POWER OF FAKIRS

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 February 1939, Page 3

POWER OF FAKIRS

o BODIES PIERCED WITHOUT PAIN The Ghost Club, after a recent dinner in London, listened to a lecture by Dr. E. H. Hunt on the “magical” feats of the Ratal fakirs of Southern India, which, he said, they performed in an exalted state as a religious rite. The lecture was illustrated -with cine films and lantern slides. Dr. Hunt said the fakirs were able to remove their eyes and replace them, to pierce their bodies in the abdomen, in the head, and through the cheeks without experiencing pain, bleeding, or sepsis. It was done scientifically and with anatomical knowledge. The films he had taken were proof that this actually was done, and it was also stated that two minutes after an eye had been put back after removal there was no impairment of vision. Mr. Harry Price, the chairman, asked the lecturer whether ability to do these things was acquired or inherit-

ed. Dr. Hunt replied that it was handed from father to son. He had himself j been offered tuition, but did not acI cept the invitation. 1 Dr. J. A. Hadfield said that with reJgard to absence of bleeding and sepsis, the experiments corresponded to some he had carried out during the r ! war with patients who were under the /influence of hypnosis. Teeth had been . removed and a pin inserted in a pa- ■ tient’s hand when hypnotised, and : there had been no pain or bleeding uni til after the hypnotic state. He • thought the fakirs might have been ; under the influence of auto-suggestion, ' and was prepared to accept that exJ planation rather than one of divine favour. ' r rhe lecturer agreed that the psychological effect of the beating of tom- ‘ toms, the night scene lighted by torches, and the frenzy of a. crowd of 5.000 wild onlookers, had to be taken into account, but he mentioned that a small number of fakirs bad pierced themselves in cold blood in order that he might take photographs. They ! showed no sign of pain, and their only ; concern while performing these feats was whether they were posing as he wanted them.