Premature Burial and How It May Be Prevented

by William Tebb; Edward Perry Vollum

Mr. Chunder Sen, municipal secretary to the Maharajah of Jeypore, introduced the author, during his visit to India, March 8, 1896, to a venerable and learned fakir, who was seated on a couch Buddhist fashion, the feet turned towards the stomach, in the attitude of meditation, in a small but comfortable house near the entrance to the beautiful public gardens of that city. The fakir possesses the power of self-induced trance, which really amounts to a suspension of life, being indistinguishable from death. In the month of December, 1895, he passed into and remained in this condition for twenty days. On several occasions the experiment has been conducted under test conditions. In 1889, Dr. Hem Chunder Sen, of Delhi, and his brother,SELF-INDUCED HIBERNATION. Mr. Chunder Sen, had the opportunity of examining the fakir while passing into a state of hibernation, and found that the pulse beat slower and slower until it ceased to beat at all. The stethoscope was applied to the heart by the doctor, who failed to detect the slightest motion. The fakir, covered with a white shroud, was placed in a small subterraneous cell built of masonry, measuring about six feet by six feet, of rotund structure. The door was closed and locked, and the lock sealed with Dr. Sen’s private seal and with that of Mr. Dhanna Tal, the magistrate of the city; the flap door leading to the vault was also carefully fastened. At the expiration of thirty-three days the cell was opened, and the fakir was found just where he was placed, but with a death-like appearance, the limbs having become stiff as in rigor mortis. He was brought from the vault, and the mouth was rubbed with honey and milk, and the body and joints massaged with oil. In the evening, manifestations of life were exhibited, and the fakir was fed with a spoonful of milk. The next day he was given a little juice of pulses known as dal, and in three days he was able to eat bread and milk, his normal diet. These cases are well known both at Delhi and at Jeypore, and the facts have never been disputed. The fakir is a Sanscrit scholar, and is said to be endowed with much wisdom, and is consulted by those who are interested in Hindu learning and religion. He has never received money from visitors, and the mention of it distresses him.

The Medical Times of May 11, 1850, contains a communication from Mr. Braid, who says he has “lost no opportunity of accumulating evidence on this subject, and that while many alleged feats of this kind are probably of a deceptive character, still there are others which admit of no such explanation; and that it becomes the duty of scientific men fairly to admit the difficulty.” He then refers to two documents by eye-witnesses of these feats, and which, he says, “with the previous evidence on the subject, must set the point at rest for ever, as to the fact of the feats referred to being genuine phenomena, deception being impossible.” In one of these instances, the fakir was buried in the ground for six weeks, and was, consequently, deprived not only of food and drink, but also of light and air; when he was disinterred, his legs and arms were shrivelled and stiff, but his face was full; no pulse could be discovered in the heart, temples, or arms. “About three years since I spent some time with a General C——, a highly respectable and intelligent man, who had been a long time in the Indian service, and who was himself an eye-witness of one of these feats. A fakir was buried several feet in the earth, under vigilant inspection, and a watch was set, so that no one could communicate with him; and to make the matter doubly sure, corn was sown upon the grave, and during the time the man was buried, it vegetated and grew to the height of several inches. He lay there forty-two days. The gentleman referred to passed the place many times during his burial, saw the growing corn, was also present at his disinterment, and when he questioned the man, and intimated to him that he thought deception had been practised, the fakir offered, for a sum of money, to be buried again, for the same length of time, by the General himself, and in his own garden. This challenge, of course, closed the argument.”

CASES REPORTED BY MR. BRAID.

Cases of this kind might be multiplied on evidence which cannot be doubted, and, in Mr. Braid’s book, entitled “Human Hibernation,” there are cases fully stated. Sir Claude Wade, who was an eye-witness of these feats when acting as political agent at the Court of Runjeet Singh, at Lahore, and from whom Mr. Braid derived his information, makes the following observations:—“I share entirely in the apparent incredibility of the fact of a man being buried alive and surviving the trial for various periods of duration; but however incompatible with our knowledge of physiology, in the absence of any visible proof to the contrary, I am bound to declare my belief in the facts which I have represented, however impossible their existence may appear to others.” Upon this Mr. Braid observes:—“Such then is the narrative of Sir C. M. Wade, and when we consider the high character of the author as a gentleman of honour, talents, and attainments of the highest order, and the searching, painstaking efforts displayed by him throughout the whole investigation, and his close proximity to the body of the fakir, and opportunity of observing minutely every point for himself, as well as the facilities, by his personal intercourse with Runjeet Singh and the whole of his Court, of gaining the most accurate information on every point, I conceive it is impossible to have had a more valuable or conclusive document for determining the fact that no collusion or deception existed.”

