To complete a trilogy of
Einstein related magic stories let’s take a look at the invulnerable Mirin
Dajo. Dajo might be described as a fakir though he believed his skills came
from God not practise. He was a Dutchman, born Arnold Gerritt Johannes Henskes
in 1912 who adopted the name of Mirin Dajo which, apparently, in Esperanto
meant ‘wonder.’
Dajo was indeed a wonder,
demonstrating the ability to withstand 24” rapier swords pushed through his
torso in various directions and under the closest scrutiny. In one instance a
double-edge flat bladed sword also penetrated the wonder worker. It wasn’t a
trick and was observed, photographed and filmed by reputable experts. You’ll
find a lot of the footage on You Tube. It was shot in Switzerland during May of
1947 and is most impressive.
Dajo declared he could not
be destroyed by any kind of weapon and even referred to having survived a
bullet to the head. He claimed he heard
messages from angels telling him that his great gift would be of service to all
mankind. The idea being that having been inspired by his healing powers all wars
would cease. It was less than two years after WWII so not surprising that world
peace might be at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Many articles and several
books have been written about Dajo but what puzzles me most is how Dajo managed
to convince his friend Jan de Groot to become his official swordsman. At what
point in your life do you ask your friend to push a sword through your body?
And what kind of friend says yes?
In
December of 1947 Dajo wrote to Albert Einstein who was at Princeton University.
He asked Einstein to facilitate his travel to the USA so that Einstein himself
might supervise more tests and that together they could collaborate in bringing
peace to the world. This four-page letter is reproduced in Luc Bürgin’s book on Mirin Dajo entitled Das
Wunder (2004). The author is less sceptical than I am about the supernatural
origins of Dajo’s powers but it is here that I discovered the letter containing
Einstein’s reply and for that I thank him.
Einstein
might well have already heard of Dajo, in fact Dajo suggests as much in his
letter. The story of the tests conducted in Switzerland had made the US
newspapers but Dajo had also enclosed some photographs that depicted his various
miraculous impalements so that Einstein would be in no doubt about the
importance of the matter. Einstein’s reply was brief, saying that he hoped
there was some trickery to the demonstration because he did not like to believe
that Dajo was truly mutilating himself. Regardless, Einstein said he did not
want to be part of Dajo’s project and did not want to encourage others to carry
out Dajo’s demonstrations. It seems clear that Einstein did not consider the
matter supernatural. Both Dajo’s and Einstein’s
letters can be found in the Einstein Archives.
One
year on from the demonstrations that made him world famous Dajo came up with
another feat, possibly to repudiate a sceptical article published by E Schläpfer in
the Swiss Medical Weekly.
On
instructions from his guardian angels he announced he would swallow a long
needle and, according to some reports I’ve read, it would dematerialise from
Dajo’s body. Dajo did swallow the needle but a couple of days later, May 13th,
it was removed by surgical means. Quite what that was supposed to prove is not
clear to me and ultimately it might have lead to his demise. Barely two weeks
had passed when Dajo began to feel ill and retired to his hotel room to rest.
He was dead when he friends found him three days later, May 26th
1948.
The
autopsy revealed he’d died of an aortic rupture. As expected it also found
numerous scars all over Dajo’s body and internal organs. But it found no
evidence that he’d once been shot in the head as he claimed.
Aside from God-given powers the most
reasonable explanation for Dajo’s invulnerability compares the slow pushing of
a sword through the body to a far more lethal violent stabbling. The tissue of internal
organs move aside, blood vessels too, to allow the sword to pass rather than tear
the body open. It is also thought that Dajo had a higher pain threshold than normal although
if you look closely at the video, at one point he seems to be sweating a lot
and far from comfortable.
In 1948 a researcher in Brussels, Albert
Bessemans, investigated the effect of Mirin Dajo style skewering on
anaesthetised animals and found that they survived their ordeal perfectly well.
I haven’t read the paper but it reminds me of an 18th century magic
trick entitled To Thrust a Knife in the Head of a Cock or Hen without Killing
it. The secret was to push the knife through the bird’s head but miss the brain,
which, fortunately for the conjuror lies to the rear of the skull. The
instructions said that the chicken would feel no ill effects and that the
conjuror could “suspend the bird on the knife as often as one pleases." It’s not
a trick you’ll find in many repertoires today. And, to date, no one has duplicated the feats of Mirin Dajo.