I only mention these circumstances because Mr. Crookes has stated that he knows no chemical preparation which would avert the ordinary action of heat. Mr. Clodd (on the authority of Sir B. W. Richardson) has suggested diluted sulphuric acid (so familiar to Klings, Hirpi, Tongans, and Fijians). But Mr. Clodd produced no examples of successful or unsuccessful experiment. [{173}] The nescience of Mr. Crookes may be taken to cover these valuable properties of diluted sulphuric acid, unless Mr. Clodd succeeds in an experiment which, if made on his own person, I would very willingly witness.
Merely for completeness, I mention Dr. Dozous’s statement, [{174}] that he timed by his watch Bernadette, the seer of Lourdes, while, for fifteen minutes, she, in an ecstatic condition, held her hands in the flame of a candle. He then examined her hands, which were not scorched or in any way affected by the fire. This is called, at Lourdes, the Miracle du Cierge.
Here ends my list of examples, in modern and ancient times, of a rite which deserves, though it probably will not receive, the attention of science. The widely diffused religious character of the performance will, perhaps, be admitted as demonstrated. As to the method by which the results are attained, whether by a chemical preparation, or by the influence of a certain mental condition, or by thickness of skin, or whether all the witnesses fable with a singular unanimity (shared by photographic cameras), I am unable even to guess. On May 21, in Bulgaria, a scientific observer might come to a conclusion. At present I think it possible that the Jewish ‘Passing through the Fire’ may have been a harmless rite.
Conclusion as to Fire-walk
In all these cases, and others as to which I have first-hand evidence, there are decided parallels to the Rite of the Hirpi, and to Biblical and ecclesiastical miracles. The savage examples are rites, and appear intended to secure good results in food supplies (Fiji), or general well-being, perhaps by expiation for sins, as in the Attic Thargelia. The Bulgarian rite also aims at propitiating general good luck.
Psychical Research
But how is the Fire-walk done? That remains a mystery, and perhaps no philologist, folk-lorist, anthropologist, or physiologist, has seriously asked the question. The medicamentum of Varro, the green frog fat of India, the diluted sulphuric acid of Mr. Clodd, are guesses in the air, and Mr. Clodd has made no experiment. The possibility of plunging the hand, unhurt, in molten metal, is easily accounted for, and is not to the point. In this difficulty Psychical Research registers, and no more, the well-attested performances of D. D. Home (entranced, like the Nistinares); the well observed and timed Miracle du Cierge at Lourdes—Bernadette being in an ecstatic condition; the Biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; the researches of Iamblichus; the case of Madame Shchapoff, carefully reported, [{175}] and other examples. There is no harm in collecting examples, and the question remains, are all those rites, from those of Virgil’s Hirpi to Bulgaria of to-day, based on some actual but obscure and scientifically neglected fact in nature? At all events, for the Soranus-Feronia rite philology only supplies her competing etymologies, folk-lore her modern rural parallels, anthropology her savage examples, psychical research her ‘cases’ at first-hand. Anthropology had neglected the collection of these, perhaps because the Fire-walk is ‘impossible.’
THE ORIGIN OF DEATH
Yama
This excursus on ‘The Fire-walk’ has been introduced, as an occasion arose, less because of controversy about a neglected theme than for the purpose of giving something positive in a controversial treatise. For the same reason I take advantage of Mr. Max Müller’s remarks on Yama, ‘the first who died,’ to offer a set of notes on myths of the Origin of Death. Yama, in our author’s opinion, is ‘the setting sun’ (i. 45; ii. 563). Agni (Fire) is ‘the first who was born;’ as the other twin, Yama, he was also the first who died (ii. 568). As ‘the setting sun he was the first instance of death.’ Kuhn and others, judging from a passage in the Atharva Veda (xviii. 3, 13), have, however, inferred that Yama ‘was really a human being and the first of mortals.’ He is described in the Atharva as ‘the gatherer of men, who died the first of mortals, who went forward the first to that world.’ In the Atharva we read of ‘reverence to Yama, to Death, who first approached the precipice, finding out the path for many.’ ‘The myth of Yama is perfectly intelligible, if we trace its roots back to the sun of evening’ (ii. 573). Mr. Max Müller then proposes on this head ‘to consult the traditions of real Naturvölker’ (savages). The Harvey Islanders speak of dying as ‘following the sun’s track.’ The Maoris talk of ‘going down with the sun’ (ii. 574). No more is said here about savage myths of ‘the first who died.’ I therefore offer some additions to the two instances in which savages use a poetical phrase connecting the sun’s decline with man’s death.