In centuries past, circus arenas and entertainment venues have performed people demonstrating their insensitivity to pain. One of these was the famous To-Rama, a man who bore a sonorous Hindu name.
He performed in circuses in Europe in the 1920s and even gave performances in Russia. In reality, this man was an Austrian, chemical engineer and "part-time" - a specialist in hypnotizing wild animals. Information about him has been preserved in the rare edition "What they write about To-Rama" (L., 1926).
As eyewitnesses testify, this person has learned to completely suppress pain sensitivity.
Punctures through the palms, forearms, shoulders, cheeks, produced by a long and thick needle, really did not cause any objective signs of perceived pain in him: the registration of the pulse, blood pressure did not show any changes during the punctures; reflex pupillary constriction - a reliable sign of hidden pain - was also not observed.
To-Rama told about himself that at the end of the First World War he was seriously wounded by a grenade fragment. In the field hospital, his condition was declared hopeless - the doctors talked about it, and he heard; he was placed on death row.
“Then,” writes To-Rama, “something rebelled in me … I gritted my teeth, and I had only one thought:“You must stay alive, you will not die, you do not feel any pain”- and that's all. the same kind. I repeated this to myself an infinite number of times, until this thought entered my flesh and blood so much that I finally ceased to feel pain. I don't know how it happened, but something incredible happened. The doctors shook their heads. My condition began to improve from day to day.
So I survived only with the help of will. Two months later, in one of the Viennese hospitals, I underwent a small operation without general anesthesia and even without local anesthesia, one auto-suggestion was enough. And when I fully recovered, I developed my own system of victory over myself and went so far in this respect that I do not experience suffering at all, if I do not want to experience it."
As follows from the story of this phenomenal man, he acquired insensitivity to pain through self-suggestion. In some cases, the same result gives an ecstatic state, as evidenced by the exploits of religious fanatics, fakirs, medieval witches and sorcerers: in a state of ecstasy, they lost pain sensitivity and endured the most incredible self-torture and torture with amazing resistance.
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It is quite possible that in this case one or another degree of self-hypnosis, suggesting the action of fanatical faith or self-hypnosis, played some role.
The psychophysiological feat of the famous in the past Russian revolutionary Kamo (Ter-Petrosyan) should be attributed to the same category of phenomena.
Once in a Berlin prison and saving his life, Kamo feigned insanity, and so skillfully that he managed to puzzle the doctors: his pupils, when the body of the revolutionary was burned, remained dilated, that is, they did not narrow reflexively!
A unique person from Donetsk, Valery Lavrinenko, along with voluntary cardiac arrest, demonstrated insensitivity to pain. This is how one of these demonstrations is described in the journal Technics for Youth (1979, No. 2):
“Valery, taking off his jacket, rolls up his shirt sleeves above the elbow. With a long, thin, about a millimeter thick, a knitting needle begins to dig into the arm at the very elbow bend. The needle passes through the skin, as if it passes between the muscle and the bone, and now you can see how the skin on the other side of the hand is stretched, a bump appears, the skin breaks through, settles, and the needle comes out. Not a drop of blood …
- Painfully? - the audience asks.
- No, it doesn't hurt, - Lavrinenko replies. - If there are those willing, I can pierce them too …
For some reason, no one expresses a particular desire. Finally a girl, our colleague from the neighboring editorial office, decides. The piercing operation proceeds in the same way. True, beforehand Valery quietly says something to the girl in her ear and draws a kind of "vicious circle" on her hand with his finger … Again, not a drop of blood.
- Painfully?
- No, - she laughs, - not a bit …
What are they showing us here? Yogic conditioning? Fakir tricks so often mentioned in foreign stories about the mysterious East? Or a completely modern auto-training, the ability to completely control your body, inspire others and get them to act as intended? And what was he secretly whispering in her ear and why did he draw a circle on her hand?
. Now it is clear, - the editorial board sums up, - that without auto-training was not done in the last experience - with a piercing of the hand. But why was there no blood, pain? And what did Valery whisper to the girl?
