CHAPTER XV.

Secrets employed in working apparent miracles, in initiations, and in religious rites — ^Those giving security against the effects of fire, and used in the fiery ordeal, known in Asia and in Italy, and practised in the eastern Roman Empire as well as in Europe, in more modem times — ^Process by which wood may be rendered incombustible.
The knowledge of those energetic substances which, acting externally on organized bodies, enable man to come in contact with flame, boiling water, red-hot iron, and fused metals, had likewise its origin, or at least was prac- tised, in the temples. It was long confined to them ; and it has never been fuUy revealed to the multitude.
The mere approach of fire to any combustible body is so fiightful, and its ravages are so devastating, that an apparent miracle, displaying the power of resistance to its influence, could not fail to further the designs of the workers of wonders, as the following facts demonstrate:
1st. The candidate for initiation probably experienced this trial on his admission. It would be absurd to believe that in this mystery aU the proofs to which the aspirant were subjected, were illusions and juggling tricks ; and especially the ordeal by fire.
SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES; 309
The Tartars, on the approach to their hordes of a stranger, or an Ambassador, or a King, or even of an ordinary traveller, long observed the custom of causing him to pass between two lighted piles of faggots, in order to his purification from any malignant influence which he might bear about him.* It merely required the space between the faggots to be widened or narrowed, and this purification became either a trial, or a torture, or a mortal punishment. In the initiations, this ceremony, undoubt- edly borrowed. from the Tartars, might have been so managed as to enable the priests easily to punish impru-^ dent individuals, who put themselves in their power, after having offended them ; or who had attempted to shake the sincerity of the faith of others, or to thwart their intentions, by making them disappear among the flames.
In the rites of the most ancient initiations, fire was an important agent in the frightftJ trials of this nature, which were endured by Zoroaster before commencing his prophetic mission^f
Among the preparations of initiation, were one or many baths, regulated by the priests. It is not difficult to conceive that, by immersion in these baths, a transient power of resisting fire was communicated to the aspi- rant.J In submitting afterwards to the fiery ordeal, the
* Abel Remusat. Mimoires sur les Relations PoUtiques des Rots de France avec les Empereurs Mongols. — Journal Asiatiqw, tome i, p. 135.
t Vie de Zoroastre, Zenda-vesta, tome i, 2nd part, p. 24.
I It is not easy to conjecture the nature of these baths ; but the solution, whatever was the substance dissolved in the water, must have left upon the surface some incombustible matter; but it was not necessary that it should have been a non-conductor of heat, as some
310 SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES.
faith of the aspirant must have been great enough to persuade him that he would be preserved from all injury by his confidence m the Divinity ; or, were this convic- tion not felt, he must have relied on hid intrepidity.
contend. Albertus Magnus informs us that it consisted of pow- dered lime, formed into a paste with the juice of the radish, the white of egg, the juice of the marsh-mallow, and the seeds of the flea-bane. He adds that, if one coat of this compound is applied to the body, and allowed to dry, and another coat laid on it, the body will be preserved from the effects of fire.' Many experiments have proved that the living body has an extraordinary power of resisting heat, provided it does not come into immediate contact with the burning substance. The experiments instituted by Dimtze and Tillet on the continent, and by Dr. Fordyce, Sir Joseph Banks, and Mr. Blagden, in this country, proved that a temperature between 198" and 260** Fahr. may be borne with impunity, if the feet of the person be covered with flannel, which is a non-conductor. To prove the influence of this temperature on inanimate bodies, they placed eggs and a beef-steak upon a tin frame in a heated room to nearly 300", near the thermometer: in the space of twenty minutes the eggs were roasted quite hard, and in forty-seven minutes the steak was overdone and dry.*" The female of a baker at Rochefoucaylt, clothed in flannel, was in the daily habit of enter- ing her master's oven, and remaining long enough to remove all the loaves; and Dr. Brewster informs us that the late Sir Francis Chantry's workmen entered the oven employed for drjring the moulds, an iron apartment fourteen feet long, twelve feet high, and twelve feet broad, the temperature of which, with closed doors, was 350", and the iron floor red hot. They were guarded against the heat of the floor by wooden clogs, which were, of course, charred on the surface. "On one occasion," he adds, "Mr.
