Mantra, Magic & Miracle

\ S c i e n t i f i c E x p l o r a t i o n
Badiuddin Khan • Hasan Jawaid Khan

Popular Science
MANTRA, MAGIC
AND MIRACLE
A Scientific Exploration
BADIUDDIN KHAN
HASAN JAWAID KHAN
{FS.
NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, INDIA

ISBN 978-81-237-5514-4
First Edition 2009 (Saka 1930)
© Badiuddin Khan & Hasan Jawaid Khan, 2008
Published by the Director, National Book Trust, India

Nehru Bhawan, 5 Institutional Area, Phase-II
Vasant Kunj, New Delhi - 110070
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface XV
Do You Know? xix
1. A Coincidence 1
2. Gullibility and Blind Faith 10
3. H o w Did it All Begin? 21
4. Science, Religion and Tu-Hako 36
5. The Alchemy of Faith 51
6. The Process of Living and Miracle Mania 65
7. Science, Society and the Supernatural 81
8. Mind in a Muddle 94
9. Religious Thought and the Web of Illusion 103
10. Frequently Asked Questions 113
References 143
Foreword
I am happy to write a Foreword to this interesting book,

Mantra, Magic and Miracle—A Scientific Exploration.
Both the authors, Mr Badiuddin Khan and Mr Hasan
Jawaid Khan, are well-known science writers, editors and
communicators. They have been engaged in a range of
activities, such as giving radio talks, writing popular science
articles and news reports, conducting workshops, writing
books, a n d b e i n g associated w i t h i m p o r t a n t n a t i o n a l
publications in this area—Science Reporter, Science-Ki-Duniya,
Invention Intelligence, Awishkar, and Indian Farming. Both of
them have extensive experience relating to the debunking
of a great deal of the quackery that lies behind many so-
called miracles that are attributed by society to religious
beliefs and supernatural powers. It is with this background
that they have taken up the task of writing this book.
In the spirit of science, I must state at the outset that I
do not agree with all of what they say; and more specifically,
the manner in which they say it. One might ask then as to
why I would write this Foreword. This is because I believe
that there is in society (all over the w o r l d , and m o r e
particularly in India), a great deal of superstitions and myths
that enable many individuals, w h o are truly quacks and
charlatans, to pretend that they are learned, and to d u p e
innocent individuals because of their simple believing
nature. This can never be totally eliminated, but we should
do everything possible to ensure that it is purely a fringe
XXxxMANTRA, MAGIC A N D MIRACLE
element in society. This book is an effort in this direction,

since it demonstrates in many well-publicised cases the
nature of the trickery that underlies the so-called miracles.
Through the growth of superstition and obscurantism, there
is also the growth of totally irrational approaches to dealing
with problems in life, and the development of dogmatism
and of fundamentalism whose consequences we are all
witness to.
My concern is p a r t i c u l a r l y because, instead of
decreasing, such quackery often pretending to represent
religion, but which is nothing more than clever trickery, is
indeed growing. The authors need to be encouraged and
s u p p o r t e d in their c o n t i n u i n g fight against such
developments, and in their efforts to propagate rational
scientific attitudes in society. This is the primary reason for
my writing this Foreword.
Another important reason is that the true spirit of
science demands that one should be able to constantly
interact, debate, question and discuss varying points of view;
the spirit of science does not lie in everyone meekly agreeing
on all aspects—indeed, if there is no disagreement, there
can be no incentive for further work to clarify the issues
that are in conflict, which is the only way for further
development. The readers can go through this Foreword to
take note of my views, and look at the rest of the book in
this context, and arrive at their own conclusions.
So while I may not agree with the authors in many
details and the way they present it, I respect them for their
efforts to put down such quackery. In this I am guided by
what Gautama, the Buddha, had said:
Believe nothing
merely because you have been told it
Or because it is traditional
or because you yourself have imagined it
Do not believe what your teacher tells you
FOREWORD xiii
merely out of respect for the teacher

But whatever after due examination and analysis
you find to be conducive to the good,
the benefit, the welfare of all beings
In that doctrine believe and cling to,
and take it as your guide.
H u m a n beings have evolved through a process of

evolution, w h i c h along w i t h other i n p u t s f r o m the
surroundings has brought us to where we are; this has
involved the principle of the 'survival of the fittest'. This
has meant a continuing process of change and confrontation,
often violent. The many frightening aspects of nature such
as thunder, lightning and volcanic eruptions, earthquakes,
heavy rainfall, floods, cyclones and the like, as also the fight
against predators, meant that human beings were subject to
a tremendous sense of fear and insecurity. Out of this grew
what we toda}' regard as myths, superstitions, miracles and
many other forms of obscurantism relating to the powers of
the supernatural. Particularly when overwhelmed by such
forces, in facing completely unknown situations, as also in
moments of deep emotion, such as sorrow or when in pain
and distress, it has generally not been possible for human
beings to reason out events logically. Miracle workers,
witchcraft practitioners, G o d m e n and charlatans then
appeared in society, which was willing to accept them, to
get some relief; and they, in turn, were aware of the power
and material benefits that they could derive through their
manner of functioning.
A great deal has changed since then, leading to much
greater understanding. However, much of the superstition
continues to remain in society. Even today, human beings
face situations of grief and sorrow, of pain and suffering,
and of illnesses many of which are at present unbeatable,
long drawn-out and intractable. In these circumstances,
XX xx MANTRA, MAGIC A N D MIRACLE
when there is no other recourse, human beings do turn to

what would be regarded as supernatural or irrational, for
some amelioration and relief. It is necessary to recognise
this as part of basic human psychology. It is not as though
only Indian society suffers from superstitious beliefs and
faith in miracles. It is also there elsewhere in the world, in
spite of higher levels of literacy and education, higher
standards of living and much higher scientific standing of
those nations and societies. But it is much more in our case.
Therefore, the battle to bring about a rational attitude in
society will have to be a continuing one.
In the early stages of human development, there were
m a n y pseudo-sciences like cabbalistic n u m b e r lore,
geomancy, alchemy and so on. Many of them demanded
observations and experimentation that gave rise in time to
meaningful science. Thus, what is today a highly scientific
discipline, chemistry, is an offspring of alchemy. The
requirements of agriculture and navigation, as also of
astrology, apart from human curiosity about surrounding
Nature, particularly the heavens, were the starting points
for astronomical observations, and for mathematics that was
needed to arrive at a better u n d e r s t a n d i n g of natural
phenomena. A great deal of that past has been lost to us,
particularly since it was transmitted through the oral
tradition, or recorded on material which has been destroyed
by weather, white ants and such other causes over time.
There is still a great deal of wisdom from the past that
we need to understand. That is not a matter that quacks can
deal with. It has to be through scientific studies. Thus, whilst
I have no faith in the various astrological forecasts and
anecdotes, particularly as seen in the newspapers, I do
believe that a lot of the underpinning empiricism of this area
needs to be investigated with an open mind. In these matters
I would adopt the basic approach that we should not throw
out the baby with the bathwater.
FOREWORD xiii
To summarise this part: The functioning of the human

brain is very complex and a product of the evolutionary
process such as those related to survival and inputs from
the outside through the senses and experiences. The end
result of all of this leads to many feelings, emotions, actions,
etc., that cannot be regarded as rational. However, in spite
of this there has been tremendous progress and development
by the human race. This has come about through exercise of
creativity, as well as through approaches that are ingrained
in the scientific method—to ask questions, to seek answers,
to pursue the validity of these, to combine theory including
intuitive approaches with experiments, observations and
measurements, and so on. In India, in particular, through
this we built great civilizations in the past, which were
u n d e r p i n n e d by scientific a d v a n c e s as well as great
philosophical analysis and insights.
However, through a variety of circumstances that
occurred in the relatively recent past, of a few hundred years,
darkness descended, with internecine strife, hierarchical and
f e u d a l systems, blind faith a n d belief, d o g m a s a n d
superstitions and much else that characterises a large part
of Indian society today. But over the past hundred years and
more there have been great thinkers and leaders in India
who have striven to provide the Indian people with a more
open, liberal, secular and rational approach. This is not the
place to give an account of all that has happened in this
regard, but Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore,
Mahatma G a n d h i and m a n y others were part of this
liberating influence. However, science and scientists have
done little to dispel irrational and unscientific beliefs.
Certainly a major effort on the p a r t of the scientific
community is called for in this regard.
In this matter one of the great leaders of Indian thought
was Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru. He realised that science was not
something to be restricted to an elite practicing scientific
community but should permeate all levels of the society. He

remarked: "Science, ultimately, is a way of training the mind
and of the whole life, functioning according to the ways and
methods of science".
He ceaselessly talked of the scientific temper, which is
m u c h b r o a d e r in c o n c e p t t h a n t h e m o r e c o m m o n l y
u n d e r s t o o d (and p r a c t i c e d ) a p p r o a c h r e l a t i n g to
popularisation of science. Jawaharlal Nehru said: "The
search for truth, truth arrived at by a process of trial and
error, by experiment, not taking anything for granted, until
it is proved.... This not only gives us a greater understanding
of the world but creates ultimately a dispassionate scientific
temper, w h i c h s h o u l d h e l p u s in d e a l i n g w i t h o t h e r
problems". He was, therefore, thinking of the whole method
of science based on intrinsic curiosity, careful observations
followed by measurements and analysis from which arise
predictions which can be compared with reality—the whole
gamut of rational objective thinking, which is applied not
only to strictly scientific problems but in all aspects relating
to life. He was convinced that this would remove dogmas
and superstitions and also bring about self-reliance at the
level of the individual.
Ultimately, national development cannot be brought
about only through spectacular efforts and advances at a
few places. For true national development, there has to be
an increase in efficiency across all of society, with innovative
approaches in accomplishing each task better at lower cost
a n d in lesser time. It is the i n t e g r a t e d result of such
i m p r o v e m e n t s on a v e r y l a r g e scale t h a t l e a d s to
development of society as a whole. And it is for this reason,
with his deep concern for improvement in the quality of life
in society as a w h o l e t h a t N e h r u ceaselessly t a l k e d
throughout his life about the need for scientific temper.
The various chapters of this book discuss vital issues
such as gullibility and blind faith, the origins of irrational
FOREWORD xiii
beliefs, the social impact of blind faith, the conditioning of

the h u m a n mind and so on. Each chapter incorporates a
section illustrating popular miracles that have been in the
n e w s in recent times, a n d a t t e m p t s to e x p l a i n t h e m
scientifically.
The book certainly represents interesting reading and
is an effort in the direction of removing the scourge of
andhvishwas (superstition), the large scale existence of which,
without question, is an important reason for backwardness
and lack of development of our people.
It would be most useful to have this book published in
various Indian languages, since only a small fraction of our
population w h o should read such material know English
sufficiently well to benefit.
Prof. M.G.K. MENON, F.R.S.
Advisor, Department of Space
Indian Space Research Organisation
Preface
If an alien were to descend on Earth, it would be shocked to

find a near total debasement of some of the highest principles
of civilised life—rampant commercialisation of religions;
widespread conditioning of the masses for marketing blind
faith and superstition; ruthless promotion of obscurantism
and dogmatism; cunning and trickery living cheek-by-jowl
with holiness and piety; brazen worship of false symbols as
means to power and domination; mindless pursuit of self-
aggrandisement through practiced hypocrisy, and so on. And
this, d e s p i t e 10,000 y e a r s of b e n e v o l e n t i n f l u e n c e of
innumerable prophets and saints, religions and ideologies,
and pursuit of many concepts for h u m a n emancipation!
Today, Mantra, Magic, Miracle and related aspects of
blind faith have become means to some of these ends.
Religion, or dharma, is the p r i m a r y quality of any
intelligent being. It simply implies understanding of truth
and making use of this understanding to enrich h u m a n life—
which is w h a t Science stands for, too. Since traditional
religions have long forsaken this mandate, it has become
imperative for science and scientists to step in to stem the
rot. This book is a humble attempt in this direction.
This book is meant for those w h o have an open mind
and are willing to understand the scientific standpoint in
matters of religion and spiritualism.
The h u m a n mind is made to do only one thing at a time,
efficiently. It is not possible for us to listen or to read
something, in the real sense of the terms, and also be in a

