The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1907-05-31
The ORDEAL BY FIRE
A Hindoo Ceremony That Puzzles
the Uninitiated.
WALK OVER GLOWING GOALS.

Spectacle Play With the Fiery En-
bers as Children Play With Sand
and Emerge Unframed.
/ once witnessed a most remarkable
ordeal by fire at Benares, India. 1t
was held on the grounds of villa on
the outskirts of the city, and among
us were some of the most prominent
men and women of official and social
life in British India. Army and navy
officers touched elbows with French
saTants, all more than glad to accept
an invitation that might at least offer
opportunity either to catch some clew
toward solving the mystery of the In
dian fire ordeal or else catch the priest
ly performers in nice trap at consum
mate and age long deception, success
fully worked among superstitiouS
and overcredulous people like the Hin
docs.
Seats had been arranged for our par
ty out on the spacious lawn, where a
trench had been dug sixteen feet long,
six feet wide and four feet deep. The
fire in the trench was lighted before
noon, but the ordeal itself was not to
come off until after sunset. The trench
was filled with kindling wood and logs
and was set afire by the attendants,
who kept up blaze as hot as blast
furnace all day long, until the trench
by sunset was filled three feet deep
with a compact, glowing bed of red
hot Goals.
We were escorted to our seats at
about $50, and we were not inclined
to question the reality of that fire from
the moment we sat down within twelve
feet of it. Whatever else might be
fraud or hypnotism in this Indian fire
ordeal, we could not for a moment
doubt the realism of that scorching
heat that made our eyes smart and
grow bloodshot. We, who had come to
scott and doubt, were soon realizing
that the managers of the Benares fire
ordeal had already gained rs points out
of 100 in favor of their honesty and Of
their power over the mighty element
of fire, that figures SO largely in orien-
tai philosophy as one of the three or
four primal elements of the physical
universe.
A great commotion and babel of
voices soon proclaimed the coming of
the procession of priests, headed by
the arch priest Brahmapoots, carrying
a huge Indian sword, followed by the
two minor priests who were destined
to walk unframed through that yard
thick fiery bed scintillating in the in
creasing darkness and lighting up the
dark faces of the hundreds of gaping
Hindoos standing behind us. While
we Europeans and Americans, always
hypercritical and given to scientific re-
search, were awaiting the coming of
the moment when our rs per cent of
credulity was either to be shattered or
rounded out to the fullnesS of a COM
pleted and abiding faith in Hindoo
control and mastery of the devouring
element of fire, our Hindoo fellow on
lockers, on the other hand, were antici-
pating the ordeal with all the simple
ity of credulous children. Ours was an
almost terrifying heart tension, and we
almost wished that we were not occi-
dental skeptics, always bent on doubt
ing things of an extraordinary nature.
The priests marched about the trench
chanting and performing mystic mean
tations, carrying along a glass reliqu-
ary, or shrine, in which was seen the
image of the god silva, who, in the
Hindoo religious system, is one of the
trinity and is worshiped as the de-
stroyer, Brahma being the creator and
,Vishnu the preserver of the universe.
We do not know to this day what those
priests said as they perambulated
about that fiery. trench, but we do
know what soon followed, for, at the
end of the incarnation, the two candi-
dates for the ordeal plunged into the
redhot Goals and walked ankle deep
the whole length of the trench, back
ward and forward, time and time
again. They played with that scintil-
lating, glowing fire as children play
with the sands of Coronado beach,
kicking it with their feet and STOPPING
down to pick up handfuls of the glow
ing Goals, tossing them in the air, to
be blown by the rising evening breeze
all over our heads and our easily in
NlOtAIlAlS' we NCLC ACaAAy
afraid No doubt about those sparks
and live, falling Goals!
When the two priests had walked up
and down alone through that fiery
trench unscathed and unscorched,
then the whole Hindoo throng seemed
to suddenly catch the spirit of their
priests, and, sure of their conquest over
the power of fire, they began plunging
into the trench. Old men and young
children walked through that fiery fur
mace, forward and backward, and
when they had tired of this playing
with fire. they came out as they had
entered, not hair or a garment
scorched, not even the soles of their
feet blistered.
Only males are allowed to go through
the fire ordeal.