted to bringing such individuals back to their selves and the world.
On the other hand, mystics feel that such breaks are an embrace with Reality, through a transcending of the world of illusion. There is no doubt that such a non-ordinary theory to explain the unexplainable defies proof. We can only know for sure the real nature of "total faith" if we experience it directly, and verify a subjective answer to a subjective problem. As long as schizophrenia, autism, extraordinary strength, miraculous cures, lack of wound marks, and fire immunity persist as exceptions to the case that science cannot explain, we will not find any easy answers. Our inquiry into the mysterious may be stimulating, to the point that we discover new and more perfect tools along the way. As the physicist Max Planck believed, "these margins of error will prove to be for us passports to new areas of thought."
[Illustration: "Blind Tom" Bethune, the young slave who had a piano repertoire of 5000 pieces.]
The Uncanny Abilities of Idiot Savants
by Donald K. Snyder
THERE ARE MANY STRANGE THINGS in this world and among the strangest are the people known as idiot savants. Idiot savants are subnormal in all mental abilities with the exception of one area in which they are extremely talented. In this one area the idiot savant can actually be said to be a genius, such as being a human calculating machine, having a photographic memory, being a concert-playing virtuoso, or inventing and designing machinery.
Most idiot savants are not idiots as defined in psychological terminology. Idiot is the lowest category on the mental scale and refers to those who may not be able to take care of themselves in any manner. Most idiot savants would be psychologically classified as either imbeciles (the next level in ability up from idiot) or as the less deficient moron who can function in society. Savant means wise in French and no idiot savant can truly be said to be wise. They seem to possess computer-like abilities which they personally understand not in the least. Percy, a "human calculator" with an IQ of 58, was asked by a learned professor just what his "method" was for making his amazing calculations. Percy stared dumbly, became uneasy, and then asked the professor, "What does it mean, method, doctor?" Percy had just finished calculating in eight seconds what day of the week fell on January 17, 1601!
The idiot savant most recently brought to public attention is Leslie Lemke of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. In December, 1980 he was seen by millions of viewers on the national news playing piano and singing "The Impossible Dream" in a deep and moving voice. He is very good. He is also severely retarded, blind, and has cerebral palsy. Leslie is barely able to walk and must be led slowly to the piano where he is seemingly transformed into another person. He has given numerous concerts and can play or sing perfectly any song he hears only one time. He can play classical music, ballads, rock or jazz and leads his audiences from tears to wild cheers. He even sings in four different languages: English, German, Italian, and Chinese!
Despite his musical abilities Leslie is so severely retarded that he was unable to stand on his feet until he was thirteen and did not utter his first sounds until he was sixteen. Other than his music, at age twenty-six he has probably reached his peak mental development consisting of a total vocabulary of two words - a garbled "Yes" and "No." An infection when he was an infant required the removal of both Leslie's eyes and caused him to be immersed into the world of sound as his only major stimulus. Leslie "discovered" his musical abilities one night when he was sixteen. His mother awakened to someone playing on the piano. She walked downstairs to discover Leslie playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. He played the piece from start to finish without a mistake and has been playing ever since.
Two retarded identical twins, George and Charles, became known as the "Human Calendars" during the 1960's and received much attention from the press and scientific world. George and Charles were inmates of Letchworth Village in New York and had measured IQ's in the 60 range. In a demonstration of their abilities a psychiatrist asked them to add 2 + 2. Several minutes passed and the brothers could not come up with the answer. The psychiatrist then asked the twins, "Perhaps you can tell us what months in the year 2002 will start on Friday?" The brothers brightened up and instantly replied in unison, "March, February and November"!
The brothers can perform this feat for any date that is asked. George, who is better at it than Charles, can calculate dates up to at least the year 7000 A.D.