state of reaction at the same time; we can do only one thing
or the other at a point of time, if we want to do it perfectly.
Many Godmen, Magicians and Tantriks take advantage of
this h u m a n trait, or weakness, to run their trade. We would
therefore like our readers to go through this book with an
open mind, a mind that is not making any effort to accept or
to reject a n y t h i n g t h a t is said in these pages. This is
important, because Truth reveals itself only when all kinds
of opinion, assertion and belief come to an end. A mind
tethered to myths, dogmas, legends and faiths is not free to
inquire. So, let your mind roam free as you browse through
these pages.
This book will take you on a scientific exploration of
age-old concepts and beliefs that have no validity today. It
will illuminate the dark recesses of your mind and free you
of the many baseless, irrelevant and irrational beliefs that
have conditioned your mind and turned you into a second-
hand model. Apart from personal enlightenment, it will also
help you in helping others w h o are similarly afflicted with
the scourge of blind faith and superstition.
This book is about Science, not about Religion. Our
agenda is not to target religion as such, but to present facts
in the light of science so as to debunk some of the outrageous
irrationalities inherent in religious thoughts and practices
today. We do hope this book would bring about some re-
thinking in the religious domain. For example, religions need
to stand on their own without using miracles and spiritual
experiences as crutches, because they, today, have become
tools for exploitation of the gullible masses. Today, virtually
all religions are competing with each other in performing
miracles and claiming spiritual powers, which could be
easily explained scientifically.
Besides, any system of thought concerned with life must
itself be 'living'—that is, it m u s t have the qualities that
PREFACE xvii
qualify 'life' itself; that is, it must be imbued by the qualities

of progression, changeability, uncertainty (e.g. scepticism),
impermanence, insecurity, etc. How can a straight-jacketing
system like religion, howsoever divine, serve the purpose
of a 'living' entity!
We have tried to make our presentations as simple as
possible—in language, style and choice of contents—to help
our readers understand what really is going on in the domain
of so-called 'spiritualism'. All the anecdotes are real but
suitably fictionalised to protect the identity of the individuals
involved. Also, all first person expressions in the book refer
to the first author, Shri Badiuddin Khan.
We are indebted to Prof. M.G.K. Menon for having been
kind enough to contribute a comprehensive and valuable
Foreword to this book. His c o m m e n t s have not only
supplemented the subject matter and put it in a proper
perspective, but also taken care of some of its deficiencies.
We would be failing in our duty if we do not express
our sense of gratitude to Prof. A. Rahman, Founder Director,
National Institute of Science A n d Technology Studies
(NISTADS, CSIR), for having gone through the manuscript,
offered valuable comments and, above all, encouraged us.
Last but not the least, we are thankful to Prof. Bipan
C h a n d r a , C h a i r m a n , N a t i o n a l Book Trust, India, for
recognising the significance of the subject matter and
encouraging and extending his unstinted support for the
publication of the multi-lingual edition of this book.
AUTHORS
DO YOU KNOW?
THAT all kinds of faith—Gods, Goddesses and Angels;

Souls, Spirits and Ghosts; Devils, Demons and Daits;
Mantra, Magic and Miracle; Voodoo, Witchcraft and
Tantra, and so on—were the invention of the early
Magicians?
THAT the early magicians ruled over h u m a n societies
for h u n d r e d s of thousands of years by manipulating
and exploiting the inherent fears and insecurities of the
early man for their self-aggrandizement?
THAT Religion, which came much later, only adopted
these irrational beliefs, renamed and sanctified them,
and built around them implausible religious myths,
legends and dogmas?
THAT the extent to which one's mind is conditioned
by irrational beliefs, one also becomes vulnerable to
suffer from their ill consequences to the same extent?
THAT the so-called supernatural feats always happen
in the minds of the people—never outside; and what
happens at the level of the godmen, magicians or tantriks
is always based on natural processes?
THAT the so-called supernatural tricks happen when
the mind is moved away from fact to non-fact, from
truth to untruth, and vice-versa, by means of a strategy
involving technique, expression of power and deceit?
THAT s l e i g h t - o f - h a n d , m a g i c a n d m i r a c l e are
technically one and the same thing and it is the objective
and social context of the performance that determine

the label?
• THAT once labelled, the label or the word itself becomes
the cause of the so-called supernatural feat and the
observer's mind loses its capacity for scientific inquiry
into the performance?
• THAT there is not a single religion which sanctions or
actively promotes miracles; yet, thousands of Godmen
roam around the world performing miracles, amassing
wealth, and increasing the sphere of their influence?
• THAT faith in the so-called supernatural feats kills the
natural instinct of asking questions to find the Truth?
• THAT f a i t h in the so-called m i r a c l e s a n d o t h e r
supernatural p h e n o m e n a perpetuates blind faith in
Godmen, magicians and tantriks-, promotes dependency
on them; curtails f r e e d o m of t h o u g h t a n d action;
subdues intelligence and quest for inquiry; destroys the
capacity to live life to its full potential; and inhibits
mental development especially in children?
So, we need to learn and unlearn many notions about the

so-called supernatural feats and other kinds of blind faith,
to be able to free ourselves from the age-old conditioning
by such beliefs.
1
A COINCIDENCE
The Sun had already set when Narayan reached the river
bank. Soon it would be dark, although a full moon would
appear after some time. Narayan's friend, who had come to
see him off, pleaded one last time not to undertake the
journey to his village at this late hour. The road was known
to be infested with dacoits and thieves; and many lonely
travellers had been looted, even murdered.
But Narayan brushed aside his friend's pleas and
stepped aboard the boat that would carry him to the other
shore. The boat was wide and sturdily built. It carried all
k i n d s of cargo—people, cattle, goats, sheep, a n d
merchandise, even bullock-carts. At this time of the year the
river had a span of hardly 20 meters; during the rainy season
it would be flooded and would be almost ten times wider.
As the boat touched the other shore, Narayan waved to
his friend and turned to the dirt road that would take him
to his village, about ten kilometres away. He had come to
the town on an urgent errand, and had to return home that
night itself, as his younger child was ailing. He was a highly
devout person and had immense faith in God's power and
His mercies. As he plodded along he felt the presence of
God.
Soon some of the people who had been walking with
him from the boat turned to narrower paths and disappeared
into the nearby villages. Narayan now found himself all
alone. It was quite dark, and there was no trace of the m^on
yet. Suddenly he noticed a fire burning on the right-hand

side of the road. Soon the smell of burning meat wafted into
his nostrils. He noticed a group of people sitting around the
fire, perhaps drinking the local brew and eating the cooked
meat. Are these the vagabonds who loot the lonely travellers?
Narayan stopped in his tracks, thought for a moment, and
quickly stepped into the paddy fields on the left-hand side
of the road. He must take a long detour through the fields if
he were to avoid being seen by these people, he thought.
Although the path between the fields was too narrow
and uneven, Narayan plodded along taking care of the pits
and crevices. That he would safely reach the road much
ahead of the place where the vagabonds were enjoying their
feast—of that Narayan had no doubt in his mind. The detour
was long and tedious, and it was still very dark when he
rejoined the road.
Once on to the road, Narayan walked briskly. He had
to take another shortcut through the fields to reach the road
ahead fast. The full moon had appeared on the horizon and
its diffused light helped him avoid the pits and crevices in
the path. Suddenly he stopped: a deadly cobra was looking
straight into his eyes! He stood there frightened to the core
of his heart. But he knew he must not move. Soon the snake
lowered its head and slithered away into the adjoining field.
Narayan now hastened his pace and soon reached the road.
He thanked God for having saved him from the venomous
snake.
Back on the road, Narayan realized that his village was
now hardly two kilometres away. He took a deep breath and
redoubled his pace, aided now by the brighter moonlight.
The weather was pleasant and he enjoyed the easterly wind,
coming as it did from the direction of his village.
Suddenly Narayan saw a strange vision: some distance
away down the road were two holy men, dressed in their
ochre robes, sitting on the parapet wall of a bridge! He did
A COINCIDENCE 3
not believe his eyes. After all the turmoil of the past hour,
this vision was too ethereal to be true. Taking it as a good
omen, Narayan collected his wits, and almost ran to the holy
men with folded hands. He fell at their feet seeking their
blessings.
It turned out that the holy men were coming from the
Himalayas and going to Allahabad for a dip in the Sangam.
Their Guru, meditating in the nearby tent, was too tired to
proceed further, so they decided to take a break and rest for
the night here. They further revealed that their Guru was a
kind-hearted Godly man with miraculous powers. He had
once taken a gold chain from a peasant woman, recited some
mantras and returned two identical necklaces to the woman.
Their Guru performed several such miracles to help the
needy.
Narayan was suitably impressed. When he finally took
leave of the holy men, an idea had already begun to take
shape in his simple mind. His wife had very little jewellery.
So he decided to take his jeweller friend Atmarain into
confidence so that a larger amount of gold could be doubled
with the blessings of the Guru.
Reaching the village, the first thing Narayan did was
to knock at Atmaram's door. They went into a huddle.
Atmaram listened to N a r a y a n ' s story with wide-eyed
wonder. He had three daughters to be married, and then
there was a slump in his trade, what with people buying
ready-made jewellery from the town instead of coming to
his shop. It did not take much cajoling for him to agree to go
along with Narayan's plan.
Collecting all the jewellery in a cloth bag the two friends
rushed to the spot where the holy men were camping for
the night. Narayan introduced Atmaram to the two holy men
and explained the dire need he was in. The holy men were
first reluctant to take the gold to their Guru. But after much
cajoling they gave in. One of the holy men took the gold
inside the tent where the Guruji was praying, while Narayan
and Atmaram waited with bated breath. He returned after
about ten minutes and handed over the cloth bag, now much
bigger and heavier, to Atmaram. He warned him, however,
not to open the bag before sunrise next morning, and only
after taking bath and performing the daily prayers. Narayan
and Atmaram thanked the holy men profusely and hastened
back to their village, their hearts thudding with delight.
Early the next morning, Atmaram did as the holy men
had told him. Narayan had also reached by then. But the
moment Atmaram opened the bag, both were in for a shock:
the bag contained not gold, but rusted pieces of iron, chains,
nails and what not!
The two friends rushed to the place where the holy men
had put up for the night. But they found no trace of the
godmen except the four holes into which the pegs of the
tent had been driven in!
Does the story end here? Certainly not.
By the time Narayan and Atmaram returned to the
village, crestfallen after the fraud committed upon them, we
were just preparing to start the third day's program of a five-
day workshop in another part of the village. The workshop,
s p o n s o r e d by the N a t i o n a l Council for Science a n d
Technology Communication (NCSTC), New Delhi, was on
' E x p l a i n i n g the Scientific Basis of Miracles'. Some
coincidence indeed!
The n e w s of the m a n n e r in w h i c h N a r a y a n and
A t m a r a m were d u p e d came to us through one of the
participants, a late straggler that day, who r u s h e d in
breathlessly and related the incident excitedly. Soon the
incident was the talk of the town.
But such incidents are quite commonplace in several
parts of India and keep happening because there are people
who believe in miracles.
Two morals stand out clearly from this incidence. First,
A COINCIDENCE 5
it is easier to save oneself from ordinary dacoits and thieves,

if one is intelligent enough, than from charlatans in religious
garb, if one is not completely free from gullibility. A n d
secondly, gullibility and intelligence can go hand in hand
and can, and do, exist in the same person.
W h i l e w e w o u l d d i s c u s s t h e p r o b l e m of h u m a n
gullibility and blind faith in the next chapter, let us master a
few simple tricks that the so-called Godmen and magicians
resort to, to d u p e the people w h o suffer from irrational
beliefs.
MASTER A TRICK
All so-called miracles and magic are mere tricks. Anyone

can perform them with a little practice. A religious garb or
any kind of weird clothing helps; it casts a spell on the
intended victim, who does not feel like being cheated.
Reports abound of ladies in villages and even in cities
willingly offering their lifetime saving of jewellery to thugs
disguised as holy men w h o promise to double the jewellery.
The thug would ask for, say, a pinch of salt. But the moment
the lady turns her back the t h u g is gone, and so is the
jewellery. But this is outright cheating. Described below are
a few simple tricks c o m m o n l y u s e d by magicians a n d
charlatans to bluff the people.
1. Polishing jewellery
A more ingenious form of cheating involves a thug offering
a housewife to 'polish' her jewellery, at little cost. He pours
a solution in a ceramic bowl, dips the jewellery a few times,
and returns the sparkling jewellery to the lady. But he makes
a hefty gain in the process. The solution used by him to clean
the jewellery is aqua regia, a concoction of concentrated nitric
acid mixed with 3-4 parts of hydrochloric acid. It can quickly
dissolve noble metals like gold and silver. The thug makes
the lady happy but what she does not know is that her
jewellery is actually lighter by a few grams!
2. Doubling money
Even you can double your friend's money with a little trick.
Take two glass tumblers and paste black paper on their
mouths. Keep both the glasses on a sheet of black paper,
upside down. Secretly place a one-rupee coin under glass
'A' before you start your performance. Next, you start with
covering each glass tumbler with an envelope. Keep a one-
rupee coin below the glass 'B' by tilting it a little. Now,
chanting mantras ask the coin to appear under glass 'A'.
Lift glass 'A' and show the coin that you had secretly placed
under it. Uncover glass 'B' also. The coin is not visible, as it
remains hidden between two layers of black paper. Now
you can ask the coin to move from glass 'A' to glass 'B'. Show
it by lifting glass 'B'. You can now chant a mantra to make a
coin appear under both the glasses. Show them by lifting
both the glasses!
3. Precious garment shedding coins

