One of the most clearly attested instances of the kind alluded to is the experiment of the Fakir of Lahore, who, at the instance of Runjeet Singh, suffered himself to be buried alive in an air-tight vault for a period of six weeks. This case was thoroughly authenticated by Sir Claude Wade, the then British Resident at the court of Loodhiana. The fakir's nostrils and ears were first filled with wax; he was then placed in a linen bag, then deposited in a wooden box which was securely locked, and the box was deposited in a brick vault which was carefully plastered up with mortar and sealed with the Rajah's seal. A guard of British soldiers was then detailed to watch the vault day and night. At the end of the prescribed time the vault was opened in the presence of Sir Claude and Runjeet Singh, and the fakir was restored to consciousness.
Lieutenant Boileau relates another instance where a man suffered himself to be buried for a period of ten days in a grave lined with masonry and covered with a large slab of stone, the whole strictly guarded day and night. On being restored to consciousness, the man offered to submit to burial for a year, if the lieutenant so desired.
Many other well-authenticated instances are related by British residents in India, but these must suffice. In all these cases the subjects were in perfect health when the experiments were made, and in each instance the body, when disinterred, was found to present all the characteristics indicating death, except decomposition.
Volumes might be filled with well-authenticated cases of suspended animation, varying in duration from a few hours to many months; but it would be foreign to the purpose of this chapter to cite any. Sufficient instances have been given to illustrate the points which I shall attempt to make, as well as to show the intrinsic importance of the subject and the danger to be apprehended from ignorance of the psychic principles involved.
The fundamental error into which many physicians have fallen consists in the assumption that catalepsy is, per se, a disease. It must be said, however, to the credit of the profession, that no one pretends to understand it. Most medical writers confess that if it is a disease, it is one of which the pathology is but little understood by the profession, and they aver that morbid anatomy throws no light upon it whatever. In fact, some well-known writers have doubted its existence, and have attributed the recorded cases to gross imposture. It is, however, generally held to be a functional nervous disorder; but the tendency of modern investigation is in the direction of its psychic aspects, and moral means are now largely employed in its treatment by the best physicians.
The truth appears to be that catalepsy is not a disease in any proper sense of the word. The most that can be said is that it may be considered a symptom of certain diseases. That is to say, inasmuch as it commonly attacks those who are suffering from certain nervous disorders, it might be said to be a symptom indicating the presence of such disorders. But, I repeat, it is not a disease per se; and one prominent medical authority goes so far as to admit that "in itself catalepsy is never fatal." He might have gone further, and said that other diseases are rarely fatal when catalepsy supervenes.
Catalepsy belongs exclusively to the domain of hypnotism. I employ this term in the broadest significance of its Greek radix; for no matter how the condition is induced, it is purely a sleep of the objective senses, a suspension of the vital functions, a rest of all the vital organs. It can be induced in perfectly healthy persons by the hypnotic processes on the one hand, or, on the other, it may supervene after a long period of illness or nervous exhaustion. In both cases the phenomenon is the same; and when the patient is intelligently treated, the effect is always salutary. It is, in the highest sense of the phrase, a manifestation of the vis conservatrix naturæ; it is, of a truth, "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep."
Catalepsy is always easily induced in a hypnotic subject by the ordinary processes known to hypnotists, and the normal condition is as easily restored. It is always refreshing to the subject, especially when he is exhausted by mental or physical labor,—far more so than is ordinary sleep of the same duration. The same is true of the catalepsy which supervenes after a long period of illness or of nervous exhaustion. That this statement is true of the first class, we have the testimony of all who have been subjects of intelligent experiment. That it is true of the second class also, is attested by the fact that suspended animation is nearly always followed by the recovery of the patient from illness. The cataleptic condition marks the crisis in many diseases, especially those of the nerves. If the patient is properly managed during that crisis, his convalescence is assured.
Catalepsy may properly be divided into four classes, differing from one another only in the causes which induce the condition. The first is catalepsy from hypnotic suggestion; the second, epidemic catalepsy; the third, self-induced catalepsy; the fourth, catalepsy arising from disease or nervous exhaustion. Suggestion is the all-potent factor in the production of the catalepsy of the first three classes, as it is in the production of all other hypnotic phenomena. The suggestion may come, first, from an operator who purposely induces the condition as an experiment. Secondly, it may arise from the patient seeing other cataleptic subjects. In such cases, catalepsy may run through a whole school or a neighborhood, precisely as does epidemic insanity, St. Vitus's dance, and many other nervous troubles. "Imitation," or the disposition to imitate, has generally been assigned as the cause of such manifestations becoming epidemic among children. But this is a palpable error. It arises rather from the fear that each one feels—the mental suggestion that each one makes—that he or she may be the next victim. Thirdly, self-induced catalepsy is illustrated in the experiments of the East Indian fakirs, and arises from auto-suggestion. In these cases the condition is purely hypnotic, and is self-induced by simple processes, well known to all who have made an intelligent study of hypnotism as practised in the Orient.
It is not, however, with these classes that we have to deal in this chapter, but rather with cases which arise from disease or nervous exhaustion. In such cases, suggestion can hardly be considered as an initial cause, although, as we shall see further on, it is a potent factor in deepening, prolonging, and terminating the condition.