When George was six he discovered a perpetual calendar in an almanac and developed a tremendous fascination for it, staring at it for days on end. Although he could not read or write he somehow decifered it and committed it to memory. It became a game at his house to ask him dates from the almanac. It is said that he never made a mistake. He became so good at it that his aunt, who worked as a clerk at the courthouse, would call him on the telephone to verify dates. Complete memorization of a perpetual calendar does not fully explain George's ability. There is no perpetual calendar published that goes beyond the year 2400 A.D. and George can calculate far beyond this.
[Illustration: Retarded, blind and afflicted with cerebral palsy, Leslie Lemke plays all styles of piano music perfectly and sings in four languages.]
Like almost all idiot savants, George and Charles have no ability for abstraction. They cannot subtract simple figures but if they are told they are subtracting apples, then they can do at least minor calculations. It is unclear what function determines what they can and can't do. The twins can tell you that George Washington would be 249 years old if he were alive today, yet they can't solve the abstract equation 2 + 2. It seems the logical part of their minds is singularly focused on only one area-calendar dates.
The most amazing of all musically talented idiot savants was Thomas Bethune. Bethune was a severely retarded and blind slave who grew up on the Bethune plantation in Georgia in the 1850's. When young he was utterly fascinated by any type of sound. He would listen to rain on the roof or even a corn grinder for hours at a time. He was especially fond of listening to Colonel Bethune's daughter play on the piano. Colonel Bethune first became aware of Tom's abilities one night when Tom was only four years old. He was awakened to someone playing the piano in his parlor and discovered young, blind Tom flawlessly playing a Mozart sonata. The Colonel began cultivating Tom's abilities, even hiring musicians to play for him. Tom could play perfectly any piece he heard only once. When Tom was only seven years old the Colonel took him on concert tour and was received by sell-out crowds. It is said the Colonel made over $100,000 in his first year promoting Tom.
Tom was different from most idiot savants in that he seemed to possess a degree of creativity. He could improvise on a song once he heard it. If he heard a song once, he could repeat it, but he would also correct any mistakes made by the pianist. The Colonel kept a list of songs Tom committed to memory but the list soon reached 2,000 and he no longer bothered to keep count. Tom knew literally every piece of music available in that day, including Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bach, Chopin, Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Gounod, and Meyerbeer. It was estimated that he eventually developed a repertoire of 5,000 songs.
Tom had a perfect memory for any type of sound, yet he was so mentally deficient that he could only learn a few words with which to express himself. A newspaper account of him at the time read:
"Blind Tom seated himself at last before the piano, a full half-yard distant, stretching out his arms full length, like an ape clawing his food; his feet when not on the pedals twisted incessantly; he answered some jokes of his master's with a loud Yha! Yha!... The head fell further back, the claws began to work, and those of the composer's harmonies which you could have chosen as the purest exponents of passion began to float through the room. Selections from Weber, Beethoven and others whom I have forgotten followed. At the close of each piece, Tom, without waiting for the audience, would applaud himself violently, kicking, pounding his hands together, turning always to his master for the approving pat on the head."
Tom's most brilliant achievement probably occurred in Virginia in 1862. He had been playing for hours and was very tired when a man jumped on the stage waving the script of an original composition. He said that if Tom were truly a genius he could play a duet with him from his own unpublished manuscript. Since Tom could not read music it would be an almost impossible task. Colonel Bethune refused to have Tom submitted to such a test but upon insistence from the audience agreed to let him have a go of it. Tom was to play "secondo" to the composer's lead. Amazingly, Tom played his part perfectly even though he had never heard the music before. He became so enthralled that he shoved the composer from the bench and played both parts of the duet, playing the composer's part better than the composer himself! This was heralded as an act of creation and not just rote learning.