And if you know the art you can make a girl's beautiful
garment shed coins, to impress her. All you have to do is to
learn to 'palm' a few coins in the centre of your palm. Now
dramatically grab the girl's garments, drop the coins and
say, "God! How precious it is, it even sheds coins!"
4. Multiplying currency notes

Here is another trick by which you can multiply one currency
note into many. For this you need a specially designed
container, in fact, two containers, one long and the other
short with a rim projecting a little out and a long tight lid.
Put many currency notes into the long container and insert
it into the short one. When you show the container to the
audience it should be such that the mouth of the container
A COINCIDENCE 7
faces the performer and the lid the audience so that the inside
short container is not visible to them. Put one currency note
into the empty container and close it with the long lid. When
you remove the lid many currency notes already kept in the
container pour out making it seem that the single currency
note has been multiplied into many!
5. Another game of doubling and multiplying

The game of doubling or even tripling is best done by using
sponge balls. These balls could be pressed to a smaller size
and suitably hidden in the space between your thumb and
the index finger. When released, the balls resume their
original size. So, hide two sponge balls, one in each hand.
Call someone from the audience and place a third ball on
his hand. N o w place your right hand over his palm, recite
abracadabra and stealthily release the sponge ball hidden in
it. When you remove your hand, the audience would be
surprised to see two balls. Repeat the process to release the
sponge ball hidden in your left hand. N o w they would see
three sponge balls!
6. Restoring burnt currency note

You must have seen magicians restoring a burnt currency
note. Even you can do it. Take two new currency notes rrom
a new wad. The number of one currency note should be
ending with 38 and that of the other with 33. Change the
number 3 into 8 on the currency note ending with 33 so that
both have the same number. Use black ink for this trick. Roll
the currency note with the correct original number and hide
it on one side of your mouth so that it is not visible when
you talk. At the start of the performance show the audience
the tampered note and then burn it. Put the burnt ash of the
rupee in a glass of water and drink the ash. Act as if you are
retching and slowly unroll the original note out of your
mouth, as if fully restored by your spiritual power!
8 MANTRA, MAGIC A N D MIRACLE
7. Converting one into many

N o w here is the most ingenious device you should have to
convert, say, one flower into many flowers, ash into sweets,
water into honey, and so on. It consists of two similar looking
metallic tumblers, one (A) having a slightly larger diameter
so that the other (B) can go right into it. There is also a third
much smaller tumbler (C), about one-third the height of the
other two and with a hook on its backside. It is so made that
it can go right into the large tumbler but gets stuck on the
mouth of the smaller tumbler, due to the rim on its open
side.
Suppose you want to produce many flowers from just
one flower. Take the tumbler 'C', fill it u p with many flowers,
and push it upside-down into tumbler 'A' to serve as a secret
chamber. To show that both the tumblers 'A' and 'B' are
empty invert them, taking care that the tumbler 'C' does not
fall down: use your index finger to support it while inverting
it. N o w ask someone from the audience to drop one flower
into tumbler 'B', p u s h its m o u t h into tumbler 'A', recite
abracadabra, pull out tumbler 'B' (with tumbler 'C' stuck on
its mouth), place it upside-down, and ask the person from
the audience to take out many flowers from tumbler 'A'.
Here is another way of using this device. You should
have two sets of three ropes similarly coloured. Take one set
and tie one end of a rope to another rope and so on till you
get a circular design. Put this circular rope into tumbler 'C'
and hide it in tumbler 'A'. N o w call someone from the
audience and ask him to drop all the three ropes of the other
set, one by one, into tumbler 'B' and push it into tumbler
'A'. Recite a mantra and pull out tumbler 'B' (with tumbler
' O stuck on its mouth), place it upside down on the table
and ask the person to bring out the ropes f r o m it. The
audience would be surprised to see the ropes tied together
into a circular design.
A COINCIDENCE 9
This innovative device lends itself to several interesting

items of magic and miracle. For example, you can use it to
produce flowers from ash, sweets from a grain of rice, honey
from milk, etc. Indeed, some godmen have even used it to
convert water into petrol. This is the reason why it is called
Ek-se-Anek.
8. Catching a currency note by fingers

Here is a small trick you can play upon your friends. Take a
fresh small denomination currency note or your thin visiting
card. Dangle it by your left hand with your thumb and index
finger. N o w drop it and catch it expertly by the thumb and
index finger of your right hand, placed just about four inches
below the left hand. Do this act a few times. N o w ask your
friend to do the catching—that is, you dropping, he catching.
He would fail to catch the note every time you drop it, in
spite of repeated attempts. Why?
When the same person is doing this act only one brain
is involved, and it can easily coordinate the actions of
dropping and catching of the currency note. But when two
brains are involved in the act, they invariably fail to co-
ordinate the two actions of dropping and catching of the
currency note, try as much as they like.
2
GULLIBILITY AND BLIND FAITH
The child was all of four years old. He was playing outside
his house, waiting to receive a godman whom his grandma
had invited. The stories of his miracles had reached her ears.
Forever ailing, she was keen to seek the blessings of yet
another godman.
Soon the godman reached the house. The child rushed
in to inform his grandma and quickly returned to have a
look at the godman's impressive mien. The godman was
tall, well fed and robust and wore a black robe. He avoided
t h e c h i l d ' s i n n o c e n t g a z e a n d l o o k e d at n o w h e r e in
particular. Soon a domestic servant emerged from inside and
requested the godman to enter the house. The child followed.
As the g o d m a n waited in the inner verandah, the child
continued to gaze at the imposing personality of the visitor.
But the godman quickly shifted his gaze heavenward, as if
looking through the ceiling.
Soon g r a n d m a e n t e r e d t h e scene a n d a l m o s t
immediately launched u p o n an account of her ailments,
some real and some imaginary. The godman listened with
rapt attention. No sooner had grandma finished her account,
the godman shouted Bhejl ('send it to me'). He raised his
hand heavenward, then brought it down. His hand now had
a taweez (a folded piece of paper used as a charm), which he
seemed to have drawn out of thin air. He placed the taweez
on the palm of the child. Addressing grandma the godman
said, "Make an amulet of this taweez and wear it around
GULLIBILITY A N D BLIND FAITH 11
your neck; all your ailments will vaporise into thin air."
A thankful grandma then offered some gifts and silver
coins to the godman who tucked them into his bag and left.
The child w a s s t u n n e d by t h e ' m i r a c l e ' t h a t h a d
unfolded before him. After he regained his wits he started
pestering his grandma as to h o w the godman materialised
the taweez. Grandma casually replied, "God sent it to him."
But this answer failed to satisfy the curious child. H e
followed grandma around the house and continued to pester
her with the same question.
Ultimately grandma had to give in. She made the child
sit on a cot and offered the following explanation: "Look
baby, God lives on the seventh sky, surrounded by angels.
Some angels are busy writing taweez. When a holy m a n
comes across a person in trouble, he calls for a taweez. God
then orders one of the angels to rush to the world and deliver
the taweez to the holy man. And angels being invisible, you
cannot see them. So that is how this taweez came to me."
Such an elaborate explanation was beyond the child's
comprehension, but he had to accept it. In other words, his
gullibility began where his intelligence failed.
All h u m a n beings are born inherently intelligent; that
is, they possess the basic instinct for scientific inquiry.
However, this basic instinct fails when it comes under the
shadow of irrational beliefs. This is what we know as the
state of gullibility—when a person gets the 'feeling' of being
intelligent even while he is committing a foolish act based
on an irrational faith and belief. Indeed, gullibility is basically
the failure to apply our innate capability of reason, logic and
criticality to an idea, claim or any bit of information.
And since most of us are conditioned by an abundance
of irrational beliefs, h u m a n gullibility could be easily turned
into a mass hysteria, w h e n everyone performs the same
irrational act with great reverence and a 'feeling' of doing
an intelligent act.
Here is a classic example: On the m o r n i n g of 21

September 1995, early risers noticed groups of people
rushing to temples with pots of milk. The air was rife with
news that the statues of Ganesha, the elephant God, were
drinking milk. The priests at the temples had announced
that the deity would drink milk up to 9.30 a.m. Soon there
were long serpentine queues in front of many temples. Those
w h o queued u p were not poor, illiterate people; they
included intelligent, educated people. Initially only the
statues in temples were drinking milk. But people soon
started feeding milk to the deity in their homes, with similar
results.
Seeing the great r u s h at the temples, the priests
subsequently announced that the statues of Ganesha would
now drink milk up to 11.30 a.m. But the rush of people grew
unabated. The priests then extended the time to 4.30 p.m.,
then forgot all about the matter. People continued to feed
milk to Ganesha all through the night. The price of milk shot
up from ten to ninety rupees per kilogram. Some enterprising
persons even collected the milk flowing out from the temple
gutters in buckets and recycled it, making huge profits.
The p h e n o m e n o n w a s not confined to just poor
localities; indeed, it was the same in posh localities—even
believers in USA, UK, C a n a d a a n d other c o u n t r i e s
succumbed to the mass hysteria.
Miracle-mania is unique to man. No other living being
suffers from it. How else can one explain the absurd sight of
tourists even from the most advanced countries trying to
grasp the Ashoka Pillar at the Qutub Minar complex in New
Delhi by throwing their arms behind their backs? Our arms
are designed for grasping things in front. Trying to grasp a
pillar on the backside simply amounts to grasping two
pillars—the other being the body itself—at the same time.
Unless one is very tall with long arms this is an impossible
task. Yet, this ridiculous practice has been going on for
several centuries, all because some joker had spread the

rumour that if one succeeded in grasping the pillar fully
f r o m the backside, all his desires w o u l d be fulfilled!
Thankfully, this practice has now stopped with the fencing
of the pillar.
Here is another example, this time from the USA: A 14-
year-old student announced on the Internet that he has
circulated a petition demanding strict ban on a chemical
called dihydrogen monoxide. This chemical he claimed,
".. .caused excessive sweating and vomiting; can be lethal if
inhaled, contributes to erosion, and has been found in the
tumours of cancer patients." He asked 50 people whether
they supported the ban: Of these, 43 said yes, 6 were
undecided, and only one knew what dihydrogen monoxide
actually was—water (HzO). If this survey is taken as correct
then over 86 per cent of us are downright gullible!
Religions and cults promote all kinds of faith and belief
that have no scientific basis at all. They even go to the extent
of promoting various beliefs 'without the need for asking
questions'! That is, believers must suspend their basic
instinct of scientific inquiry and become, in effect, gullible.
Indeed, this is what has happened on a massive scale, thanks
to religious indoctrination. Gullibility is one important
reason why blatant religious contradictions survive even in
this age of science.
Today, the urge to see the impossible happen, or to
experience the supernatural, has become all pervasive and
no section of human society is entirely free from it. Indeed,
people have a built-in predilection to be told what to believe
in and what not to believe in. As a matter of fact, gullibility
is essentially an extension of childhood when there were
people around us whose notions, right or wrong, were taken
for granted. Our parents actually used these 'notions' to
control us, and we still love to be controlled by what we call
'our' beliefs.
All irrational and unscientific notions promote human

