Page:Houdini - Miracle Mongers.djvu/27

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MIRACLE-MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
7

secret of methods was published by Albert, Count of Bollstadt, usually called Albertus Magnus but sometimes Albertus Teutonicus, a man distinguished by the range of his inquiries and his efforts for the spread of knowledge.

These secrets will be fully explained in the section of this history devoted to the Arcana of the Fire-Eaters (Chapter Six).

I take the following from the New York Clipper-Annual of 1885:

The famous fire dance of the Navajo Indians, often described as though it involved some sort of genuine necromancy, is explained by a matter-of-fact spectator. It is true, he says, that the naked worshipers cavort round a big bonfire, with blazing faggots in their hands, and dash the flames over their own and their fellows' bodies, all in a most picturesque and maniacal fashion; but their skins are first so thickly coated with a clay paint that they cannot easily be burned.

An illustrated article entitled Rites of the Firewalking Fanatics of Japan, by W. C.