PSYCHOLOGISTS ADMIT THAT there is no comprehensive theory to explain the abilities of the idiot savant. Limited theories seem to explain some, but not all, of the phenomena. Dr. Horowitz, head of the team of scientists that investigated the human calendar twins, George and Charles, states that there are at least three possible explanations:
A computer-like ability or sheer memorization does not explain the ability of some idiot savants such as Tom Bethune, or that of an imbecile named Gottfried Mind who lived in Switzerland in the eighteenth century. Gottfried was so physically deformed that children would run screaming from him, yet he had an uncanny ability to draw cats. He became known as "The Cat's Raphael" and even had a private showing of his works arranged by King George of England. Artistic and creative abilities are shown by idiot savants as well as the computer-like functions. It seems that their minds focus on something to the exclusion of all else, and this subject can be artistic or mechanical. No computer can draw cats or improvise music but a computer can calculate calendar dates.
How does the idiot savant focus so intensely on just one subject? Perhaps the "idiot genius" does not have a damaged mind internally, but in some manner his thinking brain (cerebrum) is completely isolated from the outside world with the exception of one single area or "window." If sensory channels in his brain are damaged with the exception of one area - sound for instance - then his mind would be totally occupied with sound and thus develop genius in this area. We devote our minds to a thousand different objects each day. It would be safe to say that if we were occupied with only one area, we would become a genius in it. This could be the case with the idiot savant. His thinking mind may be damaged in such a way that it can only "see" the outside world through one "window."
This theory would not apply to the idiot savant's entire brain, since he can function normally in some aspects. It could apply to a portion of his brain that is sealed off from the outside world except through the window of music or numbers. Many mentally normal persons also have certain super-abilities like idiot savants. A portion of their brains could similarly be specialized. Charles Canser, a black lawyer from Knoxville, could instantly give squares of numbers in the millions and beat the best mechanical calculators of his day. Jedidiah Buxton of eighteenth century England could calculate the number of words in a church sermon just by listening to it. Buxton also once squared a 39-digit number in his head. A recent psychological study was performed on a mentally normal "lightning calculator" who can add a series of twelve 4-digit numbers in his head in five seconds. Super-abilities are not limited to idiot savants but are potentials that the normal and retarded share alike.
A unique case of an idiot savant with great inventive genius is that of J.H. Pullen who lived in an institution in England in the nineteenth century. Pullen was outwardly severely retarded and did not learn a single word until he was seven years old. He only learned a dozen or so intelligible words during his whole life. In the institution carpentry shop, however, he was able to make exquisitely designed tables, chairs, desks, picture frames and much else. When someone would come to look at his creations he would stand by, pat himself on the head, and say "Very clever"!
Pullen's greatest achievement was the design of a ten-foot model steamship which became known as the "Great Eastern." It was complete in every detail from ropes and pulleys to copper paddles, brass anchors, and minuscule furniture in all the cabins. The boards on the hull were fastened to the ribs of the ship by over a million tiny pegs. Pullen even invented a machine to make these pegs. Before building his ship he made detailed drawings of every aspect - a remarkable feat considering that he could not read or write. The "Great Eastern" was shown at several exhibitions and almost always stole the show.
J.H. Pullen also had a devious turn to his nature. He once designed a complex mechanism to drop a guillotine over a doorway, with which he tried to chop a disliked orderly in half! When Pullen died at the old age of eighty-one, an autopsy was performed. His brain was found to resemble that of an ape more than a man's. Whatever caused his abilities couldn't be detected. No clue was discovered to explain his uncanny aptitude.
Despite many theories we simply do not know what causes the astounding abilities of the idiot savant. Brain processes are too complex for us to determine what thinking is, let alone the special type of thinking these idiot geniuses perform. We cannot, as yet, isolate it in any special convolutions or chemicals in the brain. The idiot savant seems to develop his ability almost instantaneously and doesn't improve much over the remainder of his life. Perhaps if we could learn some "trick" of concentration from idiot savants, we too could develop such abilities by an effort. It might be possible that a person could even create such an ability in several different areas. Until such a "trick" or mechanism is discovered, however, perhaps the best explanation is that given by the two Human Calendars. "It's in my head," said George. "I just know," says Charles.
