With respect to the dervish, or fakeer, an account of his singular faculty was, I believe, first presented to the public in the Calcutta papers about nine or ten years ago. He had then frequently exhibited it for the satisfaction of the natives; but subsequently he was put to the proof by some of the European officers and residents. Captain Wade, political agent at Loodhiana, was present when he was disinterred, ten months after he had been buried by General Ventura, in presence of the maharajah and many of his principal sirdars.
It appears that the man previously prepared himself by some processes, which, he says, temporarily annihilate the powers of digestion, so that milk received into the stomach undergoes no change. He next forces all the breath in his body into his brain, which becomes very hot, upon which the lungs collapse, and the heart ceases to beat. He then stops up, with wax, every aperture of the body through which air could enter, except the mouth, but the tongue is so turned back as to close the gullet, upon which a state of insensibility ensues. He is then stripped and put into a linen bag; and, on the occasion in question, this bag was sealed with Runjeet Sing’s own seal. It was then placed in a deal box, which was also locked and sealed, and the box being buried in a vault, the earth was thrown over it and trod down, after which a crop of barley was sown on the spot, and sentries placed to watch it. The maharajah, however, was so skeptical, that, in spite of all these precautions, he had him, twice in the course of the ten months, dug up and examined, and each time he was found to be exactly in the same state as when they had shut him up.
When he is disinterred, the first step toward his recovery is to turn back his tongue, which is found quite stiff, and requires for some time to be retained in its proper position by the finger; warm water is poured upon him, and his eyes and lips moistened with ghee, or oil. His recovery is much more rapid than might be expected, and he is soon able to recognise the bystanders, and converse. He says, that, during this state of trance, his dreams are ravishing, and that it is very painful to be awakened; but I do not know that he has ever disclosed any of his experiences. His only apprehension seems to be, lest he should be attacked by insects, to avoid which accident the box is slung to the ceiling. The interval seems to be passed in a complete state of hibernation; and when he is taken up, no pulse is perceptible, and his eyes are glazed like those of a corpse.
He subsequently refused to submit to the conditions proposed by some English officers, and thus incurred their suspicions, that the whole thing was an imposition; but the experiment has been too often repeated by people very well capable of judging, and under too stringent precautions, to allow of this mode of escaping the difficulty. The man assumes to be holy, and is very probably a worthless fellow, but that does not affect the question one way or the other. Indian princes do not permit themselves to be imposed on with impunity; and, as Runjeet Sing would not value the man’s life at a pin’s point, he would neglect no means of debarring him all access to food or air.
In the above-quoted cases, except in those of Corfidius and Hermotinus, the absence of the spirit is alone suggested to the spectator by the condition of the body; since the memory of one state does not appear to have been carried into the other—if the spirit wandered into other regions it brings no tidings back; but we have many cases recorded where this deficient evidence seems to be supplied. The magicians and soothsayers of the northern countries, by narcotics, and other means, produce a cataleptic state of the body, resembling death, when their prophetic faculty is to be exercised; and although we know that an alloy of imposition is generally mixed up with these exhibitions, still it is past a doubt, that a state of what we call clear-seeing is thus induced; and that on awaking, they bring tidings from various parts of the world of actions then performing and events occurring, which subsequent investigations have verified.
One of the most remarkable cases of this kind, is that recorded by Jung Stilling, of a man, who about the year 1740, resided in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, in the United States. His habits were retired, and he spoke little; he was grave, benevolent, and pious, and nothing was known against his character, except that he had the reputation of possessing some secrets that were not altogether lawful. Many extraordinary stories were told of him, and among the rest, the following: The wife of a ship-captain, whose husband was on a voyage to Europe and Africa, and from whom she had been long without tidings, overwhelmed with anxiety for his safety, was induced to address herself to this person. Having listened to her story, he begged her to excuse him for awhile, when he would bring her the intelligence she required. He then passed into an inner room, and she sat herself down to wait; but his absence continuing longer than she expected, she became impatient, thinking he had forgotten her; and so softly approaching the door, she peeped through some aperture, and to her surprise, beheld him lying on a sofa, as motionless as if he was dead. She of course, did not think it advisable to disturb him, but waited his return, when he told her that her husband had not been able to write to her for such and such reasons; but that he was then in a coffeehouse in London, and would shortly be home again. Accordingly, he arrived, and as the lady learned from him that the causes of his unusual silence had been precisely those alleged by the man, she felt extremely desirous of ascertaining the truth of the rest of the information; and in this she was gratified; for he no sooner set his eyes on the magician than he said that he had seen him before, on a certain day, in a coffeehouse in London; and that he had told him his wife was extremely uneasy about him; and that he, the captain, had thereon mentioned how he had been prevented writing; adding that he was on the eve of embarking for America. He had then lost sight of the stranger among the throng, and knew nothing more about him.
