Elsewhere, among a large number of savage tribes and half-civilized peoples, we find aspirants to the priesthood of the fetiches undergoing, under the direction of the members of the religious caste that they desired to enter, ordeals that are extremely painful.  Now, it has been remarked for a long time that, among the neophytes, although all are prepared by the same hands, some undergo these ordeals without manifesting any suffering, while others cannot stand the pain, and so run away with fright.  It has been concluded from this that the object of such ordeals is to permit the caste to make a selection from among their recruits, and that, too, by means of anesthetics administered to the chosen neophytes.

In France, during the last two centuries, when torturing the accused was in vogue, some individuals were found to be insensible to the most fearful tortures, and some even, who were plunged into a species of somnolence or stupefaction, slept in the hands of the executioner.

What are the processes that permit of such results being reached?  Evidently, we cannot know them all.  A certain number are caste, sect, or family secrets.  Many are known, however, at least in a general way.  The processes naturally vary, according to the object to be attained.  Some seem to consist only in an effort of the will.  Thus, those fakirs who remain immovable have no need of any special preparation to reach such a result, and the same is the case with those who are interred up to the neck, the will alone sufficing.  Fakirs probably pass through the same phases that invalids do who are forced to keep perfectly quiet through a fracture or dislocation.  During the first days the organism revolts against such inaction, the constraint is great, the muscles contract by starts, and then the patient gets used to it; the constraint becomes less and less, the revolt of the muscles becomes less frequent, and the patient becomes reconciled to his immobility.  It is probable that after passing several months or years in a state of immobility fakirs no longer experience any desire to change their position, and even did they so desire, it would be impossible owing to the atrophy of their muscles and the anchylosis of their joints.

Those fakirs who remain with one or several limbs immovable and in an abnormal position have to undergo a sort of preparation, a special treatment; they have to enter and remain two or three mouths in a sort of cage or frame of bamboo, the object of which is to keep the limb that is to be immobilized in the position that it is to preserve.  This treatment, which is identical with the one employed by surgeons for curing affections of the joints, has the effect of soldering or anchylosing the articulation.  When such a result is reached, the fakir remains, in spite of himself and without fatigue, with outstretched arms, and, in order to cause them to drop, he would have to undergo a surgical operation.