The Cave of the Echoes
A Strange But True Story
by H.P. Blavatsky
This story is taken from a little-known volume by Madame Blavatsky called Nightmare Tales, completed during the last few months of her life. The co-founder of the Theosophical Society known chiefly for her monumental works of occultism, Isis Unveiled and The Secret Doctrine, she threw these stories off "in her lighter moments" for "amusement and relaxation," according to the foreword by Annie Besant. If this chilling tale was considered "light" by Mrs. Besant, she must have known well the weightier thought with which H.P.B. was burdened in her final days. - ed.
IN ONE OF THE DISTANT governments of the Russian empire, in a small town on the borders of Siberia, a mysterious tragedy occurred more than thirty years ago. About six versts from the little town of P---, famous for the wild beauty of its scenery, and for the wealth of its inhabitants - generally proprietors of mines and of iron foundries - stood an aristocratic mansion. Its household consisted of the master, a rich old bachelor and his brother, who was a widower and the father of two sons and three daughters. It was known that the proprietor, Mr. Izvertzoff, had adopted his brother's children, and, having formed an especial attachment for his eldest nephew, Nicolas, he had made him the sole heir of his numerous estates.
Time rolled on. The uncle was getting old, the nephew was coming of age. Days and years had passed in monotonous serenity, when, on the hitherto clear horizon of the quiet family, appeared a cloud. On an unlucky day one of the nieces took it into her head to study the zither. The instrument being of purely Teutonic origin, and no teacher of it residing in the neighborhood, the indulgent uncle sent to St. Petersburg for both. After diligent search only one Professor could be found willing to trust himself in such close proximity to Siberia. It was an old German artist, who, sharing his affections equally between his instrument and a pretty blonde daughter, would part with neither. And thus it came to pass that, one fine morning, the old Professor arrived at the mansion, with his music box under one arm and his fair Munchen leaning on the other.
From that day the little cloud began growing rapidly; for every vibration of the melodious instrument found a responsive echo in the old bachelor's heart. Music awakens love, they say, and the work begun by the zither was completed by Munchen's blue eyes. At the expiration of six months the niece had become an expert zither player, and the uncle was desperately in love.
One morning, gathering his adopted family around him, he embraced them all very tenderly, promised to remember them in his will, and wound up by declaring his unalterable resolution to marry the blue-eyed Munchen. After this he fell upon their necks, and wept in silent rapture. The family, understanding that they were cheated out of the inheritance, also wept; but it was for another cause. Having thus wept, they consoled themselves and tried to rejoice, for the old gentleman was sincerely loved by all. Not all of them rejoiced, though. Nicolas, who had himself been smitten to the heart by the pretty German, and who found himself defrauded at once of his belle and of his uncle's money, neither rejoiced nor consoled himself, but disappeared for a whole day.
Meanwhile, Mr. Izvertzoff had given orders to prepare his traveling carriage on the following day, and it was whispered that he was going to the chief town of the district, at some distance from his home, with the intention of altering his will. Though very wealthy, he had no superintendent on his estate, but kept his books himself. The same evening after supper, he was heard in his room, angrily scolding his servant, who had been in his service for over thirty years. This man, Ivan, was a native of northern Asia, from Kamchatka; he had been brought up by the family in the Christian religion, and was thought to be very much attached to his master. A few days later, when the first tragic circumstance I am about to relate had brought all the police force to the spot, it was remembered that on that night Ivan was drunk; that his master, who had a horror of this vice, had paternally thrashed him, and turned him out of his room, and that Ivan had been seen reeling out of the door, and had been heard to mutter threats.