• De mirabilibus Mvndi. Amatelod. 1762, 12mo. p. 100. His words are, " et post hoc poteris anduetar sustinere' ignem sine nocumento."
^ Phil Transactions, 1773.
SECRBTS USED IN PAGAN RITES. 311
Issuing triumphant from this trial, his enthusiasm or his courage might fairly be calculated on; and it might be presumed that, on a necessary occasion, he would brave similar dangers, either in the possession of the secrets revealed to him, when deemed worthy to know them ; or by the religious trust, without which even these secrets were reputed to lose their efficacy.
2nd. It was not, however, only at the period of initia- tions that men were inspired with sacred awe, by wit- nessing the marvellous invulnerability with which these assumed favourites of heaven were endowed : its success being so weU ascertained, it was frequently displayed in public.
Modem jugglers have appeared to eat bmning fire, without being incommoded by it, yet we pay little atten- tion to the circumstance. Eunus, the Syrian,* who
Chantry, accompanied by five or six of his friends^ entered the furnace, and, after remaining two minutes, they brought out a thermometer which stood at 320^. Some of the party experienced sharp pains in the tips of their ears and in the septum of the nose, while others felt a pain in their eyes.' These experiments prove the extraordinary heat which the living body can bearwith impunity « and favour the possibility of persons passing uninjured through flame, provided the body can be guarded from being scorched by a non-conducting covering of an incombustible nature. — Ed.
* Eunus was a Syrian slave, who pretended to have immediate communication with the Gods; and he obtained credit for his visions and pretended prophecies, by plajring off the trick men- tioned in the text. Rorus (in. 19) says, that it was performed by concealing in his month a walnut shell, bored and filled with ignited sulphur, which when he spoke threw out a flame. His
* Letters on Natural Magic, 12mo. 1832, p. 312.
312 SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES.
revived the revolt of the slaves in Sidly,* and Barodie- buSyf who headed the last revolt of the Jews against Adrian^l both appeared to vomit flames while speaking ; and though this trick had enriched the public spectacles three centuries before the Christian era,| still it seemed miraculous ; and supported, in the eyes of the multitude, the reality of the inspiration which the one pretended
words are, " inore abolita zmoe qaam sulfiire et igne stipaverit, leniter inspurans flammam inter verba fundebat." Not a very satisfactory explanation — Ed,
* Florus. lib. III. cap. xix. To explain how Eunus worked this miracle, the historian indicates a process almost impracticable. We thence conclude that Emms, like many others, resorted to fiedse assertions, in order the better to conceal his secret.
t Barochebus, or Shimeon Bar Coehba, signifying in Hebrew the Son of the Star, was a Jew, who pretended that he was the Messiah, and applied to himself the prophecy of Balaam, ** There shall come a star out of Jacob," &c. His approach, as the Mes- siah, was preached by the Rabbi Aquiba, who was active in stirring the Jews to revolt, and was cast into prison by Lucius Quietus, the Roman Governor of Palestine, under Trajan. Soon after the return of Adrian, the rebellion of the Jews commenced, headed by Bar Coehba, who gained much confidence for his pre- tended miraculous power and his intrepidity. He took Jerusalem A.n. 132 ; and issued coins, bearing his head on one side, and on the other, the legend, " Freedom to Jerusalem." He was, however, defeated, and slain by Julius Severus, a.d. 135, at the capture of Bethar, to which he retired after being driven from Jerusalem, and in which he reigned as a King, for three years. His pretensions being refuted, both by his life and death, he received the nick-name of Bar Coziba, " the son of a lie." — Ed.
t S. Hi^ron3rm. Apologetic, n. adv, Rufin.
II In Macedonia there figured, says AthensBUS, at the espousals of Caranus, naked women who vomited flames. (Athen. Detpn. lib, IV. cap. I.)
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to have received from the Goddess of Syria, and the other from the Omnipotent God of Israel.
