The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-03-12
EASTERN MESMERISM.
Cruel and Wonderful Tests Of a
C~ataleptic Trance.

seen. Let me describe one perfor-
nance
1t was in Secundera5ad, in 1878. and
it took placesin the broad corridor of
the palace of Saler Jung, the nyzam.
| was one of a party of Englishmen,
among whom were DIR. Crawford. sur
geon of the British army, and Mr..
John Hodgkins, formerly an Off
Ger in her majesty's Lancers,
but at that time in the employ
of an English banking and mer-
camille firm in Hong Kong. We were
in the front ranks of the spectators,
nearly all of whom were Europeans.
After we had waited a few minutes,
tanning ourselves, for the dav was
oppressiyely hot, the fakirs made
their appearance. There were eight
in the party. An old man with aqui-
line features, a patriarchal white
beard and a pair of flashing black
eyes, was the leader. His wife, q
pretty little woman, young enough to
be his daughter, was his chief assist
ant, and the six remaining men served
as subjects and under assistants.
had heard much about the won
derful performances of this particular
JlAlO vi ldfNlIS. dts All itillClttnG per
formers are generally termed. and
thus when | received the invitation of
the palace authorities | was delighted
to accept it. But | must admit that
all the praise I had heard seemed
faint and cold afterI had seen all that
was to be seen. 1t was, taking it all
in all, the most wonderful perform
ance of the sort any of our party had
eve witnessed.
After the fakirs arrived they pro-
ceeded at once to business. The old
man bound a bandage tightly around
the forehead of n of his ooung men,
placing a small wedge shaped piece of
pith under the cloth and directly be-
tween the eyes. Then he handed him
a small round mirror, telling him to
place it in his hand and gaze upon it
intentlv. This the young man did.
Mean while the other fakirs made a
circle partially around him, droning
a monotonous chant that ran some
thing as follows
Ram, ram, amaram, amaram, ram.
Amaram, amaram, amaram, ram.
This was repeated over and over
again in singing tones, resembling the
distant hum of a hive of bees, and
when the chant was ended we were
nearly as drowsy as the poor subject
was.
Directly the song was finished we
started from our lethargy and brought
our tagging senses to bear upon the
victim of this remarkable Incarnation.
He was lying on the parlor floor, to
all appearances dead. His face was of
the CHASTITY pallor of the tomb. His
arms, legs and fingers were as though
they had been suddenly turned to ice.
His blood seemed to have been frozen
IN a day when we living spectators
were almost suffoeated by the heat.
We felt his fingers. They were as
rigid as though modelled from marble.
DR.. Crawford raised his eyelids. The
pupil had been upturned and nothing
but the white was visible. The doctor
examined his heart and felt his pulse.
His blood had stopped flowing
through his veins. To make the test
even more complete the doctor stop
ped his nostrils, his eyes and his ears
and mouth with q thick, putty like
paste, that made breathing an inn
possibility. In every previous mes
ineric hypnotic experiment | had wit
messed the subject always breathed.
Now came some further tests, and
CIucl OticS they WcIc, tOO- 1IhiSc nOu-
kins were thrust entirely through the
palm of his hand, and he never moved
q muscle. Neither did a single drop
Of blood follow the withdrawal of the
steel. This prodding was repeated
upon his cheeks, his finger points, his
thighs and arms, with precisely the
same results. Then the old man took
a glowing coal of burning charcoal
from his pot and placed it on the up
turned palm Of his unconscious vic
TINS hand. Here it at first smoked,
then sizzled, and the corridor became
permeated with the odor of burning
human flesh. Still the man was UNI
conscious. AT last the doctor forced
the old man to reInove the coal, for
fear that it might do the young man
some permanent injury.
The subject was then turned over to
the doctors care. The physician made
every effort known to medical science
to resuscitate him, but all for naught.
After he had been In q trance for near
ly an hour the old fakir made some
wide-spreading passes over his body
with his arms and leaned back to
watch the result. A shiver passed
over the subjects form, and a grim
smile of triumph curled the corners
of the old mans mouth. We gath
cred around the PROSTATE form and
watched him until we grew sick at
heart and felt faint. Such torture,
such horrible agony never before be-
held on a human beings face. His
features were twisted and distorted
ont of all human resemblance. His
limbs became knotted, and he writhed
into a thousand different shapes from
his finger tips to his toes. After five
minutes, that seemed to MS an age, he
opened his eyes, rubbed the moisture
from his forehead and sat up as one
dazed. A minute later he rose and
took his place among the others as
though nothing whatever had hap
pened.
While this was very wonderful, the
old man now proceeded to astonish us
still more. With no one to help him
save the singers and their chant, of his
own voiition he threw himself into the
same marvellous state. We repeated
the same experiments upon him that
we had done in the first instance. We
drove steels through his limbs and
scorched the palm of his hand with a
living coal. We stopped up his nos
trils, ears, eyes and mouth, and then
the doctor worked on him for half an
hour or more. The effect of death was in
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