“All I said was that there would be no pain and that she believed in it. Having drawn a circle on the skin of his hand with his finger, he suggested focusing attention on this particular area, so that she “knew” that blood would not appear. And so it happened. But I must admit what doctors are well aware of: there are certain areas on the body that can be punctured painlessly. Of course, a lot here also depends on the subject himself - he must decide on such an operation, be able to gather, concentrate. The girl succeeded. Therefore, her damaged capillaries quickly clogged."
What all these people achieved through self-hypnosis, psychotherapists receive from their patients through suggestion in hypnosis or even in the waking state. In cases where anesthesia is contraindicated for health reasons, surgical operations with sufficient suggestibility of patients can be carried out under hypnosis or in a post-hypnotic state of wakefulness, after a suggestion was made during hypnosis aimed at eliminating or preventing pain. The same techniques apply to pain relief during labor.
In those not so distant years, when the whole country racked its brains over the "Kashpirovsky phenomenon", circus artist Mikhail Pliska - gymnast, acrobat, yogi, besides a doctor by training, a few years before that prepared in Tashkent for surgery without anesthesia (pain relief) front-line soldier Kh. A. Sapaev, to whom anesthesia was contraindicated. A participant in the Great Patriotic War, who had come a long way in life, suffered greatly: he had a dislocation of the neck of the hip of the hip joint.
Not a single clinic undertook the operation, doubting its successful outcome. And then Professor U. T. Islambekov, Doctor S. T. Marutyan got down to business, and they invited Mikhail Pliska as their assistants. However, before deciding on this, Mikhail underwent the operation without anesthesia himself - removal of the scaphoid bone on his arm.
Moreover, after a few days, he had already started his usual training, gradually increasing the load. Excellent knowledge of anatomy, the nuances of the human psyche, a subtle mastery of many elements of psychotherapy - all this prompted him to participate in this operation. And it went brilliantly!
The wonders of convulsive resilience
Convulsions are adherents of a sect that grew out of Jansenism (an unorthodox trend in French and Dutch Catholicism). The appearance of convulsions is associated with the name of the Jansenist François Paris. He was the eldest son of an adviser to the Paris Parliament. Carried away early by Jansenism, after the death of his father, he gave up his seat in parliament to his younger brother in order to devote himself entirely to devout reflections.
Paris died in 1727, at the age of thirty-six. The Jansenists revered him as a saint, although he had not been to the sacrament for the last fourteen years on the pretext that he was not worthy of it. Before his death, he dictated his confession of faith and bequeathed to bury himself like a poor man in a common cemetery. Fulfilling the will of the deceased, Paris was buried in the parish cemetery of the Church of St. Medard, where a crowd of cripples gathered the next day in anticipation of healing.
Some fanatics publicly scourged themselves, tore rags on their bodies and drove themselves to ecstasy, accompanied by convulsions.
It was in these seizures that the "convulsions" entered a state of trance and showed their unusual abilities. For example, they could endure almost unimaginable physical torture without any harm. Beatings, torture, blows with heavy and sharp objects, suffocation - all this did not lead to injury or even the slightest scratches.
These miraculous events are unique in the sense that thousands of people have watched them. The collective psychosis around Paris's grave and in the surrounding streets continued for many days and nights; moreover, twenty years later miracles were still occurring, and, as noted in the city chronicle, "3000 volunteers were required to at least monitor the decency of women who could look immodest during convulsions."
Thus, the supernatural powers of the "convulsions" attracted attention from everywhere, and thousands rushed to observe them for themselves. Among them were representatives of all walks of life and all social institutions - educational, religious and government; numerous evidences of these miracles, official and unofficial, are full of documents of that time.
Moreover, many witnesses, such as the observers sent by the church, intended to debunk the Jansenist miracles, but were forced to admit them (subsequently, the Vatican tried to logically justify its irreconcilable position, according to which miracles were declared to be the machinations of Satan).
