KNIFE AND FIRE DEFIED.

Shannon News, 28 August 1925, Page 2

KNIFE AND FIRE DEFIED.

FAKIR'S EXHIBITION BEFORE DOCTORS. LONDON, August 10. Great interest has been aroused, says the Paris correspondent of the "Times," bv the seances of a fafcn, Tahra Bey, who claims to possess ex ceptional powers of auto-suggestion. He gave an exhibition in the presence of an audience of 2000 people and a iurv of nine doctors. 1 The fakir threw himself into the cataleptic state, and was laid on two scythe blades—one under his neck, the other under his ankles. A stone weighing a hundredweight was then placed on his stomach and smashed with a sledge hammed. His body did not show the slightest mark of the blades. Tahra Bey was then placed on a bed studded' with sharp nails, and a man sat on his chest. The fakir asain was uninjured. When he emerged from the trance he appeared to stab himself with a dager, but the blood did not Mow until he himself allowed it. Then .no himself stopped it when a doctor or dored him to do so. The fakir next burned himself witn a torch and showed no. signs of pain. He permitted himself to be buried in sand, inside a coftin, and did no, breathe for 20 minutes. Finally he offered to allow the doctors to'perform an operation to re move his appendix without using an anaesthetic. The doctors had preparp.d for the operation, when one or them remembered that it would be illegal.