I have no authority for this story, but that of Jung Stilling; and if it stood alone, it might appear very incredible; but it is supported by so many parallel examples of information given by people in somnambulic states, that we are not entitled to reject it on the score of impossibility.
The late Mr. John Holloway, of the bank of England, brother to the engraver of that name, related of himself that being one night in bed with his wife and unable to sleep, he had fixed his eyes and thoughts with uncommon intensity on a beautiful star that was shining in at the window, when he suddenly found his spirit released from his body and soaring into that bright sphere. But, instantly seized with anxiety for the anguish of his wife, if she discovered his body apparently dead beside her, he returned, and re-entered it with difficulty (hence, perhaps, the violent convulsions with which some somnambules of the highest order are awakened). He described that returning, was returning to darkness; and that while the spirit was free, he was alternately in the light or the dark, accordingly as his thoughts were with his wife or with the star. He said that he always avoided anything that could produce a repetition of this accident, the consequences of it being very distressing.
We know that by intense contemplation of this sort, the dervishes produce a state of ecstasy, in which they pretend to be transported to other spheres; and not only the seeress of Prevorst, but many other persons in a highly magnetic state, have asserted the same thing of themselves; and certainly the singular conformity of the intelligence they bring is not a little remarkable.
Dr. Kerner relates of his somnambule, Frederica Hauffe, that one day, at Weinsberg, she exclaimed in her sleep, “Oh! God!” She immediately awoke, as if aroused by the exclamation, and said that she seemed to have heard two voices proceeding from herself. At this time her father was lying dead in his coffin, at Oberstenfeld, and Dr. Fohr, the physician, who had attended him in his illness, was sitting with another person in an adjoining room, with the door open, when he heard the exclamation “Oh, God!” so distinctly, that, feeling certain there was nobody there, he hastened to the coffin, whence the sound had appeared to proceed, thinking that Mr. W——’s death had only been apparent, and that he was reviving. The other person, who was an uncle of Frederica, had heard nothing. No person was discovered from whom the exclamation could have proceeded, and the circumstance remained a mystery till an explanation ensued. Plutarch relates, that a certain man, called Thespesius, having fallen from a great height, was taken up apparently dead from the shock, although no external wound was to be discovered. On the third day after the accident, however, when they were about to bury him, he unexpectedly revived; and it was afterward observed, to the surprise of all who knew him, that, from being a vicious reprobate, he became one of the most virtuous of men. On being interrogated with respect to the cause of the change, he related that, during the period of his bodily insensibility, it appeared to him that he was dead, and that he had been first plunged into the depths of an ocean, out of which however, he soon emerged, and then, at one view, the whole of space was disclosed to him. Everything appeared in a different aspect, and the dimensions of the planetary bodies, and the intervals between them, were tremendous, while his spirit seemed to float in a sea of light, like a ship in calm waters. He also described many other things that he had seen. He said that the souls of the dead, on quitting the body, appeared like a bubble of light, out of which a human form was quickly evolved. That of these, some shot away at once in a direct line, with great rapidity, while others, on the contrary, seemed unable to find their due course, and continued to hover about, going hither and thither, till at length they also darted away in one direction or another. He recognised few of these persons he saw, but those whom he did, and sought to address, appeared as if they were stunned and amazed, and avoided him with terror. Their voices were indistinct, and seemed to be uttering vague lamentings. There were others, also, who floated farther from the earth, who looked bright, and were gracious; these avoided the approach of the last. In short, the demeanor and appearance of these spirits manifested clearly their degrees of joy or grief. Thespesius was then informed by one of them, that he was not dead, but that he had been permitted to come there by a Divine decree, and that his soul, which was yet attached to his body, as by an anchor, would return to it again. Thespesius then observed that he was different to the dead by whom he was surrounded, and this observation seemed to restore him to his recollection. They were transparent, and environed by a radiance, but he seemed to trail after him a dark ray, or line of shadow. These spirits also presented very different aspects; some were entirely pervaded by a mild, clear radiance, like that of the full moon; through others there appeared faint streaks, that diminished this splendor; while others, on the contrary, were distinguished by spots, or stripes of black, or of a dark color, like the marks on the skin of a viper.