On the vast domain of Mr. Izvertzoff there was a curious cavern, which excited the curiosity of all who visited it. It exists to this day, and is well known to every inhabitant of P---. A pine forest, commencing a few feet from the garden gate, climbs in steep terraces up a long range of rocky hills, which it covers with a broad belt of impenetrable vegetation. The grotto leading into the cavern, which is known as the "Cave of the Echoes," is situated about half a mile from the site of the mansion, from which it appears as a small excavation in the hillside, almost hidden by luxuriant plants, but not so completely as to prevent any person entering it from being readily seen from the terrace in front of the house. Entering the grotto, the explorer finds at the rear a narrow cleft; having passed through which he emerges into a lofty cavern, feebly lighted through fissures in the vaulted roof, fifty feet from the ground. The cavern itself is immense, and would easily hold between two and three thousand people. A part of it, in the days of Mr. Izvertzoff, was paved with flagstones, and was often used in the summer as a ball-room by picnic parties. Of an irregular oval, it gradually narrows into a broad corridor, which runs for several miles underground, opening here and there into other chambers, as large and lofty as the ball-room, but, unlike this, impassable otherwise than in a boat, as they are always full of water. These natural basins have the reputation of being unfathomable.
On the margin of the first of these is a small platform, with several mossy rustic seats arranged on it, and it is from this spot that the phenomenal echoes, which give the cavern its name, are heard in all their weirdness. A word pronounced in a whisper, or even a sigh, is caught up by endless mocking voices, and instead of diminishing in volume, as honest echoes do, the sound grows louder and louder at every successive repetition, until at last it bursts forth like the repercussion of a pistol shot, and recedes in a plaintive wail down the corridor.
On the day in question, Mr. Izvertzoff had mentioned his intention of having a dancing party in this cave on his wedding day, which he had fixed for an early date. On the following morning, while preparing for his drive, he was seen by his family entering the grotto, accompanied only by his Siberian servant. Half-an-hour later, Ivan returned to the mansion for a snuff-box, which his master had forgotten in his room, and went back with it to the cave. An hour later the whole house was startled by his loud cries. Pale and dripping with water, Ivan rushed in like a madman, and declared that Mr. Izvertzoff was nowhere to be found in the cave. Thinking he had fallen in to the lake, he had dived into the first basin in search of him and was nearly drowned himself.
The day passed in vain attempts to find the body. The police filled the house, and louder than the rest in his despair was Nicolas, the nephew, who had returned home only to meet the sad tidings.
A dark suspicion fell upon Ivan, the Siberian. He had been struck by his master the night before, and had been heard to swear revenge. He had accompanied him alone to the cave, and when his room was searched, a box full of rich family jewelry, known to have been carefully kept in Mr. Izvertzoff's apartment, was found under Ivan's bedding. Vainly did the serf call God to witness that the box had been given to him in charge by his master himself, just before they proceeded to the cave; that it was the latter's purpose to have the jewelry reset, as he intended it for a wedding present to his bride; and that he, Ivan would willingly give his own life to recall that of his master, if he knew him to be dead. No heed was paid to him, however, and he was arrested and thrown into prison upon a charge of murder. There he was left, for under Russian law a criminal cannot - at any rate, he could not in those days - be sentenced for a crime, however conclusive the circumstantial evidence, unless he confessed his guilt.
After a week had passed in useless search, the family arrayed themselves in deep mourning; and, as the will as originally drawn remained without a codicil, the whole of the property passed into the hands of the nephew. The old teacher and his daughter bore this sudden reverse of fortune with true German phlegm, and prepared to depart. Taking again his zither under one arm, the old man was about to lead away his Munchen by the other, when the nephew stopped him by offering himself as the fair damsel's husband in the place of his departed uncle. The change was found to be an agreeable one, and, without much ado, the young people were married.
TEN YEARS ROLLED AWAY, and we meet the happy family once more at the beginning of 1859. The fair Munchen had grown fat and vulgar. From the day of the old man's disappearance, Nicolas had become morose and retired in his habits, and many wondered at the change in him, for now he was never seen to smile. It seemed as if his only aim in life were to find out his uncle's murderer, or rather to bring Ivan to confess his guilt. But the man still persisted that he was innocent.
