The Western news., 1907-07-31
The ORDEAL BY FIRE
A Hindoo Ceremony That Puzzles
the Uninitiated.
WALK OVER GLOWING GOALS.
The Participants In the Mystifyins
Spectacle Play With the Fiery EN-
bers as Children Play With Sand
and Emerge Unframed.

and Emerge Unframed.
/ once witnessed a most remarkable
ordeal by fire at Benares, India. 1t
was held on the grounds of a 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
savants, 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 a 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 kindlng wood and logs
and was set afire by the attendants,
who kept up a blaze as hot as blast
furnace all day long, until the trench
| by sunset was filed 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 moment
doubt the realism Of that scorching
heat that made our eyes smart and
grow bloodshot We, who had come to
scoff and doubt, were soon realizing
that the managers of the Benares fire
ordeal had already gained Is 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 unharmed 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 oil
the moment when our rs per cent OF
credulity was either to be shattered OIL
rounded out to the fullness of a com
pleted and abiding faith in Hindoc
control and mastery of the devourine
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 ar
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 incan
ia tions, carrying along a glass reliqu
ary. or shrine. in which was seen th'
image of the god silva. who, in th'
Hindoo religious system, is one Of th'
trinity and is worshiped as the de
!. stroyer, Brahma being the creator an(
Vishnu the preserver of the universe
We do not know to this day what thos
"a priests said as they pcrambulatet
= about that fiery trench. but we d.
: know what soon followed, for, at tn
I end of the incarnation, the two cGndi
dates for the ordeal plunged into tn
redhot Goals and walked ankle dee
the whole length Of the trench, back
{ ward and forward, time and tim
again. They played with that scinti
lating, glowing fire as children pla
with the sands of Coronado beach
kicking it with their feet and stoopin
w down to pick up handfuls of the glow
V ing Goals, tossing them in the air, t
be blown by the rising evening breez
all over our heads and our easily III
A flammable clothing. We were reall
afraid No doubt about those spark
: and live, falling Goals!
I'm When the two priests had walked u
m and down alone through that fer
E trench unscathed and unscorchet
then the whole Hindoo throng SCENE
to suddenly catch the spirit of thei
priests, and, sure of their conquest owe
the power of fire, they began plungin
r1to the trench. Old men and youn
children walked through that fiery fu
mace, forward and backward, an
when they had tired of this "playin
4 with fire" they came out as they ha
entered not a hair or garner
scorched, not even the soles of the
n feet blistered.
Only males are allowed to go throug
the fire ordeal
~ Never yet has any scientific theor
. explained the power of the silva wo
shippers over fire We ourselves wei