usually done by men under vows, perhaps vows made during illness.  One, at least, walked ‘because it is my duty as Pujari.’  Another says, ’I got down into the fire at the east end, meditating on Draupati, walked through to the west, and up the bank.’  Draupati is a goddess, wife of the Pandavas.  Mr. Stokes reports that, according to the incredulous, experienced fire-walkers smear their feet with oil of the green frog.  No report is made as to the condition of their feet when they emerge from the fire.

Another case occurs in Oppert’s work, The Original Inhabitants of India (p. 480).  As usual, a pit is dug, filled with faggots.  When these have burned down ‘a little,’ and ’while the heat is still unbearable in the neighbourhood of the ditch, those persons who have made the vow . . . walk . . . on the embers in the pit, without doing themselves as a rule much harm.’

Again, in a case where butter is poured over the embers to make a blaze, ’one of the tribal priests, in a state of religious afflatus, walks through the fire.  It is said that the sacred fire is harmless, but some admit that a certain preservative ointment is used by the performers.’  A chant used at Mirzapur (as in Fiji) is cited. {171}

In these examples the statements are rather vague.  No evidence is adduced as to the actual effect of the fire on the feet of the ministrants.  We hear casually of ointments which protect the feet, and of the thickness of the skins of the fire-walkers, and of the unapproachable heat, but we have nothing exact, no trace of scientific precision.  The Government ‘puts down,’ but does not really investigate the rite.

Psychical Parallels

I now very briefly, and ‘under all reserves,’ allude to the only modern parallel in our country with which I am acquainted.  We have seen that Iamblichus includes insensibility to fire among the privileges of Graeco-Egyptian ‘mediums.’ {172} The same gift was claimed by Daniel Dunglas Home, the notorious American spiritualist.  I am well aware that as Eusapia Paladino was detected in giving a false impression that her hands were held by her neighbours in the dark, therefore, when Mr. Crookes asserts that he saw Home handle fire in the light, his testimony on this point can have no weight with a logical public.  Consequently it is not as evidence to the fact that I cite Mr. Crookes, but for another purpose.  Mr. Crookes’s remarks I heard, and I can produce plenty of living witnesses to the same experiences with D. D. Home: 

’I several times saw the fire test, both at my own and at other houses.  On one occasion he called me to him when he went to the fire, and told me to watch carefully.  He certainly put his hand in the grate and handled the red-hot coals in a manner which would have been impossible for me to have imitated without being severely burnt.  I once saw him go to a bright wood fire, and,