One such observer, Louis-Basile Carre de Montgeron, a member of the Paris Parliament, witnessed so many miracles that it took four thick volumes to describe them, published in 1737 under the title La Verite des Miracles. In this work, he gives numerous examples of the invulnerability of "convulsions".
One case he described concerns a twenty-year-old "convulsion woman" named Jeanne Molay, who was chained to a wall, and then one of the volunteers, "a very strong man," hit her in the stomach a hundred times with a thirty-pound hammer (the "convulsions" themselves asked for torture, since torture, according to them, they relieved the pain during the convulsions themselves).
To test the force of the blows, Montgeron himself took a hammer and began to hit it on the wall to which the girl was chained. He wrote: "On the twenty-fifth blow, the stone under my blows suddenly went into the wall, opening a large opening."
Montgeron describes another case when the "convulsion" was not only arched backward, but also leaned her back on a sharp stake. She asked that a fifty-pound stone, tied to a rope, fall on her stomach "from a great height."
The stone was picked up and then thrown on her stomach over and over again, but the woman seemed to be in no pain. She effortlessly remained in her incredibly uncomfortable position, and at the end of this ordeal she was left without a single bruise. According to Montgeron, during the test, she continuously shouted: "Hit harder, harder!"
Indeed, the "convulsions" seemed to be completely invulnerable. They did not feel any blows from metal rods, chains or clubs. The strongest torturers-stranglers could not cause any harm to any of them. Some were crucified, but not a trace of wounds remained on them. And what is most striking: not a single "convulsion" could be wounded or pierced with knives, swords or cleavers!
Montgeron describes a case when an iron drill was placed with a point on the abdomen of a "convulsive man" and then the drill was hit with a hammer with all his might, so that "it seemed to go through all the organs to the spine." But this did not happen, and the "convulsive man" kept his "expression of complete delight", shouting "Oh, how good I am! Be bold, brother, strike even harder if you can!"
Insensitivity to torture was not the only ability of the Jansenists during convulsions. Some became clairvoyant and were able to "see things hidden." Others could read with their eyes closed and blindfolded; there have been cases of levitation. One of the levitating people, an abbot named Becherand from Montpellier, was thrown into the air during the attack "with such force that even the eyewitnesses who were present could not keep him on the ground."
Although today we have forgotten about the Jansenist miracles, in due time they were on everyone's lips. The niece of the famous mathematician and philosopher Pascal managed to get rid of barley for a century with the help of frenzied prayer. Louis XV unsuccessfully tried to stop the "convulsions" by closing the Saint-Medard cemetery, about which Voltaire remarked sarcastically: "By the order of the king, God is forbidden to perform any miracles here."
And the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote in his Philosophical Essays: “Truly, there have not yet been such a large number of miracles attributed to one person as those that occurred in France at the grave of the Abbot de Paris. Many of these miracles were witnessed on the spot by people of impeccable reputation - and this in an enlightened age, in the most cultured country in the world."
Mirin Dajo
Mirin Dajo's speeches, according to the students of the medical university who watched him, were as follows:
“Naked to the waist, he stands quietly in the middle of the room. The assistant swiftly approaches him from behind and plunges the rapier into the kidney area. The hall is completely silent. The observers sit with their mouths open and cannot believe their own eyes. It is obvious that the blade has passed through the body, and the tip of the sword is visible from the front. Everything that happens seems unreal, since there is not a single drop of blood on his body …"
Mirin Dajo, real name Arnold Gerrit Henske, was born on August 6, 1912 in Rotterdam, the son of a postman and the daughter of a priest. He was engaged in drawing and at the age of 20 he headed a group of architects in a design bureau.
In childhood and adolescence, strange incidents constantly happened to him. He once painted a portrait of his late aunt, who had lived her entire life in South Africa and whom he had never seen. He was able to draw her with such precision, as if she was standing in front of him in the room. Waking up in the morning, he was surprised to find that his hands and sheets were stained with paint, and in the studio everything was turned upside down. He painted his pictures in a dream, then waking up and remembering nothing …
The most important events in Nol's life occurred at the age of 33. At this time, he realized that his body is invulnerable. After that, he quit his job and moved to Amsterdam, where he began performing in cafes, allowing the audience to pierce him through, swallowing shards and blades. He claimed that they dissolve inside him. However, the circumstances of his death actually leave this question open. Soon the whole city knew about him.
