Paracelsus 2: Palingenesis (The Jugglers)

John Gautz, Man Levitating, 1820

        "At Baroche,” says the estimable traveller Tavernier, [1]“there is a first-class English house, which I reached on a certain day withthe English president, on my way from Agra to Surat.  There came also certain jugglers, askingleave to exhibit some of their professional skill, and the president wascurious to see it.  In the first placethey lighted a great fire, at which they heated iron chains, then wound themaround their bodies and pretended that they were suffering in consequence, butno harm followed.   They next took amorsel of wood, set it in the ground and asked one of the spectators to choosewhat fruit he liked.  His choice fellupon mangoes, and thereupon one of the performers put a shroud about him andsquatted on the ground five or six times. I had the curiosity to ascend to an upper room, where I could seethrough a fold in the sheet what was being done by the man.  He was actually cutting the flesh under thearmpits with a razor, and rubbing the wood with his blood.  Each time he rose up the wood grewvisibly;  on the third occasion therewere branches and buds thereon, on the fourth the tree was covered with leaves,and on the fifth it was bearing flowers.

Howard Thurston theatrical poster, early 20th century

        The Englishpresident had brought his chaplain Amadabat to baptise the child of the Dutchcommander, the president acting as godfather. The Dutch, it should be mentioned, do not have chaplains except wheresoldiers and merchants are gathered together. The English clergyman began by protesting that he could not consent toChristians assisting at such spectacles, and when he saw how the performersbrought from a bit of dry wood, in less than half an hour, a tree of four orfive feet in height, having leaves and flowers as in springtime, he felt it hisduty to put an end to the business.  Heannounced therefore that he would not administer communion to those whopersisted in witnessing such occurrences. The president was thus compelled to dismiss the jugglers."

Hindu Jugglers, 1822

      Dr.  Clever de Maldigny [2], to whom we owe thisextract, regrets that the growth of the mangoes was thus stopped abruptly, buthe does not explain the occurrence.  Toour mind it was a case of fascination by the magnetism of the radiant light ofblood, a phenomenon of magnetised electricity, identical with that termedpalingenesis (παλιγγενεσια), by which a living plant is made to appear in a vessel containingashes of the same plant long since perished.

Ramo Samee, the most famous Indian juggler, performing at the Royal Coburg Theater (later the Old Vic), London, 1822. ("Is it then a trifling power we see at work, or is it not something next to miraculous! It is the utmost stretch of human ingenuity." William Hazlitt on Ramo Samee: from The Indian Jugglers in Table Talk, 1828 (link))

[1]   From:  Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, enTurque, en Perse et aux Indes, Paris, 1676.

[2]  Source not cited by E. Levi. However, the Baron de Maldigny, a surgeon in the Royal Guards of France, is known for  successfully performing a lithotomy on himself before a mirror, thus relieving himself of excruciating pain. This achievement is cited in Dr. Leonard J.T. Murphy's article Self-Performed Operations for Stone in the Bladder, British Journal of Urology, Vol. 41, October 1969,  pp. 515-29.

 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in Oriental Costume, 1679

 Sparrows in a mango tree, Jaipur

Eliphas Levi, The History of Magic (Including A Clear And Precise Exposition Of Its Procedure, Its Rites And Its Mysteries), 1860 (translated by A.E. Waite, 1913)