The priestesses of Diana Parasya, in Cappadocia, commanded no less veneration, by walking with naked feet on burning coals.* The Hirpi,t members of a small number of families established on the territories of the Faliscii,! renewed the same miracle annually on Mount Soractes, in the temple of Apollo: their hereditary incombustibility was of value to them, as it secured their exemption from military service, and other public business. Yarro|| ascribes it to the efficacy of a liniment, with which they were careful to anoint the soles of their feet.$
* Strabo. lib. xii.
t They were called Hirpi, which signifies wolves in the Sam« nite dialect, from a tradition, that they followed the tracts of these animals in migrating to the south of Sumnium Proper, where they settled. They performed the feat attributed to them at the annual festival, at the temple of Apollo, on Moimt Soracte, in Etruria. —En.
t Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. cap. ii. Solin, cap. viii.
II Ut Solent Hirpini qui ambulaturi per ignem, medicamento plantas tingunt — ^Varro. apud Servium in Firgil, ^neid. lib. xi. verses 787—788.
§ This is attributed by Beckmann also (History of Inventions, transL vol. iii. page 277,) to the skin of the soles of the feet being made callous and homy, so as to defend the nerves from the impression which the hot coals would otherwise make upon them. He relates the following anecdote in support of his asser- tion : " In the month of September, 1 765, when I visited the copper works at Awestad, one of the workmen for a little drink money, took some of the melted copper in his hand, and after showing it to us, threw it against the wall. He then squeezed the fingers of his homy hand, close to each other ; put it a few
314 SSC1UST8 USED IN PAQAN RITES.
Thus, in order to penetrate into a sanctuary, the hero of an oriental tale* crossed some water, which was boil- ing without the application of fire (evidently a gaseous thermal spring), and traversed plates of red-hot sted. A pomatum, with which he had anointed himself, ena- bled him to brave both these dangers with impunity.f
3rd. A more popular use, and oneistill better adapted to augm^it the sacerdotal power, was made of this secret
Man, uDskiDed in the discernment of error, and inca- pable of confuting falsehood, has in every country demanded from heaven some miracle, which should expose the criminal or dear the innocent ; thus giving up the honour, or the life of his fellow-creatures to the decision of the priest ; to the success of a philosophical experiment ; to blind chance ; or to shameful fi^ud. Of all ordeals, that of fire is the most andent and universal ; it has made the tour of the globe. In Hindostan, its antiquity revais to the reign of the Gods. Sita^ the wife of Rama, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, sub- minutes under his arm-pit, to make it sweat, as he said ; and taking it out again, drew it over a ladle filled with melted copper, some of which he skimmed, and moved his hand backwards and forwards very quickly, by way of ostentation." Beckmann adds, " I remaiked a sm^ like that of singed horn, or leather, though his hand was not burnt." — Ed.
* Les Milk et an Jours. 4dle. Jour.
t This is much better explained by the oaUous state of the soles of the feet as already mentioned ; and we are told by Beck* mann (loco citato) that this may be effected by frequently moisten- ing the parts with sulphuric add, or by constantly, for a long time, rubbing the feet with oil, which produces in the skin the same homy state as it causes in leather. — £d.
SECRETS USED IK PAGAN RITBS. 315
mitted to it, and stood on red-hot iron, to dear herself from the injurious suspicions of her husband. ''The foot of Sita," say the Hindoo historians, " being clothed in innocence, the devouring heat was to her as a bed of roses."*
This trial is still practised in several ways by the Hindoos. A creditable witness saw two accused persons subjected to it ; one carried in his hand a red-hot ball of iron without receiving any injury, the other submitted to the trial df boiling oil.t But we must observe, that the latter was accused by a Brahman, and that all the Hindoo ordeals are under the influence of the priests.
For the rest, the mystery of their success is not very difficult to penetrate. The same writer was acquainted with a preparation, known also to the Hindoo Pandits, by which the hands, when anointed with it, might resist the effects of heat, and handle red-hot iron.} Thus it is easy for the Pandits to do a good turn to those crimi- nals, whom they fia^voiu*, by attaching various substances, particularly leaves of trees to their hands, before the trial.^
A Mahometan traveller, who visited Hindostan in the nineteenth century, saw the fiery ordeal conducted in the same manner. The trial by boiling water, he also found in use there, and a man, ' who submitted to it in his presence, withdrew his hand, quite uninjured.