A case of this kind was exhibited at the Westminster Aquarium in the autumn of 1895, which was carefully watched and tested by medical experts, without detection of any appearance of fraud or simulation. The hypnotised man, Walter Johnson, an ex-soldier, twenty-nine years of age, was in a trance which lasted thirty days, during which time he was absolutely unconscious, as shown by the various experiments to which he was subjected.

A case of induced trance and experimental burial, not unlike that of the Indian fakirs referred to, was reported in the London Daily Chronicle, March 14, 1896. The experiment was carried out under test conditions.

“‘BURIED ALIVE’ AT THE ROYAL AQUARIUM.

“After being entombed for six days in a hypnotic trance, Alfred Wootton was dug up and awakened at the Royal Aquarium (Westminster), on Saturday night in the presence of a crowd of interested spectators. Wootton was hypnotised on Monday by Professor Fricker, and consigned to his voluntary grave, nine feet deep, in view of the audience, who sealed the stout casket or coffin in which the subject was immured. Seven or eight feet of earth were then shovelled upon the body, a shaft being left open for the necessary respiration, and in order that the public might be able to see the man’s face during the week. The experiment was a novel one in this country, and was intended to illustrate the extraordinary effect produced by the Indian fakirs, and to demonstrate the connection between hypnotism and psychology, while also showing the value of the former art as a curative agent. Wootton is a man thirty-eight years of age; he is a lead-worker, and on Monday weighed 10st. 2-1/2 lbs. He had previously been in a trance for a week in Glasgow, under Professor Fricker’s experienced hands, so was not altogether new to the business; but he is the first to be ‘buried alive’ by way of amusement. To the uninitiated the whole thing was gruesome in the extreme, and this particular form of entertainment certainly cannot be commended. Before being covered in, Wootton’s nose and ears were stopped with wax, which was removed before he was revived on Saturday. The theory of the burial is to secure an equable temperature day and night—which is impossible when the subject is above ground in the ordinary way—and therefore to induce a deeper trance. Of course, too, the patient was out of reach of the operator, and no suspicion of continuous hypnotising could rest upon the professor. No nourishment could be supplied for the same reason, though the man’s lips were occasionally moistened by means of a damp sponge on the end of a rod, and no record of temperature or respiration could be kept. A good many people witnessed the digging up process, and the awakening took place in the concert room, whither the casket and its burden were conveyed. The professor was not long in arousing his subject, after electric and other tests had been applied to convince the audience that the man was perfectly insensible to pain and everything else. Indeed, a large needle was run through the flesh on the back of the hand without any effect whatever. The first thing on regaining consciousness that Wootton said was that he could not see, and then he asked for drink—milk, and subsequently a little brandy, being supplied. As soon as possible the patient was lifted out of his box, and with help was quickly able to walk about the platform. He complained of considerable stiffness of the limbs, and was undoubtedly weak, but otherwise seemed none the worse for his remarkable retirement from active life, and abstention from food for nearly a week. He was swathed in flannel, and soon found the heat of the room very oppressive, though at first he appeared to be particularly anxious to have his overcoat and his boots. It is anticipated that in a day or two at most Wootton will have regained his usual vigorous health.”

EXPERIMENTAL BURIAL.

Dr. Hartmann in “Premature Burial,” page 23, relates an account of a similar experiment with a fakir, differing from the above, however, in so far as it was made by some English residents, who did not put the coffin into the earth, but hung it up in the air, so as to protect it from the danger of being eaten up by white ants. There seems to be hardly any limitation in regard to the time during which such a body may be preserved and become reanimated again, provided that it is well protected, although modern ignorance may smile at this statement.