Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1896 — Hindoo Fakirs. [ARTICLE]

Hindoo Fakirs.

Herr Kuhn not long ago presented a communication on this subject to the Anthropological Society of Munich. He had the opportunity of personally observing two cases as to the genuineness of which he had no doubt whatever. One of the fakirs referred to had been buried alive for six weeks, the other for ten days. The condition which the fakir has the power of producing artificially is in all respects identical with the cataleptic trance. The fakirs, who are dll hysterical subjects of a very pronounced type, put themselves through a regular course of training before the performance, weakening themselves by semi-starvation, taking internally various vegetable substances known only to them, keeping their bodies motionless in the same position for several hours at a time, etc. When the fakir has by this means got himself into the proper condition, he has only to lie down in one of the positions enjoined by the sacred books and fix his eyes on the end of his nose, to fall into a state of trance. The fakirs are also believed to use hashheesh for the purpose of lessening the force of respiration; that hypnotic agent, associated with other vegetable substances and used in a special manner, is believed by them to supply the want of both air and nourishment. At the beginning of the trance the fakir has hallucinations, hearing heavenly voices, seeing visions, etc. Gradually, however, consciousness becomes annulled, the body becomes rigid, and, as the fakirs themselves say, “the spirit rejoins the soul df the world.”—British Medical Journal.