MARVELS OF INDIAN MAGICIANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2045, 4 May 1893, Page 42

MARVELS OF INDIAN MAGICIANS.

Professor H. Kellar, himself a professional conjuror, maintains, in the North American Review for January, that the marvels wrought by the fakirs of India aro inexplicable on the hypothesis of mere jugglery. In this, and especially in the accounts he gives o: iilk-ged marvels, his experience and contentions are carioualy at variance with those of Mr Maskelyne and others who have studied and recently written on the subject. "Fifteen years," Professor Kellar says, "spent in India and the far East have convinced me that the high-caste fakir 3, or magicians, of Northern India have probably discovered natural laws oi which we in the West are ignorant. That they succeed in overcoming forces of nature which to us seem insurmountable, my observation satisfies me beyond doubt." Oae of his stories relates to a scene which he declares was witnessed by the Prince of Wales in the winter of 1875 76, in the Maidan of Calcutta, when there were some 50,000 persona present. Tbe master magician for the occasion stuck three swords, hilts downwards, about Gin into the earth, leaving the points in the air. He then made a companion rigid and apparently lifeless. With she assistance of a third fakir the stiffened body was then lifted upon the points of the three swords. One point was under the nape

of the neck, the second midway between the shoulders, and the third at the base of the spiae. The legs protruded perfectly stiff without any support. The magician with a dagger then dug away tbe soil round the hilts, first of one sword and then of another, until he had removed the three. The stiffened body, however, in broad daylight, and under the eyes o? all the spectators, preserved it 3 horizontal position without visible support about 2ft above the ground. After allowing it to remain there some time they lifted the body to the ground and with a few passes restored it to animation. Another story which he tells was brought about by a witch doctor, who produced levitation by waving a bunch of grass above the head of a youog Zulu. He asserts that the apparently lifeless form of the young Zulu roee from the earth and floated upwards in the air to the height of about 3ft, remaining suspended and moving up and down according as the passes of a tuft of burning grass held in the hands of the witch doctor were slower or faster.