gullibility. Take a look at Box 1. It lists some of the commonly
held beliefs, which have no scientific basis whatsoever. Being
part of our belief system, they alter our whole psyche and
thus play an important role, largely negative, in h u m a n
affairs.
Why do we go in for beliefs? Basically, a belief is a
substitute for lack of understanding: We believe because we
do not know. At another level, belief formation is a process
of identification—with a group, a religion, a cult, and so on—
in search of psychological security. The anonymity in
numbers gives a false sense of safety, even power and
invulnerability. That is why we cling to beliefs and would
be lost without them.
Do beliefs bring clarity of thought and understanding?
Not at all; on the contrary beliefs tend to mask reality. For
how can a mind tethered to the pegs of irrational beliefs be
free to enquire or to understand truth? Indeed, beliefs make
for greater confusion, antagonism and conflict, within as well
as outside the individual.
All human activities have their roots in the h u m a n
mind. Whether it is the construction of roads and buildings,
development of inventions and technologies, management
of trade and industry, planning and waging of wars, all have
their origin in the human mind. And the same is equally
true at the psychological plane. Even our saints and sages
agree that whatever exists at the subtler level in our brain
must take a grosser form at the physical plane; that is, outside
our brain. So, if one believes in ghosts and spirits one is likely
to experience their presence, even be possessed by them,
thus making a non-existing phenomenon into a reality. This
happens because beliefs tend to shape experience.
Boxl
Different Kinds of Blind Faith
• Mantra, Magic & Miracle
• Jadu-tona, Tona-totka & Jhad-phoonk
• Tantra, Voodoo & Witchcraft
• Hypnotism, Parapsychology & Extra Sensory Perception
(ESP)
• Astrology, Palmistry, Numerology, Tarot-card Reading, etc
• Belief in:
• Soul, Ghosts & Spirits
• Life-after-death & Re-incarnation
• Demons, Devils & Daits
• Djinns & Fairies
• Witches, Tonahins & Dayans
• Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)
• Weeping Icons & Religious Visions
• Yeti, Big-foot & other Monsters
• Faith healing & other unscientific systems of medicine
• Telepathy, Telekinesis & Psychic power
Common Features
• All these kinds of blind faith exist only in the minds of the
people—never outside.
• Though all these appear to be supernatural phenomena,
these and their effects come into being through natural
processes.
• The extent to which one suffers from these superstitions,
one also becomes vulnerable to their ill consequences—
including erosion in one's self-confidence—to the same
extent.
If one believes in miracle, magic or related phenomena

one can be made to see them actually happening, although
the godman, magician or tantrik would be performing only
natural processes. Thus, miracle, magic and related
phenomena happen only in the human mind—never at the
level of the godman, magician or tantrik. The same is true of
all beliefs. Godmen, magicians, tantriks or others specialise
in turning your own beliefs against you, to take advantage
of your gullibility. Because whatever is part of your belief
system also becomes, organically and integrally, part of your
brain. And the extent to which one has imbibed (or is infected
by) irrational beliefs, one is bound to suffer from their (ill)
consequences, including reduced mental ability, to the same
extent.
To sum up, gullibility is a universal phenomenon: It
comes into being when h u m a n intelligence comes under the
s h a d o w of blind faith. All beliefs give a false sense of
psychological security b u t lead to greater c o n f u s i o n ,
a n t a g o n i s m and conflict, b o t h w i t h i n a n d o u t s i d e the
individual. Beliefs exist only in the h u m a n mind—never
outside—and, as such, become an integral part of the h u m a n
psyche. G o d m e n , m a g i c i a n s a n d tantriks specialise in
t r a n s f o r m i n g irrational beliefs into reality to d u p e the
believers. And, finally, though all kinds of blind faith appear
to be consequences of supernatural phenomena, they or their
effects could be brought into being by natural processes, all
of which can be scientifically explained.
MASTER A TRICK
Materialising a taweez or amulet out of thin air is nothing

b u t sleight-of-hand. Most of us k n o w h o w m a g i c i a n s
materialise things from thin air: They have the objects
already hidden in their sleeves, or in the cleave between the
thumb and the index finger, if these are very small. Add to
this sleight-of-hand a little bit of chemistry and you can even
produce bhabhuti (or holy ash) from the amulet.
1. Making an amulet shed holy ash or bhabhuti

Take a sealed aluminium amulet and tie a thread to it. Mix
some crystals of mercuric chloride with some amount of
alum and apply it on one side of the amulet secretly. Tie the
amulet on the arm of a volunteer such that the side, which
had been rubbed with chemicals, touches his body. The
volunteer feels the amulet growing hot and bhabhuti marks
appear on the arm. The trick is simple. The reaction of
mercuric chloride with alum generates heat and the reaction
of mercuric chloride with the aluminium amulet forms
aluminium oxide that looks like bhabhuti. The devotee is
convinced that the a m u l e t is g e n u i n e and h a s started
working already.
2. Producing bhabhuti from an aluminium coin

Similarly, some babas (godmen) impress their devotees by
forming bhabhuti out of an aluminium coin. But this again is
a simple trick that even you can try. Secretly apply a small
amount of mercuric chloride on your index finger and thumb
or dip your fingers in mercuric chloride solution. Take an
aluminium coin and rub your index finger and thumb on
both sides of the coin. Ask a devotee to hold the coin in his
fist. Soon he would find the coin growing hot. When the
devotee is asked to open his fist the onlookers would be
surprised to find a grey substance formed around the coin
that can be easily passed off as bhabhuti. But this grey
substance is once again aluminium oxide, as in the earlier
case. Unfortunately, aluminium coins are no longer in vogue
in India.
3. Framed picture of a saint producing bhabhuti

The same technique is used for producing bhabhuti from the
picture of a saint framed in a sheet of aluminium. When the
picture is sold the aluminium frame is touched with mercuric
chloride while the shopkeeper cleans it with a wet cloth
dipped in mercuric chloride solution.
4. Producing bhabhuti from air

If you do not have mercuric chloride, don't worry. Take some
cow dung ash, mix it with rice starch water (called mand),
add some scent and make it into dough. Now make small
pills out of this dough, dry them in shade, and store them in
a small glass bottle. When you want to produce bhabhuti out
of thin air, hide one pill in each cleave between the thumb
and the index finger of both your hands. The pill would
remain there undisturbed even when you shake hands with
someone. To produce the bhabhuti, just wave one of your
hands in the air, dislodge the pill from the cleave and position
it between your fingers. N o w crush it and start distributing
very small quantities to your devotees. When one pill is
finished, use the other pill still in reserve. But take care not
to mix too much of rice starch into the ash otherwise the
pills would become too hard to crush.
5. Producing a huge amount of bhabhuti from a small

earthen pot
Some babas produce large amounts of bhabhuti from a small
earthen vessel, much more than what the vessel can possibly
hold. They first empty the bhabhuti from the vessel on to the
statue of God. After showing it as empty, they p u t their left
hand through the neck of the vessel and out flows bhabhuti
for some more time. They repeat the process several times.
The trick is very simple.
A large amount of bhabhuti is mixed with water and
kneaded into dough. This is then pressed on the inside of
the vessel and allowed to dry. The central portion of the

vessel is filled with dry bhabhuti. The baba then dons his robe,
both the inner sleeves of which are filled with bhabhuti. The
sleeves are tied with a thread or rubber band so that the
bhabhuti does not fall out. To begin with, the dry bhabhuti
already present in the vessel is emptied on the statue. The
vessel is then shown as empty. The baba then puts his left
hand into the vessel and empties the bhabhuti hidden in his
sleeve into the vessel. This bhabhuti is poured out again.
When the flow stops the vessel is once again shown as empty.
Next the right hand is put inside the vessel releasing more
bhabhuti into the vessel. After this bhabhuti too has been
emptied the baba once again puts his left hand into the vessel
and slowly scrapes the bhabhuti sticking to the sides of the
vessel. This bhabhuti is then emptied one last time. The baba
thus appears to produce much more bhabhuti than the vessel
can possibly hold.
A word of caution: Never swallow bhabhuti offered by a

baba. Mercuric chloride is a poison. Even aluminium oxide
can interfere with your internal systems. And rice starch
mixed with cow d u n g ash can make the pills mouldy.
The babas are not aware of these drawbacks—nor do they
care!
6. Writing with bhabhuti

You can even print letters on your body using bhabhuti.
Beforehand, write the name of a deity on any part of your
body with the broken twig of the Aak plant, which exudes a
white milky g u m m y liquid. Allow the liquid to dry. The
writing is now invisible to the naked eye. You are now ready
for the performance. Rub ash on your body and the name of
the deity becomes visible. In the same manner, you can make
letterings appear on pieces of paper by just rubbing bhabhuti.
Prior to your demonstration, write the numbers 1 to 9 on a
few pieces of paper with glycerin soap. The writing would

not be visible. N o w ask a volunteer to think about any
number from 1 to 9. Rub the bhabhuti on the paper that has
that number, and it becomes clearly visible.
7. Converting stone into sweet

The cleave between the thumb and the index finger is an
ideal place for hiding taweez, amulet or a pill of bhabhuti. But
it could be used in many other ways, too. For example, you
can hide a piece of misri (crystallized sugar) or toffee in it
and, while walking around with people, ask one of them to
pick a stone of a suitable size. Take the stone in one hand
and, using both your hands, stealthily exchange places of
the stone and the misri or toffee; that is, hide the stone in the
cleave and take the misri or toffee between your fingers. Now
reciting a mantra ask anyone to open his mouth and push
the piece of misri or toffee into his mouth. He would be
surprised to find a stone t u r n e d into a sweet. You can
similarly convert a lump of salt into a toffee or an ordinary
stone into a gem, and so on. Such feats can take you a long
way on the path to sainthood!
8. Getting desired things from the earth

The godman selects a place near a holy river, where the earth
is loose and sandy. He hides desired articles like fruits under
the earth beforehand. He then sits in the middle, meditating.
Soon his devotees come and sit around him. During the
discourse he suddenly puts his hand into the loose earth
and brings out, say, a mango. Hands it over to a devotee.
Another may ask for a banana. The godman brings out a
b a n a n a , too, f r o m the earth. This goes on a n d on and
meanwhile, his sainthood is getting established and the circle
of his clientele increases.
2
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
Aeons ago, our ape-like ancestors lived on treetops in the

tropical forests of Africa. Some of them, more venturesome
than the others, took to a manner of moving around hanging
by their forelegs (or hands) under branches to reach the
farthest fruits. Over a period of time their tails, no longer
n e e d e d for balancing, d i s a p p e a r e d d u e to disuse.
Simultaneously, they developed broad shoulders and the
necessary musculature for an erect posture. So, even when
they descended to the ground they maintained their erect
posture, walking on their hind legs and using their hands
to gather fruits and nuts or to dig plant roots. Gradually,
their hands became fit for manipulation due to greater
tactility.
About ten million years ago, forests began to dwindle
giving way to open bush lands and plains. This caused many
forest animals to disappear. However, many animals
survived by adapting to the open plains. But soon the open
plains became more dangerous than the forests when many
predatory beasts like lions, tigers and wolves moved out of
the forests to live off the grass-eaters like antelopes, deer
and oxen. Yet, some of our ancestors, too, decided to venture
into the open plains. Fortunately, they were saved from the
predatory carnivores due to their peculiar bipedal gait and
their capacity of picking and hurling stones or waving tree
branches to scare the beasts.
Those of our ancestors who did not leave the protective
cover of forests evolved into chimpanzees, gibbons, baboons,

orangutans, gorillas, etc.
According to one conjecture, about two million years
ago a group of our ancestors got separated from the rest;
and p e r h a p s the traumatic conditions that they had to
undergo jump-started a series of sudden changes—in body
size, brain size, skeletal realignments, and behavioural
patterns. And these changes perhaps also brought about a
genetic re-organisation, leading eventually to the emergence
of man, about a million years ago. Animal instincts then gave
way to human intelligence followed by the awakening of
consciousness and emotions peculiar to man.
Our early ancestors lived in groups to ensure their
security. With their h a n d s now freed from the burden of
locomotion, they developed the capacity for using tools.
Since they lived in groups they soon learned the advantages
of labour that, in time, necessitated the development of
words and language for communication. All this while, their
brains developed, both in size and function.
Life for the early man was a torment. He was plagued
by deep anxieties, fears and insecurities. He was constantly
harassed by natural p h e n o m e n a like rains a n d floods,
thunder and lightning, storms and hurricanes, earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions, and so on. This coupled with his
never-ending struggle for safety from the beasts that roamed
the plains turned him into a bundle of nerves, confusion
and perplexity. His evolved brain was now capable of raising
a plethora of questions, but was still incapable of finding
suitable answers to them. He thus led a life stifled by a lack
of understanding of the how and why of natural phenomena,
of life and death, and of many other concerns vital for his
existence.
Then was born Tu-Hako, the Magician!
Tu-Hako's mother died when he was still a child. Soon
after his father went after another woman. Tu-Hako had to
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN? 23
fend for himself. He grew u p into a good-for-nothing chap,