* Forster. Travels frwn Bengal to Petersburg, vol. i. pages 267 —268.
t Recherchea Asiatiques, tome i. pages 478 —483.
I Recherches Asiatigues, page 482 »
II Ibid, pages 477—479.
316 SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES.
Zoroaster eager to confute his calumaiators, allowed melted lead to be poured over his body, and he received no injury.* Does it follow that he. employed a preser- vative, analogous to that made use of by the Hindoo Pan- dits? On this point, his biographer' is silent ; but we learn, that previous to undergoing this frightful trial, his adversaries rubbed his body with various drugs ;t was this not evidently intended to destroy the effect of the salutary liniments, which had been previously applied, and the knowledge and application of which they supposed him to be forearmed, although they failed in effecting their intention ?
The ordeal by fire, and the secret of enduring it without injury, were very early known in Greece.
In Sophocles, the Thebansf suspected of exhuming the body of Polynicius, exclaim : " We are prepared to prove our innocence, by handling heated irons, or walking on the flames. This ordeal and the secret of en- during it, survived the decline of Polytheism. ||
* Anciennes relations des Indea et de la Chine, tradmtes par Renaudot, pages 37 — 38.
t Vie de Zoroastre. Zenda-vesta. tome i. partie ii. pages 32 — 33.
X Sopliocl. Antigon, vers. 274.
II Simplicus was elevated to the Papal throne, a.d. 497. He was previously married, but he separated himself from his wife, although she lived in the house with him. This circumstance having given birth to some scandalous reports, the lady resolved to prove her innocence by the ordeal of fire ; and, for this purpose, chose a solemn day ; and in the presence of the assembled people, carried fire in her hands, and threw it upon her clothes without their being in the smallest degree damaged. She then placed some of the fire on the clothes of her husband with the same effectf and addressed him in the following words : " Receive this
SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES. 317
Pachymerus* asserts, that he saw several accused persons acquit themselves, by handling red hot iron, with- out receiving injury. At Dydmotheque,t a wife was or-
fire, which will not bum you, in order to convince our enemies that our hearts are as inaccessible to the fire of nuptial intercourse, as our clothes ore to the action of these burning coals." This apparent miracle astonished all who witnessed it, and at once silenced the calumny. After what has been said upon the power of walking on burning bodies, and the fact that the formation of cloth with asbestos, and the property of rendering common cloth incombustible by soaking it in a concentrated solution of alum, was known long before the above period, we can have no difficulty in explaining the assumed miracle.
It is melancholy to know that this custom had been transplanted from the Pagan temples into the Christian churches. At the same time, it is gratifying to find, that in t^e year 840, the learned Agoband, Archbishop of Lyons, pronoimced ordeals to be tempt- ing God, and contrary to his law, as well as to the precepts of charity. They had been previously condemned by the coimcil of Worms in 829 ; and they were also prescribed to Gregory the Great, In England, they were suppressed by act of parliament in the third year of the reign of Henry III.» There were three ordeals, or as they were also termed, vulgar purgations ; namely, one by fire, in which the accused person either placed his hand on red hot iron, or walked barefoot over it ; another by boiling water into which the supposed culprit pliinged his bared arm, to take out a stone at the bottom of the vessel ; and a third by cold water, in which, if the person was drowned, he was pronoimced guilty. The last was chiefly used for the trial of witches, and was resorted to long after the law for the 'suppression of ordeals was passed. —Ed.
* Pachym. lib. i. cap. xii.
t Towards the year 1340, of our era. — Cantacuzen. lib. iii. cap. 27.
* Johnson's English Canons, a.o. 1065.
318 SECRETS USED IN PAGAN RITES.
dered, by her husband, to submit to this trial, to clear her- self from injurious suspicions. These were wellrfounded, as the woman confessed to the Bishop. By his advice she consented to lift the red hot iron ; and having carried it three times round a chair, at her husband's desire, she placed it upon the chair, which immediately took fire. The husband no longer doubted the fidelity of his wife. Cantacuzene relates the fact as a miracle : we quote it as a proof of the wise instructions and indul- gent connivance of the Bishop.