An only son had been born to the young couple, and a strange child it was. Small, delicate, and ever ailing, his frail life seemed to hang by a thread. When his features were in repose, his resemblance to his uncle was so striking that the members of the family often shrank from him in terror. It was the pale shriveled face of a man of sixty upon the shoulders of a child of nine years old. He was never seen either to laugh or to play, but, perched in his high chair, would gravely sit there, folding his arms in a way peculiar to the late Mr. Izvertzoff; and thus he would remain for hours, drowsy and motionless. His nurses were often seen furtively crossing themselves at night, upon approaching him, and not one of them would consent to sleep alone with him in the nursery. His father's behavior towards him was still more strange. He seemed to love him passionately, and at the same time to hate him bitterly. He seldom embraced or caressed the child, but, with livid cheek and staring eye, he would pass long hours watching him, as the child sat quietly in his corner, in his goblin-like, old-fashioned way.
The child had never left the estate, and few outside the family knew of his existence.
About the middle of July, a tall Hungarian traveler, preceded by a great reputation for eccentricity, wealth and mysterious powers, arrived at the town of P--- from the North, where, it was said, he had resided for many years. He settled in the little town, in company with a Shaman or South Siberian magician, on whom he was said to make mesmeric experiments. He gave dinners and parties, and invariably exhibited his Shaman, of whom he felt very proud, for the amusement of his guests. One day the notables of P--- made an unexpected invasion of the domains of Nicolas Izvertzoff, and requested the loan of his cave for an evening entertainment. Nicolas consented with great reluctance, and only after still greater hesitancy was he prevailed upon to join the party.
The first cavern and the platform beside the bottomless lake glittered with lights. Hundreds of flickering candles and torches, stuck in the clefts of the rocks, illuminated the place and drove the shadows from the mossy nooks and corners, where they had crouched undisturbed for many years. The stalactites on the walls sparkled brightly, and the sleeping echoes were suddenly awakened by a joyous confusion of laughter and conversation. The Shaman, who was never lost sight of by his friend and patron, sat in a corner, entranced as usual. Crouched on a projecting rock, about midway between the entrance and the water, with his lemon-yellow, wrinkled face, flat nose, and thin beard, he looked more like an ugly stone idol than a human being. Many of the company pressed around him and received correct answers to their questions, the Hungarian cheerfully submitting his mesmerized "subject" to cross-examination.
Suddenly one of the party, a lady, remarked that it was in that very cave that old Mr. Izvertzoff had so unaccountably disappeared ten years before. The foreigner appeared interested, and desired to learn more of the circumstances, so Nicolas was sought amid the crowd and led before the eager group. He was the host and he found it impossible to refuse the demanded narrative. He repeated the sad tale in a trembling voice, with a pallid cheek, and tears were seen glittering in his feverish eyes. The company were greatly affected, and encomiums upon the behavior of the loving nephew in honouring the memory of his uncle and benefactor were freely circulating in whispers, when suddenly the voice of Nicolas became choked, his eyes started from their sockets, and, with a suppressed groan, he staggered back. Every eye in the crowd followed with curiosity his haggard look, as it fell and remained riveted upon a wizened little face, that peeped from behind the back of the Hungarian.
"Where do you come from? Who brought you here, child?" gasped out Nicolas, as pale as death.
"I was in bed, papa; this man came to me, and brought me here in his arms," answered the boy simply, pointing to the Shaman, beside whom he stood upon the rock, and who, with his eyes closed, kept swaying himself to and fro like a living pendulum.
"That is very strange," remarked one of the guests, "for the man has never moved from his place."
"Good God! What an extraordinary resemblance!" muttered an old resident of the town, a friend of the lost man.
"You lie child!" fiercely exclaimed the father. "Go to bed; this is no place for you."