surviving on the labour and resources of others. He honed
the skills of stealing, cheating and lying into a fine art.
Ultimately he was caught committing a grave crime and was
driven out from his community.
Tu-Hako took shelter in the forest around a nearby
mountain. He survived on fruits and nuts. He discovered a
cave that served as his home.
He too was perturbed by the elements of nature, which
he now observed from a close range, in utter solitude. One
day, while lazing around a waterfall, he came upon a sudden
revelation: "All phenomena are part of this Nature, which
is ever changing, and man has no control over them."
This revelation instantly released him f r o m mental
torment. And armed with this simple truth he began to plot
his return to the c o m m u n i t y f r o m which he h a d been
ostracised. He had discovered two freely available
resources—Fear and Insecurity—that afflicted all h u m a n
beings. Now all he had to do was to exploit these resources
using his Intelligence to raise the golden harvest of power
and pelf.
Tu-Hako thus became the first ever merchant, albeit of Deceit
and Greed.
He began to practice his art in the forest itself. He would
smear his body and face with m u d and dirt and babble all
kinds of mumbo-jumbo and abracadabra with appropriate
acrobatics, a tree-branch in hand.
One day, just before sunrise, Tu-Hako woke u p with a
start. He heard a rumbling sound with tremors coming from
deep down the belly of the mountain. He rushed out of his
cave and saw a thick cloud of smoke issuing f r o m the
mountain top. This was the time he had been waiting for.
He quickly smeared his body and face with m u d and dirt
and ran for his life down the mountain slope. Hardly had
he come down from the mountain that the volcano erupted.
People of his community were already out, watching the

erupting lava with awe and wonder. Soon they saw Tu-Hako
running towards them, a tree-branch in his hand and strange
gibberish sound issuing forth from his mouth. As he came
near his people he shouted, "Look! What you have done!
You drove me out to the forest. Now God is terribly angry.
He is going to destroy you all!"
The elders asked him what is to be done to save the
people. "Send a virgin girl post-haste to please the God. She
would herself become a goddess and protect you all from
his anger," said Tu-Hako.
The elders quickly selected a young girl. Tu-Hako
decorated her with mud and dirt. He then performed a weird
dance and some acrobatics around the girl and explained to
her the nuances of meeting God. The girl was soon on her
way to the mountain. A considerable time had elapsed by
the time the girl reached the mountain top. By that time the
volcanic pressure had already subsided and the eruptions
had ceased. Tu-Hako's gamble had paid off. He had become
the hero of his community.
The community wanted to take him back. But Tu-Hako
declined. He decided to set up shop on the outskirts of the
forest," to be nearer to God". He married three most beautiful
girls of the community to take care of his domestic affairs.
The community met all his needs. Soon Tu-Hako became
the high priest of people from far and wide. He began to be
sought after by all and sundry. In matters of birth and death,
marriage, sickness, and many other mundane affairs, Tu-
Hako's word was the law. No one dared to disobey his
command. In course of time he developed his art to such an
extent that he could bring instant death to anyone by just
breaking a twig.
Tu-Hako had many children. He taught his sons the
secrets of his art and posted them to different communities.
His progeny developed his art further into witchcraft,
sorcery and black magic. They thrived by influencing and

controlling the lives of the gullible people. They introduced
the concepts of gods and goddesses, ghosts and spirits,
besides a host of other superstitions to cover their tracks in
the practice of their magical art. They became virtual rulers
of h u m a n communities.
Magicians ruled the h u m a n society for h u n d r e d s of
thousands of years. Ordinary folks were mortally afraid of
their s u p e r n a t u r a l p o w e r s . Their m i n d s w e r e totally
conditioned by the bizarre concepts that the magicians
propounded to exploit the inherent fears and insecurities of
the people.
Let us be very clear that Tu-Hako, as conceived here, is
a fictional character. He served as the Oracle of the clan of
Magicians w h o ushered in the magical phase in h u m a n
history. It is believed that man emerged on this planet about
one million years ago. If w e presume that Tu-Hako and his
progeny surfaced some 40,000 years later, then the magical
phase would have been in full swing for nearly 9,45,000
years!
A r o u n d 15 thousand years ago the excesses of the
magicians began to pinch some sensitive minds. They began
to think in terms of a code of conduct for social behaviour.
This was the beginning of religious thought. Unfortunately,
the trouble with human thought is that it is always based
on previous knowledge; and since knowledge itself is limited,
thought too can never break the confines of limitedness. So,
as religious thought evolved, it took more and more concepts
from the knowledge base of the magical phase. As a result,
the concepts that Tu-Hako and his progeny had developed
gradually found their way into religious thought as well.
The concepts of gods and goddesses, ghosts and spirits,
heaven and hell, sin and blessing, even many of Tu-Hako's
rituals and practices came in and acquired religious sanction.
Abracadabra became mantra, magic became miracle, and
w i t c h c r a f t b e c a m e tantra. I n d e e d , m a n y of T u - H a k o ' s
disciples donned religious garbs to carry on their trade as
before.
We gain several insights f r o m the above account:
Supernatural concepts like gods and goddesses, ghosts and
spirits, mantra and magic, miracles and witchcraft had their
origin in antiquity. Religions only adopted them, renamed
them and sanctified them. These concepts and a host of other
superstitions were invented by early magicians as means of
power play to exploit the fears and insecurities inherent in
early h u m a n beings t h r o u g h their magical art. A n d the
present-day practitioners of mantra, magic, miracle, tantra,
etc. are in reality the descendants of the early magicians,
practicing their arts in religious garbs.
MASTER A TRICK
There are several tricks that are just based on plain scientific
principles but are often passed off by unscrupulous and
m a n i p u l a t i v e m i n d s as magic or miracle. With a little
understanding of the science behind these tricks one can
easily expose these exploiters. The tricks are so simple they
can even be performed at home.
1. Blocking water in a tumbler with paper

Take for instance a trick called blocking the water in a glass
tumbler. You can try it out yourself. Take a glass filled with
water and cover its top with a square plain card paper. Then
place your palm on the paper and slightly press it. With your
palm still placed on the paper, blow a mantra (phoo!) and
turn the glass upside-down; n o w carefully remove your
palm from below the glass. Not a single drop of water falls
down. This can easily be attributed to the magical powers
one has imbued the water with. But one look at it from the
scientific angle and you get the answer: The paper keeps
sticking to the mouth of the glass because the air pressure
all around it, even inside it, is the same, making the container
airtight. I n d e e d , this is a simple scientific e x p e r i m e n t
routinely performed by high school students.
2. Blocking water in a tumbler with a handkerchief

Now let us take this scientific experiment a little closer on
the p a t h to a miracle. A s k t w o p e r s o n s to s t r e t c h a
handkerchief over a bucket. Pour a glass of water over it.
The water of course flows d o w n into the bucket through the
holes in the fabric of the handkerchief. Fill the glass with
w a t e r o n c e a g a i n , c o v e r its m o u t h w i t h t h e s a m e
handkerchief, and stretch it and hold the rest of the cloth
firmly at the bottom of the glass. Now place your palm over
the mouth of the glass, blow a mantra over it, turn the glass
upside down, and remove your hand from below. People
would be surprised to see that the same handkerchief, which
had earlier allowed the water to flow through it, is n o w
blocking the water in the inverted glass.
The secret is the same as in the previous experiment
except that this time around, besides air pressure, the surface
tension of water blocks all the holes in the fabric of the
handkerchief, making a thin sheet impervious to both air
and water. Surface tension, a quality of all liquids, is like a
thin molecular web stretched over the exposed surface of
the liquid.
3. Blocking water in a tumbler inverted on a sieve

Some babas have now combined these two experiments into
a full-fledged miracle. They would approach a housewife
and ask for a glass t u m b l e r , s o m e w a t e r a n d a sieve
commonly used for cleaning flour. They would first pour a
glass of water over the sieve to show that the water flows
out freely through the holes. N o w they would take a glass
full of water, invert the sieve over its mouth, place the right
h a n d palm over its mouth (visible through the sieve), and
swiftly invert the glass along with the sieve upside down.
Then, holding the rim of the sieve with the left hand and
reciting a mantra, they would remove the right hand palm
from below. Not a drop of water would fall. This, according
to them, happens because of the appearance of Bhairon Baba
inside the glass!
The baba w o u l d n o w ask the housewife to beseech
Bhairon Baba to grant her wishes. The housewife would do
as directed. At the end, the baba would skilfully rotate the
glass in such a way that all the water would suddenly drop
d o w n through the sieve, signifying that Bhairon Baba has
granted all her wishes and returned to his abode. N o w is
the time to demand the housewife to pay u p a certain amount
of money, in cash or kind, or else...! (Box 2).
The scientific explanation of this so-called miracle is
the same as above: The surface tension of water forms an
impervious sheet with the sieve and the air pressure acting
from below prevents water from flowing out of the glass.
4. The Water of India device

Replace the glass with a specially designed double-walled
pot and you can perform another trick. This pot has an outer
larger container with an inner smaller cavity with a hole at
its bottom. The outer container also has a hole at the top
that can be easily concealed with a finger. This hole is, in
fact, the key to the trick and hence needs to be kept out of
sight of the audience. The device is filled w i t h w a t e r
beforehand. To begin with, both the inner and outer vessels
will have the same level of water due to the same air pressure
being exerted on them through the mouth and the hole,
respectively, of the outer vessel.
To start the demonstration, place the index finger of
your right hand on the hole of the outer vessel and invert
the pot, shouting the incantation, "Water of India!" All the

water in the inner cavity of the pot flows out giving the
impression that the larger pot has become empty. Replace
the pot on the table. As you do this, some more water flows
from the outer vessel into the inner cavity due to air pressure
exerted through the hole in the outer vessel. Once again put
your index finger on the hole and invert the pot, repeating
the same incantation—"Water of India." The water that
entered the inner cavity flows out once again.
This process can be repeated several times, as long as
there is enough water in the outer vessel. The audience
would be surprised to see water repeatedly flowing out of
an 'empty' pot. You can even boast that the roots of all the
rivers of India are fitted in the bottom of this vessel and that
it would never go dry so long as there is water in Indian
rivers!
The trick works because, when the hole in the outer
vessel is closed with the index finger, only the water in the
inner cavity comes out but not the water from the outer
container. But once the index finger is removed from the
hole and the pot is placed on the table, water from the outer
vessel moves into the inner cavity because of the atmospheric
pressure exerted through this hole. This is the well-known
Water-of-India device.
Want to make your own Water-of India device? It could
be made of any vessel, of any shape and size, of any material.
But here is a simple device that you can make at home. Take
a used half-a-litre plastic bottle. Make a hole at the top, just
below the mouth, using a nail. Also take a conduit pipe that
can pass through the mouth of the bottle, and cut it with a
hacksaw blade so that it is about half-an-inch shorter than
the height of the bottle, measured from the top. Now insert
the conduit pipe into the bottle and carefully fix it level with
the mouth of the bottle, using a suitable non-water-soluble
adhesive. The Water-of-India device is ready. The conduit
pipe serves as the inner vessel and the bottle as the outer
vessel. To perform, fill it u p with water through the mouth,
until water starts oozing through the hole near the mouth.
5. Charnamrit flowing from Gangajali

You can p e r f o r m a n o t h e r trick with a similar d o u b l e -
barrelled Gangajali. Prior to the demonstration fill the inner
c h a m b e r of the Gangajali w i t h w a t e r till t h e vessel is
completely filled. Call people from the audience to receive
the charnamrit. When the inner chamber of the Gangajali
becomes empty turn it upside down and show to the people
that it has become empty. Then chanting mantras and calling
the Goddess Ganga bless the audience. Bend the Gangajali
once again and water will flow from the outer chamber into
the inner chamber. N o w the Gangajali is ready once again to
serve charnamrit to the audience. But this process can be
repeated only a few times.
6. The cup of poison

The baba or a magician can often drink a deadly poison but
doesn't die. H o w does he achieve this remarkable feat?
Actually he uses a cup-of-poison, a 'doctored' ordinary
stainless-steel double-walled cup of tea available from any
cutlery shop. Purchase one from the market, take it to an
electric driller, ask him to drill two holes - one outside just
on the right-hand of the handle, and the other inside the
cup just near the bottom on the left-hand side. In principle,
the device has an uncanny resemblance to the water of India
device described above, except for the utility.
Now for the demonstration, pour a red-coloured liquid
from a bottle into the cup, claiming it to be the deadliest
poison on earth, put the cup to your lips, and act as if you
are 'drinking' it. But nothing happens to you, of course.
Putting your index finger of the right hand on the outer hole
you can invert the cup to show that not a drop of poison
remains inside. Actually the so-called poison has just

disappeared through the inner hole into the outer vessel of
the cup. But why didn't you die? And you can claim that
God took away the poison to save your life. But then you
can always beseech god to return the poison, being His
favourite devotee. Now take the cup in your left hand, cover
it from above with a handkerchief, and let the 'poison' flow
out through the outer hole adjacent to the handle.
7. Sending water to heaven