In 1065, some Angevin monks, in a lawsuit, pro- duced as a witness, an old man, who, in the midst of the Great Church of Angers, was subjected to the ordeal of boiling water. The monks declared the water in the cauldron to be heated to an extraordinary degree,* the
* Water, unless it contain common salt, or some other saline substance, cannot be heated above 212® Fahr. ; so that this very declaration displayed a disposition to mislead the ignorant specta- tors by enhancing the severity of the ordeal. Fluids that boil at a low temperature may have been substituted for water ; and, as Sir David Brewster properly remarks, " even when the fluid requires a high temperature to boil, it may have other properties, which enable us to plunge our hands into it with impunity." He details a fact, mentioned to him by Mr. Davenport, who saw one of the workmen in the King's Dock at Chatham immerse his arm in boiling tar ; and Mr, Davenport immersed his forefinger in it, and moved it about for some time " before the heat became incon- venient." Now tar does not boil at a lower temperature than 220°, or eight degl'ees above that of boiling water : and the phe- nomenon can only be explained by the fact that tar is a worse conductor of heat than water, and altogether a bad conductor. Mr. Davenport ascribes this non-conducting power of the boiling tar to the abundant volatile matter which is evolved " carrying off
SBCRETS USBD IN PAGAN RITBS. 319
witness confirmed the truth of his testimony, by coming out of it uninjured. At the commencement of the same century, the Deacon Poppon, desirous to win Sweyn IL, King of Denmark, and the Danes back to Christianity, thrust his hand and arm, bared to the elbow, into a gauntlet heated to a white heat ; carried it through the assembled Danes ; and having laid it at the feet of the Frince, appeared quite unscathed.*
Harold, pretending to be the son of Magnus, King of Norway,! and as such claiming the succession, he was required to prove his birth by the fiery ordeal. He sub- mitted to it, and walked over red hot iron with impu- nity.
Two centuries later, Albertus Magnus | described two processes, by which a transient incombustibility might be imparted to the body of a man. A writer of the sixteenth century|| pretends that it is sufiicient to wash the hands in wine lees, and subsequently to steep them in fresh water, in order to allow a stream of molten lead, to pass over them without injury. His assertion, that he proved it experimentally upon himself, may be doubted.
The charlatans, who plunge their hands into molten
rapidly the caloric in a latent state, and intervening between the tar and the skin, so as to prevent the more rapid conununioation of heat." •-Ed.
* Saxo-Grrammat. HUt, Dan. lib. x.
t Died in 1047. — Saxo-Grammat. Hist. Dan, lib. xiii.
I Albert. De mirabililmsjmundi.
II £. Taboureau. Desfaux sarciers.
* Brewster's Letters on Natural Magic, p. 302.
320 FIRE AND WATER ORDEAL.
lead, may deceive our eyes, by substituting for lead a oomposition, of the same colour, which becomes liquid, at a very moderate heat; such is the fusible metal of Darcet.* Were it necessary, I believe that Science could also readily furnish an easily fusible metal, outwardly resembling copper or bronze. From Science also may be derived the secret of giving the appearance of ebullition, to a moderately heated fluid. But judicial or religious ordeals have not always been in the hands of men disposed to favour deceit. In that of the red hot iron, it is not easy to conceive fraud, and the secret of nullifying its effects has ever been as universal sTs its use. The knowledge of it has also been widely extended. One of the Eastern Tales, we have so often quoted, mentions a man, of the inferior dasses, who plunged his hand into the fire, and handled red hot iron, without
* The fusible metal is a compound of mercury, tin, and bis- muth, and resembles lead in its colour. It melts at so low a tem- perature, that a tea-spoon made of it dissolves in a cup of hot tea. It was most probably this metal, in a fused state, which Richard- son, an English juggler in the end of the seventh century, poured upon his tongue instead of melted lead, which he professed to employ. We are not informed what he substituted for melted glass and burning coals, which he appeared to chew. A con- jurer, who exhibited himself ten or twelve years ago in the metropolis, excited much astonishment by swallowing phosphorus. I am of opinion that this was effected by instantly closing the mouth, so as to prevent the ignition of the phosphorus ; and in a few minutes afterwards on leaving the room, which he always did after the feat, he ejected it from the stomach, by causing vomiting. Phosphorus does not inflame unless it be exposed to the action of the air. — Ed,
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being burnt.* We discover the same secret in two different parts of Africa. In the country of the Caffres, and in Loango, some Portuguese travellers saw the accused, called on to justify themselves, by taking hold of red hot iron. It is a law among the Ioloffs,t that, when a man denies a crime imputed to him, a red hot iron shall be applied to his tongue ; and according as the fire affects him, he is declared culpable or innocent ; but all the accused are not condemned.
