Mirin Dajo was one of the most mysterious people of the last century. Even against the background of recognized magicians and psychics, he looked like a truly unique person. The fact is that Dajo's body possessed a certain phenomenal property: the wounds inflicted on it did not cause any harm to the person.
An architect who works wonders
Arnold Gerrit Henske was born in Rotterdam on August 6, 1912. Since childhood, he was fond of drawing, and then studied to be an architect. For a time, Henske worked in a design office and led an ordinary life. But at 32, everything changed. Once a man accidentally injured his hand. He was surprised that the wound did not even bleed and healed almost instantly. Then Arnold made a few more cuts on his arm. The effect was the same.
Henske quit his job in a design office and went to Amsterdam, where he demonstrated his unexpectedly discovered "talent" in various entertainment establishments. Drunk clients stabbed Arnold for a small fee. Before their eyes, the cuts instantly healed …
Henske soon became a celebrity. He invented a stage name for himself in Esperanto - Mirin Dajo. It meant "wonderful" or "amazing".
Man in needles
Promotional video:
The performances gave a noticeable profit, and Dajo began to go on foreign tours. By that time, the artist hired an assistant who, on stage, thrust dagger and rapier points into his chest and back. Moreover, they entered the body in the area of vital organs - the heart, lungs, liver, spleen … But in those places where they entered and left the artist's body, only subtle spots remained. He himself ended the performance safe and sound.
Of course, there was talk that Dajo is just a clever illusionist, and what he demonstrates is nothing more than tricks. Then the artist arranged a session specifically for medical professionals. In front of the students and teachers of the Faculty of Medicine, an assistant thrust a one-meter long rapier blade into his kidney area. Having pierced the body, the end of the rapier came out. Not a single drop of blood appeared on the artist's body. Everything that happened was filmed on cameras.
Over time, Dajo's performances became more dynamic. Now, together with the artist, several assistants performed at once, who at a fast pace stuck needles, knitting needles, stilettos and darts into his body. It was littered with sharp objects. Sometimes they used rusty or red-hot blades, smeared them with poison. They also doused Dajo with boiling water, but his skin did not even redden.
In 1947, during the next performance of Dajo in Zurich, an X-ray was taken of the organs through which the tip passed. The photographs clearly showed how the blade passes through the organs. The other in Dajo's place would have been dead long ago …
However, the artist was invulnerable not only to sharp objects or boiling water. Once on a walk, he received a broken arm, but he immediately grew together on the spot.
Accident
However, it all ends someday. Once during a performance, Dajo swallowed a steel needle. Two days later, the audience gathered again, and before their eyes, the surgeon removed it from the artist's body. Those present watched how the postoperative suture was tightened … Everything seemed to go well. But ten days later, Dajo fell into a trance, and two days later, on May 26, 1948, the assistant found his patron dead in bed. An autopsy showed that the cause of death was aortic rupture. Perhaps, swallowing the needle, he did something wrong, or perhaps his anomalous abilities disappeared somewhere.
One way or another, people like Mirin Dajo have never met in history, and researchers to this day cannot explain his phenomenal gift.
Irina Shlionskaya