Magicians and so-called godmen often send water to heaven
using another specially designed vessel called Fu-cane. It
looks like a jug but has a metallic separator welded inside
to form a pocket on the left-hand side. If you pour a little
water into it, raise it upward, ask God to accept the water,
and then turn it upside down with your right hand, the water
would disappear into the pocket. If you then ask God to
send holy water from heaven in lieu of the ordinary water
He had accepted, and turn the Fu-cane upside down again,
using your left hand this time, water would flow out into a
glass held in your right hand.
This miracle was performed some two thousand years
ago. So impressed were the audience that thousands even
changed their religion. Today any magician can be seen
performing this magic. Indeed, Fu-cane is today commonly
used as a measuring vessel to cheat unsuspecting people of
part of the petrol or diesel sold to them.
8. Making water disappear as it is poured

Another trick often performed by conmen is making water
disappear as it is poured into a funnel made of paper. Before
starting the performance tie an empty glass on your waist
under the belt in such a way that its mouth remains tucked
under the shirt. Fold a paper in a conical shape to make a
funnel. Hold its lower part in your fist and position it in
such a way that when you pour water into the funnel it gets
collected into the empty glass. To impress the audience you
can pour some water out of the glass you are holding in
your hand. Now when you pour water into the funnel the
water collects in the hidden empty glass, which the audience
cannot see. Turn the funnel upside down to show it is empty,
which gives the impression that the water has disappeared.
But you have to be careful while pouring the water: pour it
slowly and hide the glass properly under the belt so that it
is not visible to the audience.
9. Changing the colour of water

There is another trick in which the colour of water changes
as it is poured from one tumbler to another. For this purpose
you will need two tumblers, one of transparent glass and
another of stainless steel, a thumb cap, and 2-3 granules of
potassium permanganate. Wear the thumb cap after hiding
the granules of potassium permanganate in it. Take half a
glass of water in the steel tumbler and p o u r it into the
transparent glass, and back again several times. While
transferring the water from one glass to another, gently and
carefully drop the granules of potassium permanganate in
the steel glass, m a k i n g the w a t e r coloured. While still
chanting mantras and calling sidha shakti, pour the coloured
water from the steel glass to the transparent glass. The
audience can see that the colour of water has changed. The
entire act needs to be performed at a fast pace.
10. Making the Ganges flow from the body

You can even make the Holy Ganges appear from any part
of your body. To start with, tie on your right arm a drip-set
tube along the arm from the wrist to the armpit, using rubber
bands. Take a balloon filled with water and place it in your
armpit, connecting and tying it to the end of the tube. Tie a
syringe on your wrist connecting it to the tube. Keep the

syringe needle free; attach it with a rubber band. Wear a
full-sleeved shirt so that your arm is fully covered. Chant a
few mantras and pray to Goddess Ganga to appear from your
body. N o w bring your wrist near the part of your body from
where you want the water to come out. It may be your hair,
hand or mouth. Now press your armpit, causing the balloon
to be pressed and water to flow through the drip-set to your
wrist and on to the part of your body you want the Ganges
to flow from. You can even bless some of your devotees
with the Ganges water.
11. Squeezing water, milk or oil out of a stone

Using a similar arrangement you can squeeze oil, water or
milk out of a stone. For this trick take a balloon and fill it u p
with water, milk or oil. Connect the inlet of a drip-set to this
balloon. Put the balloon under the right armpit. The tube of
the drip-set should be adjusted in such a way that the tip of
the needle comes out of the sleeve just where the sleeve ends;
and the lock-switch should lie on the arm just two inches
above the wrist. Secure this arrangement firmly with the
help of rubber bands.
First, catch the stone in your hand that is free and show
it to the audience. Then transfer it to the hand fitted with
the drip-set. Place your other hand on the lock of the drip-
set, which is h i d d e n u n d e r the sleeve. While chanting
mantras squeeze the stone, keeping the back of your hand
towards the audience. N o w unlock the drip-set with the
other hand that you have placed on the lock. Also, gently
press the balloon under the armpit. Soon the contents of
the balloon will start flowing out, giving the impression that
you are squeezing it out of the stone. The flow will continue
as long as the lock of the drip-set remains open and the
balloon is pressed. Keep the audience at a distance.
Box 2
Calling Bhairon Baba—To Your Doorstep!
Bhairon Baba is a well-known deity in India. There are Bhairon
Baba temples, where the deity grants boons to his devotees.
Here is a miracle that can help you bring the deity right into
your home, whenever you want! What is most alluring about
this miracle is that, if Bhairon Baba could be called in this way,
you can as well call other deities, gods and goddesses, saints
and prophets.
A few years back I was conducting a workshop on scientific
exploration of miracles in Lambgaon, high up in the Himalayas
near Uttarkashi. A student asked: How does a Sadhu invert a
glass tumbler full of water on a sieve without a drop falling to
the ground? I was unable to answer this question there and
then.
Actually this is what happens. Sadhus routinely go around
to collect alms after 10 o'clock in the morning, because by
then the children have gone to school and the men folk have
gone to their jobs; only housewives, highly vulnerable and
oblivious to the ways of the world, remain at home. The Sadhu
promises the housewife to make her free from all worries
(Chinta-mukt). He tells her, "Just go in and bring a glass tumbler,
a sieve and a bucket half-filled with water, and I shall call
Bhairon Baba right here to help you."
The housewife does as told. The Sadhu first pours a glass
of water over the sieve to show that the water flows out
uninterrupted. He then holds a glass of water in his left hand,
puts the sieve up side down over the rim of the glass, places
his right palm over the rim (now visible through the sieve),
and swiftly turns the whole thing upside down. He then holds
the sieve with his left hand and removes his right-hand palm
from below. The housewife is surprised to see that not a drop
of water falls to the ground through the sieve. The Sadhu

assures the housewife that the water doesn't fall because
Bhairon Baba is now established (Virajman hain) inside the
glass tumbler.
He now implores the housewife to ask for whatever wishes
she wants to be fulfilled. Who doesn't have problems in this
world—the housewife too has many. She starts to beseech
Bhairon Baba to solve them: "...my son may pass his exam
with flying colours; my daughter may get married to a well-to-
do groom; my husband may win the court case," and so on.
After she has placed all her problems before Bhairon Baba,
the Sadhu skilfully rotates the glass in such a manner that air
enters into it and the water drops down through the sieve all
at once. The Sadhu informs the housewife that Bhairon Baba
has granted all her wishes and departed, and asks her to pay
him up (he quotes a specified sum) or else!
When I returned to Delhi the first thing I did was to perform
the miracle myself—and it worked; that is, I was able stand a
glass full of water upside down on a sieve, without a drop of
water falling to the ground. I then traced its lineage to an
innocuous scientific experiment that the students of Class IX
routinely perform, as described in Trick 1 on page 26. What
the Baba does is to combine this experiment with the one
described in Trick 2 to call Bhairon Babal
Within a couple of months this miracle had travelled to
Delhi, but with a subtle difference. Here, the Sadhu would
ask the housewife to pay up a specified amount after each
wish: say, Rs 100 for son passing the exam; Rs 200 for
daughter's engagement; Rs 250 for husband winning the court
case, etc. There is a tradition that an offering once made to
the deity can't be taken back. So, once the deity is made to
depart the Sadhu quietly pockets the money in the sieve!
2
SCIENCE, RELIGION AND TU-HAKO
The exploitation by manipulation of the h u m a n mind

practiced by Tu-Hako and his progeny for h u n d r e d s of
thousands of years, left deep scars on the human psyche.
Indeed, Tu-Hako still lives through these scars, which could
be easily discerned in many aspects of human life today.
The irrational beliefs propagated by him are still the life-
blood of today's religions, albeit camouflaged as scriptural
wisdom.
Basically, science and religion have their roots in the
same reality—the urge to understand Truth. While religion
was the first system of organised thought developed to
u n d e r s t a n d reality, science w a s the very basic tool of
exploring and understanding that reality. A truly religious
m i n d is therefore essentially a scientific m i n d , for in
seeking truth the former must take recourse to scientific
inquiry; it is also free from any form of belief or desire for
p a r t i c u l a r experiences, w h i c h could t h w a r t the
understanding of reality. It was in this context that Einstein
once said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind."
Unfortunately, in the course of time, while religious
thought became static and rooted in the past, science
p r o g r e s s e d by leaps and b o u n d s on the w i n g s of
experimentation and observation. And today, among all the
spheres of human endeavour, science alone is pursuing the
original mandate of religion—that of seeking truth about
SCIENCE, RELIGION A N D TU-HAKO 37
natural phenomena and applying the same for enriching

human life.
It is obvious that the present-day dichotomy between
science and religion is entirely due to the religious thought
h a v i n g s u c c u m b e d to T u - H a k o ' s e x p l o i t a t i v e a n d
manipulative ways of power play in h u m a n affairs. As a
result, over the ages, religion got totally divorced from living
in the here-and-now—as is t h e case w i t h all scientific
endeavours—and instead sought anchorage into life-after-
death.
Among the most futile exercises that so-called godmen
have been indulging in over the ages is the 'search for Truth'.
The word 'search' implies exploration to find something that
is unknown—which is the same as applied in the realm of
science. But in the sphere of the static religions 'search'
simply means confirmation or re-discovery of religious
myths and dogmas that are well known. For example, if you
want to find God you must follow a particular path and you
are sure to find Him—of course, as described in the holy
books!
Be that as it may, the godmen w h o trek to the hills,
forests and holy places in search of Truth, and undergo the
rigors of a variety of rituals and penances, do ultimately find
the Real Truth: that all the pains they had been through were
in vain and had failed to reward them with any supernatural
powers!
Unfortunately, even with their faiths and illusions
shattered, they do not give u p their quest for power. And
once they come to realise that there are millions out there
who are as misguided as they once were, they invariably
follow in the footsteps of Tu-Hako and rig u p strategies to
perform the so-called miracles and supernatural feats. They
thus set themselves u p as godmen and saints on returning
to human society and set shop to exploit fellow beings by
marketing blind faith and superstition.
Man, having evolved from animals, is basically an]

irrational being. Blissfully ignorant of his own 'self', he uses]
this very instrument to confidently assert the existence of;
gods and goddesses, angels and devils, ghosts and spirits,!
heaven and hell, and life-after-death. Box 3 is a glimpse of
this inherent irrationality in man, primarily acquired during;
his evolutionary phase. j
A peculiar trait of man is his inability to perceive things;
and phenomena that are simple, common, abundant and
u n i v e r s a l in N a t u r e . T h e u n i v e r s a l p h e n o m e n o n ofj
gravitation, for example, would not have been discovered!
so early in the history of science had the apple not fallen onl
the head of Isaac Newton. Even today not m a n y people
believe that air is a substance made u p of different gases, or ;
that it exerts pressure, has weight and occupies space: A!
vessel is said to be empty because we do not perceive air as
something. Similarly, h o w many people know that water is
m a d e u p of two gases—oxygen and hydrogen—or that it
makes things lighter by exerting an up-thrust or buoyancy?
Of course, the fact that all material phenomena are entirely
dependent on nothingness (which allows the changing profile
of matter), never crosses the human mind. On the other hand,
man takes more interest in things and phenomena that are
difficult to comprehend or are rare in Nature.
I once exemplified this human frailty by pointing to a
small potato lying on the table. I told the audience that this
potato is as important a truth as we are, or this building is;
and that it could be transformed into a variety of dishes, all
tastier than the potato itself. I even talked about a book that
I had recently seen describing 150 recipes based on tomato!
But none in the audience evinced even the slightest interest
in as ordinary a thing as a potato. I then told them that there
was another potato right beside the first one, which I had
made invisible by the power of a mantra. There was a sudden
visible excitement among the audience—so much so that a
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few persons sitting in the front row even tried to touch the
invisible potato! Of course, I finally satisfied their curiosity
by lowering my arm to pick u p the invisible potato (when a
real potato rolled out of m y sleeve into my fist), closing the
fist, mumbling some mumbo-jumbo, and then producing
the real potato by the sleight-of-hand.
The driving force behind this kind of spirituality is a
deep-rooted urge to see a non-fact getting transformed into
a fact and vice-versa, through the agency of prayers or rituals.
Tu-Hako took utmost advantage of this h u m a n frailty, which
stems from the fact that the human mind fails to perceive
the simplest universal law that 'One cannot produce something
out of nothing'.
There are other k i n d s of fault-lines in our m e n t a l
make-up, too. These were acquired during the process of
humanisation through, primarily, religious conditioning,
which does not allow man to see truth as truth.
We often ask the participants in our w o r k s h o p s on
'Science behind Miracles' to tabulate sets of two terms under
columns marked Important and Less Important. A n d in-
variably the consensus that emerges is as shown in Sequence
No. 1 in Box 4. We then begin to analyse the placement of
each term one by one, and show them that except for Truth
and Untruth, all other terms are wrongly placed: Because
the terms Non-violence, Selflessness, Security, Certainty,
Permanence, Stability, Bravery, End and Future are mere
ideas, concepts or desires and, as such, ought to have gone
over to the second column; while the t e r m s Violence,
Selfishness, Insecurity, U n c e r t a i n t y , I m p e r m a n e n c e ,
Instability, Fear, Means and Present are not only very real
and define the qualities of Life on this planet b u t also
constitute the process of Living and, therefore, ought to have
gone over to the first column, as shown in Sequence No. 2.
The participants are shocked and their belief system, so long
nurtured by religious thought, virtually begins to wobble.
Box 4
Fault-Lines in Human Psychology - II
Sequence No. 1
Important Less Important
• Truth • Untruth
• Non-violence • Violence
• Selflessness • Selfishness
• Security • Insecurity
• Certainty • Uncertainty
• Permanence • Impermanence
• Stability • Instability
. • Bravery • Fear
• Ends • Means
• Future • Present
Sequence No. 2
• Truth • Untruth
• Violence • Non-violence
• Selfishness • Selflessness
• Insecurity • Security
• Uncertainty • Certainty
• Impermanence • Permanence
• Instability • Stability
• Fear • Bravery
• Means • Ends
• Present • Future
The reason for the failure of this religious approach is

