THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BELIEF 223 



mental upon bodily states,* to be able to recognize their 

 "naturalness." 



I would now ask you to accompany me in the examination of 

 a still more remarkable phenomenon, which attracted considerable 

 attention some years ago, but of which nothing (so far as I know) 

 has been lately heard ; that, namely, which the late Mr. Braid of 

 Manchester termed " human hybernation." It is known to most 

 persons who have resided long in India, that certain Hindoo 

 devotees are reputed to have the power of passing at will into a 

 condition of death-like torpor, and of remaining for days or even 

 weeks in that condition without the loss of their vitality, so that 

 they may be resuscitated by appropriate means, although they 

 have been all that time buried so securely in a vault, as to be 

 absolutely cut off from supplies of food, and almost entirely 

 secluded from air. But I suppose that there are few who have 

 regarded such statements as deserving of any serious attention ; 

 the wonderful jugglery by which the celebrated "tree trick" is 

 performed, being, it may be supposed, quite adequate to impress 

 witnesses of no extraordinary penetration with a belief in the 

 genuineness of phenomena that were merely contrived for the 

 purpose of deceit But the narratives which Mr. Braid obtained 

 from witnesses not only of unimpeachable veracity but of the 

 fullest competence, to whom every facility for the most careful 

 scrutiny was accorded, put the matter in an entirely different 

 light. In one of these cases, vouched for by Sir Claude Wade, 

 who was long our political agent at the Court of Runjeet Singh, 

 the fakeer was buried in an underground cell for six weeks ; and 

 having been twice dug out by Runjeet Singh during that period, 

 was found on each occasion in precisely the same condition of 

 apparent death as when first buried. In another case, mentioned 

 by Lieutenant Boileau, in his " Narrative of a Journey in Raj- 

 warra," in 1835, the man had been buried for ten days, in a grave 

 lined with masonry and covered with large slabs of stone, and 

 strictly guarded ; and he assured Lieutenant Boileau that he was 

 ready to submit to an interment of a twelvemonth's duration, if 

 desired. In a third case, cited by Mr. Braid, the trial was made 

 under the direct supervision of a British officer, a period of nine 

 * See Dr. Tuke's work on the " Influence of the Mind on the Body." 



