He Lived and Died by The Sword

Mirin Dajo, which means "wonder" in the Esperanto language, was the stage name of Arnold Gerrit Henskes. He was a Dutch fakir ( Muslim Sufi ascetic) who believed that the Esperanto language could unite the world. He also had the belief that his sword piercing act could spread a message of "love and peace."

During his sword act in the 1940s, Dajo would stand shirtless on the stage, while an assistant ran fencing foils through his body, one at a time. Audience members and medical doctors would also be invited onto the stage to watch the act being performed at close range and to examine his sword piercing methods for trickery. But to their evident surprise, the swords were pushed through the front of Dajo's body and would come out of his back.

In his youth, Dajo may have experienced mental health issues, as he had many strange dreams and what he called "paranormal" experiences. Later at the age of thirty-three, he is said to have had the realisation that his body was "invulnerable", which led him to Amsterdam, where he began performing various "acts" outside pubs. Dajo would swallow glass and razor blades and allow people to pierce him with "dagger-like objects."

Dajo was of the opinion that God was using him to show the people of the world that there was more to life than materialism and that they should acknowledge a higher force.

Promotional photograph of Mirin Dajo showing a rapier piercing his thorax from back to front

So how did Dajo really perform these incredible acts? It is evident that the swords did indeed pass through Dajo's body, but many sceptics and doctors today believe that Dajo may have learnt the technique from fakirs in India (religious ascetics).

The method of impaling his body with swords may have involved Dajo getting his assistant to push the sword, bit by bit, into his body, leaving it in its place until scar tissue formed; similar to the way ear-piercing works. This would cause a fistula (passageway) to form. Dajo's body was covered with scars, perhaps from his attempts to create fistulas. It is believed that he may have managed to create at least four fistulas. However, he would have needed a thin metal rod (or similar), constantly holding the hole open, again, much like an ear piercing.

Mirin Dajo died on May 11, 1948, after swallowing a steel needle. It is said that he was instructed to do so by voices. The needle was removed by surgeons, but the autopsy revealed Dajo had died of an aortic rupture.

Your Brain is Like a Huge Company and Consciousness Is Its CEO

Our brain is locked inside our dark skull without direct access to the world and yet, it tells us the story of our life.

According to Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate, extensive brain research tells us that our brain is made up of computational modules, which are information-processing systems that perform many functions of which we are unconscious. Our brain can filter out distractions, learn skills, control body movement and temperature, remember facts and act on rules and information. Beyond all this, the unique multiple intelligences of each individual transforms all these things by the use of language, number, space, tools, and living things.

David Eagleman, the neuroscientist says in his book, The Brain: The Story of You, "I think of consciousness as the CEO of a large sprawling corporation, with many thousands of subdivisions and departments all collaborating and interacting and competing in different ways." 

Added into this mix, is the fact that the prefrontal cortex of our brain, which is necessary for long-term thinking, abstract reasoning, overriding impulses like greed and decision making, does not develop fully until we reach our early twenties. So while a young child is more likely to act simply on impulse, as we get older, the prefrontal cortex is more likely to engage in a battle against temptations like eating chocolate cake, because while it may be very gratifying to eat the cake now, eating it will likely undermine the weight loss we are trying to achieve in the long run.

Using the story of Ulysses and the sirens from Homer, Eagleman explains the idea that different parts of our brain compete and gain greater control at times. In this tale, Ulysses makes an agreement with his men to tie him to the mast of the boat, as he knows that when he hears the siren's song, its lure will be too strong and he will lose his resolve and the journey home maybe sabotaged.

Our brain, says Eagleman, is like a parliament, which has different political parties with different interests and so a battle ensues on how to steer the ship. But what makes us into a distinct person with a particular character, is our particular set of genes that we inherit, mixed with our experiences in the world.

Who we are from these genes and experiences can be changed, however, by changes in our brains caused by such things as strokes or brain tumours and other brain injuries. We are then, essentially, our brains and what we call our the complex and adaptive system of our mind, emerges from the ordinary matter of the brain.

Brains are essentially energy processors which support consciousness and while our brain is only 2% of body mass, it accounts for 20% of the body's energy usage. What we call consciousness, it seems, may depend on complex neural energy flow feedback loops, which can be interrupted by such substances as anaesthetics. Anaesthetics, like propofol, seem to inhibit the brain’s ability to sustain complex feedback loops in parts of the brain and when it wears off, it can feel like you are coming back online.

To maintain consciousness, we must ensure the function of what biologist Gerald Edelman called “reentrant” signals, which are an ongoing bidirectional exchange of signals along reciprocal axonal fibers. These feedback loops of neural activity connect all our brain regions into a coherent functioning whole. Us.