"Come, come," interposed the Hungarian, with a strange expression on his face, and encircling with his arm the slender childish figure; "the little fellow has seen the double of my Shaman, which roams sometimes far away from his body, and has mistaken the phantom for the man himself. Let him remain with us for a while."
At these strange words the guests stared at each other in mute surprise, while some piously made the sign of the cross, spitting aside, presumably at the devil and all his works.
"By-the-bye," continued the Hungarian with a peculiar firmness of accent, and addressing the company rather than any one in particular; "why should we not try, with the help of my Shaman, to unravel the mystery hanging over the tragedy? Is the suspected party still lying in prison? What? He has not confessed up to now? This is surely very strange. But now we will learn the truth in a few minutes! Let all keep silent!"
He then approached the Tehuktchene, and immediately began his performance without so much as asking the consent of the master of the place. The latter stood rooted to the spot, as if petrified with horror, and unable to articulate a word. The suggestion met with general approbation, save from him; and the police inspector, Col. S---, especially approved of the idea.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the mesmerizer in soft tones, "allow me for this once to proceed otherwise than in my general fashion. I will employ the method of native magic. It is more appropriate to this wild place, and far more effective as you will find, than our European method of mesmerization."
Without waiting for an answer, he drew from a bag that never left his person, first a small drum, and then two little phials - one full of fluid, the other empty. With the contents of the former he sprinkled the Shaman, who fell to trembling and nodding more violently than ever. The air was filled with the perfume of spicy odours, and the atmosphere itself seemed to become clearer. Then, to the horror of those present, he approached the Tibetan, and taking a miniature stiletto from his pocket, he plunged the sharp steel into the man's forearm, and drew blood from it, which he caught in the empty phial. When it was half filled, he pressed the orifice of the wound with his thumb, and stopped the flow of blood as easily as if he had corked a bottle, after which he sprinkled the blood over the little boy's head. He then suspended the drum from his neck, and, with two ivory drum-sticks, which were covered with magic signs and letters, he began beating a sort of reveille, to drum up the spirits, as he said.
The bystanders, half-shocked and half-terrified by these extraordinary proceedings, eagerly crowded round him, and for a few moments a dead silence reigned throughout the lofty cavern. Nicolas, with his face livid and corpse-like, stood speechless as before. The mesmerizer had placed himself between the Shaman and the platform, when he began slowly drumming. The first notes were muffled, and vibrated so softly in the air that they awakened no echo, but the Shaman quickened his pendulum-like motion and the child became restless. The drummer then began a slow chant, low, impressive and solemn.
As the unknown words issued from his lips, the flames of the candles and torches wavered and flickered, until they began dancing in rhythm with the chant. A cold wind came wheezing from the dark corridors beyond the water, leaving a plaintive echo in its trail. Then a sort of nebulous vapour, seeming to ooze from the rocky ground and walls, gathered about the Shaman and the boy. Around the latter the aura was silvery and transparent, but the cloud which enveloped the former was red and sinister. Approaching nearer to the platform the magician beat a louder roll upon the drum, and this time the echo caught it up with terrific effect! It reverberated near and far in incessant peals; one wail followed another, louder and louder, until the thundering roar seemed the chorus of a thousand demon voices rising from the fathomless depths of the lake. The water itself, whose surface, illuminated by many lights, had previously been smooth as a sheet of glass, became suddenly agitated, as if a powerful gust of wind had swept over its unruffled face.
Another chant, and a roll of the drum, and the mountain trembled to its foundation with the cannon-like peals which rolled through the dark and distant corridors. The Shaman's body rose two yards in the air, and nodding and swaying, sat, self-suspended like an apparition. But the transformation which now occurred in the boy chilled everyone, as they speechlessly watched the scene. The silvery cloud about the boy now seemed to lift him, too, into the air; but, unlike the Shaman, his feet never left the ground. The child began to grow, as though the work of years was miraculously accomplished in a few seconds. He became tall and large, and his senile features grew older with the ageing of his body. A few more seconds, and the youthful form had entirely disappeared. It was totally absorbed in another individuality, and, to the horror of those present who had been familiar with his appearance, this individuality was that of old Mr. Izvertzoff, and on his temple was a large gaping wound, from which trickled great drops of blood.
