Psychical Research

But how is the Fire-walk done?  That remains a mystery, and perhaps no philologist, folk-lorist, anthropologist, or physiologist, has seriously asked the question.  The medicamentum of Varro, the green frog fat of India, the diluted sulphuric acid of Mr. Clodd, are guesses in the air, and Mr. Clodd has made no experiment.  The possibility of plunging the hand, unhurt, in molten metal, is easily accounted for, and is not to the point.  In this difficulty Psychical Research registers, and no more, the well-attested performances of D. D. Home (entranced, like the Nistinares); the well observed and timed Miracle du Cierge at Lourdes—­Bernadette being in an ecstatic condition; the Biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; the researches of Iamblichus; the case of Madame Shchapoff, carefully reported, {175} and other examples.  There is no harm in collecting examples, and the question remains, are all those rites, from those of Virgil’s Hirpi to Bulgaria of to-day, based on some actual but obscure and scientifically neglected fact in nature?  At all events, for the Soranus-Feronia rite philology only supplies her competing etymologies, folk-lore her modern rural parallels, anthropology her savage examples, psychical research her ‘cases’ at first-hand.  Anthropology had neglected the collection of these, perhaps because the Fire-walk is ‘impossible.’

THE ORIGIN OF DEATH

Yama

This excursus on ‘The Fire-walk’ has been introduced, as an occasion arose, less because of controversy about a neglected theme than for the purpose of giving something positive in a controversial treatise.  For the same reason I take advantage of Mr. Max Muller’s remarks on Yama, ‘the first who died,’ to offer a set of notes on myths of the Origin of Death.  Yama, in our author’s opinion, is ‘the setting sun’ (i. 45; ii. 563).  Agni (Fire) is ‘the first who was born;’ as the other twin, Yama, he was also the first who died (ii. 568).  As ’the setting sun he was the first instance of death.’  Kuhn and others, judging from a passage in the Atharva Veda (xviii. 3, 13), have, however, inferred that Yama ’was really a human being and the first of mortals.’  He is described in the Atharva as ’the gatherer of men, who died the first of mortals, who went forward the first to that world.’  In the Atharva we read of ’reverence to Yama, to Death, who first approached the precipice, finding out the path for many.’  ’The myth of Yama is perfectly intelligible, if we trace its roots back to the sun of evening’ (ii. 573).  Mr. Max Muller then proposes on this head ‘to consult the traditions of real Naturvolker’ (savages).  The Harvey Islanders speak of dying as ’following the sun’s track.’  The Maoris talk of ‘going down with the sun’ (ii. 574).  No more is said here about savage myths of ‘the first who died.’  I therefore offer some additions to the two instances in which savages use a poetical phrase connecting the sun’s decline with man’s death.