Arnold Henske took a pseudonym not for the sake of fame, but only for the reason that Mirin Dajo means "amazing" in Esperanto. He, like many at that time, believed that with the help of the artificial language Esperanto it would be possible to overcome barriers in communication between different peoples.
Soon Mirin Dajo meets with Jan Dirk de Groot, who has become his only and faithful assistant. Jan de Groot over time about what happened behind the scenes and how he remembered Mirin Dajo. He claimed that Dajo has at least three guardian angels who protected him and made it clear what tests you can put your own body under. Many tests have not been shown in public, such as being doused with boiling water. At the same time, Dajo's skin did not even turn red, not to mention the fact that there was no burn
Mirin Dajo became popular, he was examined by doctors many times. His performance was especially special at the Zurich Cantonal Hospital, where he performed in May 1947. Stripping to the waist, Mirin Dajo turned to face the audience, and the assistant pierced his heart, kidneys and lungs with a sword!
However, these punctures, fatal for an ordinary person, did not bring any pain or harm to Dajo, nor did he shed a drop of blood. The rapier didn't even seem to bother him. The emerging opinion of mass hypnosis disappeared after several X-rays were taken, which clearly showed the blades passing through the body.
Of course, there was a fear that after removing the rapier, severe internal bleeding would occur. The doctors expected just such a result. But when the rapier was carefully removed from Dajo's body, small specks remained on the skin: at the point of entry and exit of the blade. The tiny wounds were washed and treated, although Mirin Dajo said that he was not in danger of infection and could not. Then he completely shocked the gathered audience, going down to the park and running a couple of laps with his sword.
Despite the fact that daggers and rapiers did not cause any visible harm to Dajo himself, the audience themselves quite often fainted. During one of the performances in Switzerland, an impressionable spectator had a heart attack. At the show at Corso in Zurich, the tip of the sword hit a bone.
Hearing the characteristic crunch in absolute silence, several people fainted. It all ended with the fact that Dajo was banned from holding his shows in large halls. I had to limit myself to small cafes and bars. However, Mirin did not complain. After all, he started just from such sites …
Jan de Groot says that Dajo was pierced more than 50 times on a day, and more than 100 times on several days. Sharp knitting needles and rapiers passed through the heart, lungs and spleen, sometimes through several organs at the same time, while there was no blood. From time to time, the blades sprinkled with poison or deliberately rusted. In one performance in Zurich, to prove to the public that this was not a hoax, Dajo was pierced with three hollow 8mm tubes, through which they let water.
Dajo liked to say that it is not metal that goes through him, but that he goes through metal. He dematerialized the part of the body through which the weapon passed. In one exercise, de Groot watched as Dajo became completely invisible and materialized only when his emotional balance was disturbed.
However, the invulnerability of Mirin Dajo was not absolute, once while jogging he broke his arm while falling. However, Groot, who was present, said that Dajo simply set the bone and the fracture was gone!
However, Dajo's performances did not last even three years. In May 1948, Dajo, at the behest of the Guardian Angels, swallowed a steel needle. The needle was in Dajo's body for two days, and then he underwent surgery to remove it. After a successful operation, Groot went to the airport in order to meet his wife. Together they saw Dajo lying motionless in bed.
Groot knew that Dajo meditated very often and left his body, he just looked at his pulse, he was quite normal and even and left. However, Mirin Dajo didn’t get up even the next day, and Groot became worried, as there hadn’t been such a long trance. The next day Mirin Dajo died.
An autopsy revealed the cause of Mirin's death - aortic rupture. However, the surgeon who operated on Mirin and his friend Groot did not agree with this conclusion. According to Groot, Mirin knew about his death. A few months before his death, Mirin told Groot that he would no longer see his homeland, and before the final experiment, he refused Groot's help so that he would not be brought to justice.