not far to seek. All values, howsoever divine or glorious, are
mere ideas and do not exist by themselves; and being unreal
these so-called values can never be 'achieved' or transformed
into realities. And this is so because this religious approach
to achieving values is, in effect, an attempt at contravening

the already stated universal law that 'One cannot produce
something out of nothing.' This is like trying to achieve a
miracle, which is just not possible in this universe.
All values have their roots in their opposites, hitherto
considered crude and negative qualities of living beings. For
example, one cannot conceive of the value of Non-violence
without the reality of Violence being there. And therefore,
one must first understand and learn to deal with the reality
of Violence d i r e c t l y — f o r t h e r e is n o o t h e r way. The
transformation of violence into something more useful (like
the Satyagraha in the case of Mahatma Gandhi) alone can
dissipate it and allow the value of non-violence to emerge.
This is the scientific approach (of going to the root of the
problem) as against the religious approach of going after
the concept or idea of Non-violence and trying to convert it
into a reality, which is just not possible.
MASTER A TRICK
The so-called superhuman feats are often performed by self-

styled godmen to state their divine connections before their
gullible believers. But if you look at these feats closely you
find these are just tricks which are being performed all the
time by small-time street magicians. Even you can perform
these tricks with just a little bit of insight into the science
that goes into them, and of course, with a little of caution
and practice. Foremost among these feats are the miracles
involving fire, because fire tends to trigger primordial fears
among humans. Children should avoid doing such feats,
or do it only in the presence of their elders.
1. Eating fire
For i n s t a n c e , y o u m u s t h a v e seen u m p t e e n m a g i c
performances where the magicians eat fire. But while they
perform the trick to earn their living and also to entertain,

the same trick is performed by a so-called godman to exploit
his believers on a long-term basis. Let's see how the trick is
performed: Keep a piece of camphor on your palm. Ask
someone to light it with a matchstick. Wave your palm before
the audience making sure that you keep moving the burning
camphor from one palm to the other. Don't keep it on one
palm for more than three seconds because u p to this time
your skin does not absorb heat and you d o n ' t feel any
burning sensation. Moreover, camphor burns at 300°C and
its flames always go upward, whereas the h u m a n skin can
withstand u p to 1200°C for three seconds.
The next act is to eat the burning camphor. To do this
pick the burning camphor by the thumb and index finger of
your right hand, raise your hand right u p to your mouth,
place it on your extended tongue, let it b u r n for a few
moments, then close your mouth. In a couple of seconds the
oxygen in the mouth would be exhausted and the flame
would be extinguished. N o w open your mouth and exhale
the noxious fumes outside. Make sure that none of these
steps take more than three seconds each.
Remember, the actual miracle takes place inside the
mouth when people see the fire burning inside. Babas burn
several pieces of camphor on a plate and 'eat' them one by
one, b u t they actually h i d e the extinguished pieces of
camphor on each side of the mouth.
2. Bathing with fire

A similar fiery feat based on the same trick is exposing your
hands, feet or any part of your body to fire. Take a drumstick
covered with a cotton cloth at one end and dip this end into
kerosene. Light it with a matchstick and pass the burning
drumstick in a d o w n w a r d or u p w a r d motion over your
exposed arms or legs. Again make sure you do not hold the
burning drumstick for more than three seconds at any one
place. For, this is the time up to which the human skin caiij
resist a temperature up to 1200°C. Also make sure that yon
finish the feat before the kerosene on the cloth gets
exhausted, otherwise the flame may begin to react with the
body.
3. Walking on fire
Walking on fire is a great crowd-puller. It is one of the most
important practices employed by different religions and
faiths to demonstrate the powers of their beliefs. But in
reality, to be able to walk on fire has nothing to do with
o n e ' s belief—anyone, even non-believers, can d o it.
Provided, of course, you take certain precautions.
Dig a pit about one foot wide, eight feet long and three
inches deep. Stalk dry firewood in the middle of the pit,
criss-crossing them to allow passage of air. You would need
nearly 100 kg of dry firewood for this purpose. Now sprinkle
kerosene over the firewood and light it up. The firewood
would turn into red-hot coals within about two hours,
depending on the flow of air. Remove unburnt firewood
from the pit using a long bamboo pole, blow away ash with
a big fan, and spread the coals throughout the pit evenly.
Sprinkle crystal salt over the pit, especially in the middle
where the people would walk. The pit is now ready for
walking. Anyone who wants to walk on the burning coals
must walk barefoot, without fear, with steady steps, avoiding
any tendency to run. Your feet will not be burnt.
But when you make the preparations for making a pit
full of burning coals, make sure that it is all the time
surrounded by your own men—that is, no unwanted person
approaches the pit. This is very important because vested
interests not wanting you to debunk their 'miracle' may
throw into the pit pieces of metal or stone, which may burn
the feet of people, w h o would be walking on the fire.
Similarly, they may push someone into burning coals or even
create a stampede, which could be disastrous for the

program. So, you must inform the concerned authorities to
make the necessary arrangements.
4. Extinguishing a lighted cigarette on the tongue

Timing comes in handy in yet another trick. This involves
extinguishing a lighted cigarette on your tongue. However,
before you actually do that you have to freeze your tongue
with the help of an ice cube. Now when you press the
cigarette on your tongue it will not feel the heat. But you
have to extinguish the cigarette fast enough before the
temperature of the tongue returns to normal. You can also
do this trick even without freezing the tongue. But you will
have to accumulate enough saliva on the tip of your tongue
so that it is the saliva that extinguishes the cigarette without
the flesh being burned.
5. Touching a red-hot iron rod

You can perform a similar seemingly superhuman feat by
touching a red-hot iron rod with your bare hands. As in other
tricks you will have to make a few preparations before the
actual performance. The preparation involves applying
petroleum jelly on the hand such that it is not very obvious
to the public. Next, heat an iron rod and once it gets
substantially hot lift it from the part farthest from the fire,
which will not be so hot. Show the glowing rod to everyone
and then gently rub your jelly anointed hand over it. As the
jelly burns, smoke is let off and there is a hissing sound. The
audience will think that it is your hand that is burning, but
due to the effect of the jelly you don't feel any heat.
6. Putting hand into boiling oil

In a slightly different trick you can even put your hand into
boiling oil. All you have to do is to squeeze beforehand a
few lemons into a pot, carefully remove the seeds, and then
fill it with sufficient groundnut oil. Keep the pot on the stove
and light it. After some time bubbles start coming to the
surface and the oil seems to be boiling. But it is actually the
lime juice, which had settled at the bottom d u e to its higher
density that starts boiling first and bubbles rise to the surface
giving the impression that the oil is boiling. Actually, the oil
is just slightly hot and you can easily dip your hands into it
without harm. But be cautious that you d o n ' t touch the
bottom of the pot because it may be very hot.
7. Making tea on the head

Another trick involves making tea on someone's head. But
careful preparation is required before you perform this trick..
You have to first make about one centimetre thick and about
12 cm diameter layer of flour dough. This should be wrapped
in a three-fold d a m p black cotton towel cloth. The folded
cloth is kept on the head of a volunteer in such a way that
the dough layer is set in the centre of the head. Next, place a
ring of cloth or binda (used by labourers for carrying heavy
weights on the head) sprinkled with kerosene on top of the
black towel cloth. Now, light u p the cloth ring and place a
teapot containing sugar, water and milk on top of it. Soon
the tea will be ready to serve.
What happens is that the dough layer .kept inside the
black wet cloth prevents the cloth from catching fire, because
until it gets hot and the cloth dries up completely, the teapot
gets enough heat to boil its contents.
8. Lighting havan by mantra

A favourite trick by so-called godmen is creating fire by
magic. This almost always baffles the godman's followers
w h o are mostly familiar with lighting fire using matchsticks,
kerosene, gas lighter, and so on. But the godman apparently
does so without using any of the traditional materials. In
fact, he seems to be lighting a fire by simply reciting mantras.
But the trick lies in a clever chemical interplay. Even you

can do it. Form a thin layer of havan samagri on a metal
plate. Put about half a spoon of potassium permanganate
(KMn0 4 ) powder in the centre. Cover it u p with some more
havan samagri so that the chemical is not visible to the
audience. As you begin your performance you act as if you
are pouring some ghee on to the havan samagri, but in fact
what you are pouring is a few drops of glycerin—which may
be mixed with a small amount of ghee. Glycerin seeps in and
reacts w i t h p o t a s s i u m p e r m a n g a n a t e g e n e r a t i n g
considerable heat. The heat generated by this exothermic
reaction is enough to make the combustible havan samagri
burst into flame. This is the miracle of lighting havan by mere
recitation of mantra.
9. Creating fire by spitting

You can use a similar trick to create fire just by spitting. Before
your arrival at a venue your disciples should hide a small
piece of sodium metal under some dry straw. When you
gargle with water and spit on that place where the sodium
metal is hidden, or just wash your hands over it after the
feast, the sodium would react with water and burst into
flame, demonstrating your great spiritual p o w e r to the
people assembled there.
10. Setting fire to water

Sodium can be used to set fire to water as well. Create an
ambient atmosphere by claiming to perform havan amid
chanting of mantras and lighted agarbatties. Keep a bucket
filled three-fourths with water with half a cup of ether
poured over the surface. Ether being lighter than water floats
over the surface. While you are chanting the mantras, divert
the attention of the audience just for a while and discreetly
d r o p a piece of s o d i u m metal, which you h a d h i d d e n
beforehand in your handkerchief, into the bucket. As soon
as sodium comes in contact with water it bursts into flame

igniting the ether, and red flames shoot out of the bucket.
11. Lighting candles without matchsticks

A similar chemical reaction is also used to light candles
without the use of matchsticks, and this is passed off as the
result of mantra power. You too can do it. Take two candles
and spread half teaspoon of chromic acid powder on top of
one candle, which is then fixed on a table. Dip the top of the
other candle in methyl or ethyl alcohol. While chanting
mantras and putting on an act, when you touch the top of
the second candle with the top of the first candle, both the
candles start burning. You can tell the audience that this was
because of mantra power. The fact of the matter is that it
was the reaction of chromic acid with methyl alcohol that
generated the fire.
12. Setting fire to a handkerchief without its fabric getting

burnt
Chemicals are not just used to create fires. You can also use
chemicals to prevent something from getting burnt, even
when it is set on fire. For this miracle dip a handkerchief
i n t o a 1:1 s o l u t i o n of c a r b o n d i s u l p h i d e a n d c a r b o n
t e t r a c h l o r i d e . The h a n d k e r c h i e f is t h e n set on fire
immediately after it is taken out from the solution. Keeping
a careful watch, extinguish the fire as soon as the solution
wetting the handkerchief has burnt or evaporated. So, it is
the chemicals that burnt, not the handkerchief.
13. Creating a ghostly fire

