St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-04-07
DEATH BAFFLED.
Six Weeks in a Tomb and
Then Restored to Per-
feet Life.
Tanners Great Boast. and
What a Local Doctor
Says.
Another Step in Science or a
Fake of Unparalleled
Nerve.
East Indian Fakirs Who Hold
the Keys of Lies
Mystery.
They Are Buried for Six
Weeks, Disentombed and
Restored.
Fiction Discounted by This
Marvellous Relation of
the Truth.

Tt would seem as if the human mind
could not encounter more dreadful
subject for contemplation than is fur
nished in an apprehension Of the bare
possibility of being buried alive. Nor
can there be conceived a more marvel
GUS transition than the disinterment of
person after having been buried and
laid in the graye-weeks-an even
months; and his rapid restoration to
perfect health and the full vigor
of life. All this, and yet more
marvellous things have been done
In India, as incontestable records
amply prove. Heretofore, nothing of the
kind has boon essayed here, but DR.. S.
H. Tanner, who formerly resided
awhile in Minneapolis, announces that
he will make the attempt to accomplish
the feat at an early date. His inten-
ton was first given out to the Associated
Press year ago, and few days since
he stated in Chicago that the expert
ment Will be made early in the month
New York, who is at present visiting
L
ing interview with DR.. Tanner last
week, during which the latter said:
TANNERS TERRIBLE BOAST.
" have so disciplined my mind and
body that / can take upon myself, at
VOlitiOn. a trance state, and while in
that condition shall be buried, just as a
dead person is ordinarily buried. in
secure, regularly-made coffin, placed in
grave five feet deep, which will be
filed up and the earth compactly put in
and mOunded over. | shall remain there
four weeks, then be disinterred, resusci-
tated and fully restored to the full vigor
and strength of my normal con-
dition. This is not impossible. 1t is
not new thing. 1t has been success
fully, l may say easily, done, as ha-
been demonstrated by East Indian
priests and fakirS for centuries past.
The study which L have devoted to this
subject has made me master of the Sc
cretS of this performance. One of the
principal acts is to throw the tongue
back into the gullet, and so cause such
radical change in the circulation of
the blood that it assumes the conditions
of the prenatal state, in which there is
no respiration: the body becomes air
tight, as though it were Theoretically
sealed, and the valves of the heart
are changed TO condition iden-
teal with that of an unborn child.
This is only one of the secrets that l
have learned from the archives of the
HindOo priests and Brahmin fakirs. 1
have killed numbers of wild animals,
bears. raccO0nS, OpOSSumS and various
other alternating animals during their
winters sleep, and dissected them to
learn the changes of the organs while
in their lethargic state. For. years past
haUa dintQd onH avnarjn1anfa1 ,1no,,
my own body to gain all the strength
possible for this great achievement.
until now | have supreme command of
oil my vital forces, all my senses and
all my will and mind power.
''What benefit is to accrue from this,
do you ask? Why to show that pagan
science has treasures of knowledge that
the wise men of the Western world
neither known or believe; that we do not
begin to know even the generalities of
very many forces of nature-God's
natural lawS-which are within the
grasp of far-advanced research. One
thing especially [ shall demonstrate
that all the outward signs of death, as
accepted and depended upon by phySi-
clans, are deceptive, all save one-de-
composition; and that alone is infalli-
bic. l hope to convince the world of
this, and arrest the prevalent custom or
undue haste of burials.
cit is indecent. outrageous and horri-
BILE to realize that very many people are
buried alive. 1t is a fact that every
graveyard furnishes hideous evidence
of. 1t is unchriStian, unciviliZed, bar
barous. / have seen bodies that after
having been pronounced dead by re-
putable physicians, who, after apply
Ing all the tests, sincerely believed life
to be extinct. and the corpse was duly
buried, while latent vital spark re-
manned which with proper effort could
be rekindled, resuscitated and fully re-
stOred.'
TANNER IN MINNESOTA.
DR.. Tanner is about sixty years of age,
of medium height, portly Though now
reduced by his system of dieting), of
Emphatic temperament, sound and
vigorous conStitlon, and of remarkable
will power. He came to Minneapolis
about ten years ago, and was employed
by prominent specialist physician on
Hennepin avenue, near Third street, as
superintendent of magnetic vapor baths.
1t was his custom, when ill, to abstain
from food, and on one occasion, when he
had been without nOurishment three
days, he resolved to fast forty
days to prove that the fasting of
Christ for similar period,
endurance. He continued his fast
forty-three days, taking no food. but
occasionally little water during all
that time, and but for the interference
of medical friends would have endured
longer. Subsequently he tasted forty
days in Clarendon hall, New York.
Four years were spent in New Mexico,
studying and preparing for the impend
Ing experiment. He has generally been
considered as an eccentric 'man of
strong parts" earnest in his theories,
and not actuated by money-making.
His wife, who is we'll educated ply
stefan, secured a divorce OH the ground
of incompatibility. She is a handsome
woman, and remarked in Minneapolis
soon after.
e
Sir Claude Martin Wade. governor
general in the Lahore district of the
British empire in India, and special
envoy TO the ROYAL court of the Indian