How is it then, that the secret of resisting this ordeal is still so imperfectly known to European philosophers, notwithstanding our intercourse with Hindostan, where it certainly exists. In our own days, men, claiming to be considered incombustible, have submitted their ex- periments to the inspection of the most enlightened men in France with as much confidence as a mere popular exhibitbn ?
Uncertainty on this point must soon end. Whilst this invulnerability has been, by several learned men, ascribed to long habit, and a pecidiar organization, Doc- tor Semintini proposes, as the solution of the problem, the probable interposition of some foreign substance between the skin and the glowing body : he has ascer- tained, that a satxu-ated solution of alum preserves any part strongly impregnated with it, from the action of fire ; particularly if the skin is rubbed with soap, after the application of the alum.J He states that, by means
* Contes inddits des Mille et une Nuits. (Paris 1828.) tome iii. page 436 — 437.
t Gr. MoUien. Voyage dans Vint4rieur de VAfrique, du S^gal et de la Gamble, tome i. p. 105.
t This opinion is highly probable> as we are informed by Beck-
VOL. I. Y
322 ORDEALS BY FIRE.
of this preparation, he repeated, on his own person, the experiments of the incombustible men.*
This process, the efficiency of which has been tested and confirmed, by recent experiments, was probably the same as made use of by the ancients, since they also employed inert materials to enable them to encounter the flames.
Independently of the art of spinning and weaving the asbestos, which was carried so far as to surprise the ignorant by apparent miracles wrought with its agency : the ancients were acquainted with the fact, that wood, saturated with alum, was capable of withstanding the flames for a length of time. Such was the wooden tower raised by Archelausf in the Pireus, which Sylla, in vain attempted to bum : and which, if we can credit the historian Quadrigarius, was rendered in- combustible by Archelaus having taken care to impreg-
mann that, in Catholic countries, where the ordeal by fire was taken as the exculpatory evidence of crime, the accused person was placed three days and three nights under the care of the priests, both before and after the trial, in order, it was alleged, to prevent him from preparing his hands by art. His hands were covered up, and the coverings sealed during the three days which preceded and followed the ordeal. " It is highly probable," says Beckmann, " that during the three first days the preventive was applied to those persons whom they (the priests) wished to appear innocent : and that the three days after the trial were requisite to let the hands resume their natural appearance." When the ordeal was abolished, and this art became valueless, the secret was lost. — Ed. — Beckmann. Hist, of Inventions, Trans, vol. iii. p. 281.
* Essai sur la Physiologie Humaine, par G. Grimaud et V. C. Durocher^ Paris, 1826, p. 76.
t A Kiog of Cappadocia who was conquered by Scylla, as a punishment for assisting Mithridates. — Ed.
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nate the wood of which it was constructed with alum."^ The wooden tower of Larch wood, which Caesar found it impossible to set on fire,t must have been preserved by a similar precaution. This was also, without doubt, the secret of the wood made use of in Turkistan, which preserved the houses built of it from fire.} We are acquainted with no species of incombustible wood, con- sequently the opinion prevailing in Asia, Greece, and Gaul respecting the existence of this marvellous quality in the Larch,U or any other tree, only served, under the veil of a pretended miracle, to conceal a real, and valuable secret, the exclusive possession of which was thus secured.
* A. Claud. Quadrigar, Annal. lib. xix. apud. A. Gell. Ub. xv. cap. I.
t Vitruv. de architect. Ub. ii. cap. ix.
X Histoire de Gengiskan, p. 144.
II Abies Larix, a native of Europe, Russia, and Siberia. — En.
y2
324 INFLUENCE OVER ANIBIALS.