This phantom moved towards Nicolas, till it stood directly in front of him, while he, with his hair standing erect, with the look of a madman gazed at his own son, transformed into his uncle. The sepulchral silence was broken by the Hungarian, who, addressing the child phantom, asked him, in solemn voice:
"In the name of the great Master, of Him who has all power, answer the truth, and nothing but the truth. Restless spirit, hast thou been lost by accident, or foully murdered?"
The spectre's lips moved, but it was the echo which answered for them in lugubrious shouts: "Murdered! Murdered!! Mur-der-ed!!!"
"Where? How? By whom?" asked the conjuror.
The apparition pointed a finger at Nicolas and, without removing its gaze or lowering its arm, retreated backwards slowly towards the lake. At every step it took, the younger Izvertzoff, as if compelled by some irresistible fascination, advanced a step towards it, until the phantom reached the lake, and the next moment was seen gliding on its surface. It was a fearful, ghostly scene!
When he had come within two steps of the brink of the watery abyss, a violent convulsion ran through the frame of the guilty man. Flinging himself upon his knees, he clung to one of the rustic seats with a desperate clutch, and staring wildly, uttered a long piercing cry of agony. The phantom now remained motionless on the water, and bending its extended finger, slowly beckoned him to come. Crouched in abject terror, the wretched man shrieked until the cavern rang again and again: "I did not... No, I did not murder you!"
Then came a splash, and now it was the boy who was in the dark water, struggling for his life, in the middle of the lake, with the same motionless stern apparition brooding over him.
"Papa! Papa! Save me... I am drowning!" cried a piteous little voice amid the uproar of the mocking echoes.
"My boy!" shrieked Nicolas, in the accents of a maniac, springing to his feet. "My boy! Save him! Oh, save him!... Yes, I confess.. I am the murderer... It is I who killed him!"
Another splash, and the phantom disappeared. With a cry of horror the company rushed towards the platform; but their feet were suddenly rooted to the ground, as they saw amid the swirling eddies a whitish shapeless mass holding the murderer and the boy in tight embrace, and slowly sinking into the bottomless lake...
On the morning after these occurrences, when, after a sleepless night, some of the party visited the residence of the Hungarian gentleman, they found it closed and deserted. He and the Shaman had disappeared. Many are among the old inhabitants of P--- who remember him; the Police Inspector, Col. S---, dying a few years ago in the full assurance that the noble traveler was the devil. To add to the general consternation the Izvertzoff mansion took fire on that same night and was completely destroyed. The Archbishop performed the ceremony of exorcism, but the locality is considered accursed to this day. The Government investigated the facts, and - ordered silence.
The Potential of Medical Astrology
by Robert C. Jansky
TO PUT THE WORDS MEDICAL and astrology together within the same term will be thought by many, especially by scientists and most American medical doctors to be nothing short of "heresy." This is due in large measure to the public's misconception of what astrology is really all about. Yet, to call this heresy is to deny that historically modern medical practice had its beginnings in astrology. Every medical doctor swears allegiance, or at least gives lip service, to the Oath of Hippocrates before being admitted to medical practice. Yet how many of these same doctors are aware that their "patron saint" once clearly admonished would-be practitioners of the medical arts that, "A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician"?
Which came first? Did medical astrology originate from astrology itself, or vice versa? The true answer will probably never be known. It is lost in the mists of time. Whichever did come first, the symbolism of these two bodies of knowledge is intimately entwined. For example, the Aries quality of leadership, its need to control and direct, or to regulate, stems directly from Aries symbolic relationship to the head and brain. The Capricorn quality and need for structuring the environment relates directly to Capricorn's rulership over the skeleton (which structures the body), and Saturn