You can even create a ghostly fire from your mouth using
simple ingredients such as kerosene and salt powder. To start
with, fill your mouth with kerosene mixed with salt powder.
Next, take a wad of cloth tightly tied on to a stick and set
fire to it. Expel the kerosene and salt mixture from your
mouth in the form of a spray while at the same time bringing
the lighted stick closer. The kerosene particles dispersed in

the air immediately catch fire, creating a huge ball of fire.
14. Making a flame dance over your handkerchief

And how about making a flame dance right on top of your
handkerchief, without burning it? Let two persons stretch
and hold your handkerchief horizontally. Switch on a lighter.
Stab the flame through the tightly stretched handkerchief
and move the lighter steadily just a few millimetres below
the surface of the handkerchief. The entire flame of the lighter
would be dancing over the surface of the handkerchief,
without burning its fabric.
What is the secret? Very simple. In this position the
fabric of the stretched handkerchief would remain in the
'cold zone' of the gas issuing from the lighter, which is
actually not burning.
15. Cooking rice without fuel

And last but not the least is the trick of cooking rice in a
pressure cooker without using any fuel. To begin with, show
to the audience that the pressure cooker is empty. N o w place
half a brick inside. Put some rice in a bowl and place it over
the brick. While making these preparations secretly put a
few pieces of lime (chuna) into the cooker. N o w p o u r
adequate water into the bowl and sprinkle some around it
inside the pressure cooker to wet the lime pieces. Close the
lid of the pressure cooker immediately. Within about five
minutes the water inside the cooker would come to a boil
because of the heat generated by the soaked lime. Soon the
pressure cooker would start whistling. In another six or
seven minutes, the rice would be fully cooked. But this
cooked rice is better not eaten. (See Box 5).
Note: Playing with fire may seem exciting. But children
must be careful and always perform the above experiments
in the presence of their elders.
Box 5
A Baba Exposed while Making Tea without Fuel
A few years back we conducted a training program on science
behind miracles in Malegaon, a town in Maharashtra, which is
famous for its power-looms. Some of the teachers trained in
that workshop began to demonstrate and explain various
miracles to the people, including the one described at No. 15
above.
A few months later a person, fed up with working on power-
looms, decided to perform a miracle. One fine morning he
announced that he is going to make tea merely by reciting
mantras. He asked the people to place a huge pot at a certain
place, fill it up with water and put in it adequate quantities of
milk, sugar and tea. When these preparations were made he
asked them to pour water around the pot from a nearby well.
He himself sat on a mat at a distance, reciting the Quran. In a
couple of minutes the water began to boil and the tea was
served to the assembled gathering.
Apparently no fuel was used to make the tea. Instead cold
water was poured all around the pot. The teachers trained by
us decided to investigate. In the dead of night they dug up the
place where the pot was placed. They found a huge bag filled
with lime, that is, chunal The heat released by the lime as it
absorbed water was responsible for heating the contents of
the pot! The Baba was soon back at the power-looms.
2
THE ALCHEMY OF FAITH
The bizarre concepts and practices propagated by Tu-Hako,

the Magician, and his progeny have had a devastating impact
on religious thought. Thanks to Tu-Hako, religions not only
imbibed his concepts but also concocted a heady brew of
implausible legends and myths about gods and goddesses,
angels and devils, ghosts and spirits, heaven and hell, magic
and miracle, and so on. These myths and legends kept the
masses spellbound for thousands of years.
The single-point agenda of all these concepts, myths
and legends was to show that "One can produce something
out of nothing", if only one persevered e n o u g h with
recitation of mantras, performance of prayers and rituals,
and indulgence in asceticism and self-denials.
Unfortunately, Tu-Hako's bizarre concepts and practices
did not stop at polluting the religious thought alone, but
went on to creep into even the scientific thought as it began
to emerge some 2,500 years ago. For over 2,000 years
scientific thought remained under the grip of concepts and
practices as bizarre as those of the magical and magico-
religious phases in human history. In the history of science
this phase is referred to as the 'Alchemistic phase' and the
outlook that sustained it so long is called the 'Alchemistic
attitude'.
The Alchemists believed that everything was part of
Nature and that all minerals, plants, animals and humans
had a soul; this soul could be transferred from one body to
another imparting its property to the recipient body. Based

on this belief they d e v e l o p e d the h y p o t h e s i s of
transmutation of souls and conducted a great deal of
experiments that led to the development of a host of
techniques and products.
They also believed in the maleness and femaleness of
things. For example, they dubbed gold, iron, tin and lead as
male; and silver, copper and mercury as female. They further
believed that various metals were formed in the earth as a
result of removal of humidity; that is, various metals were
in different degrees of imperfectness, gold being the most
perfect metal. They therefore thought that transmutation
could be made to occur by imitating the processes of Nature
or by inducing the union of male and female (yin and yang)
principles.
Although the Alchemists worked on hypotheses based
on unverified concepts, it goes to their credit that they were
the first to attempt to understand the process of change as a
natural phenomenon, and to have extensively experimented
on these lines. They were therefore the first to break away
from the supposedly supernatural powers of mantra, magic
and miracle. Unfortunately, however, they were still too close
to magical and magico-religious phases to have completely
negated the age-old irrational notion that "One can produce
something out of nothing." This was the reason why some
historians d u b b e d Alchemy as "one of the species of
witchcraft'.
The Alchemists worked on a variety of topics: curing
diseases, i m p r o v i n g health, p r o l o n g i n g life, seeking
immortality, and studying to understand the process of
change. In course of time, seeking the elixir of life and a
technique to convert inferior metals into gold became their
chief preoccupations—both of which were like achieving a
THE ALCHEMY OF FAITH 53
miracle and were, therefore, destined to fail. Yet, as a result

of their efforts, they laid the foundations of the sciences of
pharmaceutics and metallurgy. They developed a number
of potent drugs, techniques for making alloys, and many
metallurgical processes including gold plating. But they
miserably failed to develop the elixir of life and the technique
to convert baser metals into gold.
T h e priestly class mostly practiced alchemy. It was
therefore deeply i n f l u e n c e d by mystical a n d spiritual
notions. Kundalini yoga, Vaastu Shastra, Reiki and other
similar unscientific practices had their origin during this
phase.
The Alchemistic attitude slowly petered off with the
realisation that "One cannot p r o d u c e something out of
nothing." And with this realisation, the concepts of 'soul'
and v spirit' were given a decent burial, at least in the realm
of science.
By about the middle of the seventeenth century, science
came into its own. Scientists diverted their attention to the
search for new elements, and soon the Periodic Table came
into being. This was followed by the discoveries relating to
atoms and molecules, their underlying structures, and the
modes of their interactions leading to chemical formulae and
reaction equations.
The tremendous progress that science made over the
last 350 years was entirely due to the scientists giving u p
the Alchemistic attitude. And science is still in its infancy,
growing at a fast clip. Unfortunately, however, religions are
still clinging to Alchemistic notions—notions that have been
soundly thrashed and abandoned by science. Religions have
yet to realise that a faith or belief, howsoever divine, is
meaningless unless backed by scientific evidence.
MASTER A TRICK
The human body is an amazing machine. And the mind that

controls it can push the body to limits that seem beyond
human endurance. If you can control your mind, with a little
knowledge of scientific principles you can make your body
perform stupendous feats that could be easily passed off as
supernatural. Let us learn to perform some tricks that appear
bizarre and fascinating, but are quite easy to perform.
1. Hanging lemons from parts of the body

For instance, the so-called godmen often perform a feat
wherein they hang lemons from their skin, sometimes all
over their body. With a little practice, and of course mind
control, even you can perform this feat. To perform this trick
you require lemons, stitching needle (no. 8) and some cotton
thread. Put approximately 30 cm of thread through the
needle. Take the needle through the middle of a lemon and
make a knot at the end of the thread, so that the lemon does
not fall off from the thread. Suppose you want to hang it
from your hand, first pinch the skin 3-4 times and then pierce
the needle through the outermost layer of the skin. Now, tie
the thread through the needle with the thread on the outer
side of the pierced skin. The lemon will now be hanging
from the skin. You will feel no pain because the sensation of
pain can be felt only when the signal from skin reaches the
brain through the nerves. When the outer skin is pinched
the nerves become numb and so the sensation of pain doesn't
reach the brain.
It should be noted that the outermost layer (first layer),
second layer and third layer of the skin could easily bear a
weight of 500 gm, 35 kg and 75 kg, respectively. Thus a
weight of up to 500 gm can be hung from the outer layer of
the skin without any sensation of pain. However, be careful
not to jerk your hand after hanging the weight. Using the
same technique you can hang a number of lemons from any
part of your body—chest, stomach, back, etc.
2. Making the body act like a beam

With a little bit of practice you can even make a body act
like a beam. For this purpose you need three flat chairs and
a towel. Keep two chairs facing each other at a distance
almost equal to the height of a volunteer. Push the third chair
in b e t w e e n the two. N o w let the volunteer lie d o w n
comfortably on these three chairs—his head and shoulders
on one chair, hips on the chair in the middle, and feet on the
last one. Place a towel on his face and eyes. Ask him to close
his eyes and go into meditation. Warn him not to open his
eyes otherwise something untoward may happen. Now
remove the chair in the middle and pat his back from below
to make him stiffen his body. Boast that even if an elephant
climbs on his stomach nothing will happen to him. Ask
another volunteer, a stout man, to remove his shoes, climb
on the third chair and, with the help of a third volunteer,
stand on the man on the chair with one foot on his thighs
and the other on his stomach. When you are sure that the
person on the chair is stiff enough remove your palm from
his back. Without any s u p p o r t in the centre, the first
volunteer easily takes the weight. Ask the second volunteer
to step down and tell the first volunteer to open his eyes
and get off the chairs. Ask him if he felt any weight and the
answer will be in the negative.
Any one lying stiff in this position can take a weight of
about 250 kg without collapsing. The chairs act as columns
and the stiff body serves as a beam. The first volunteer must
keep his eyes closed because if he sees the stout man going
to stand on him he can collapse with fright. That is where
mind control comes in.
3. Lifting a heavy weight on the fingers

Similarly, you can even lift a heavy weight just by your
fingers. Ask a heavy, stout volunteer to sit straight on a bench
with his hands on his knees and the legs pulled in at 45°
inclination. Four other volunteers will clasp both the hands
closing all the fingers over each other, except the two index
fingers. Two tall volunteers will stand at the back with their
index fingers under the armpits of the person to be raised.
The other two volunteers will place their index fingers under
the knee joints. When the demonstrator says 'one', 'two' and
'three' they get ready and when he says ' u p ' all the four
volunteers raise the stout person and lower him gently after
a couple of seconds. None of the four volunteers feel the
heavy weight of the stout person.
Each finger of the h u m a n hand can lift a weight of 10-
20 kg. When all the four volunteers lift the heavy person,
his weight is uniformly distributed and there is no difficulty
in lifting him. Lifting the heavy person at the same time by
all the volunteers is crucial. So the timing should coincide.
The same p h e n o m e n o n applies w h e n a n u m b e r of
devotees lift a huge stone at the dargah of a saint in Shivpuri,
using their fingers, w h e n his name is called.
4. Stopping the heartbeat

The so-called g o d m e n are k n o w n to o f t e n s t o p their
heartbeats and pulse. These are simple tricks that could be
performed by anyone with a little practice. At the beginning
of a performance sit in the pranayama pose and get your
heartbeats checked. Next, take a deep breath and hold it as
in meditation. Now even a stethoscope cannot detect your
heartbeat.
The heartbeat can be stopped u p to 30 seconds by
anyone and u p to 90 seconds through regular practice.
Because of a thick layer of air formed between the heart and
the chest (due to deep breath taken in and withheld) the
h e a r t b e a t s c a n n o t be t r a n s m i t t e d to the s t e t h o s c o p e .
Remember, a person suffering from heart disease a n d / o r
blood pressure should not perform this feat.
5. Stopping the pulse

For stopping the pulse you need two lemons (or one big
lemon) that you hold in the right armpit. Get your pulse
rate checked by a competent person. Now act as if you are
meditating and going into samadhi. While doing this slowly
press the lemons u n d e r the armpit. The person w h o is
checking your pulse will notice that the pulse is slowly going
d o w n u n t i l it a c t u a l l y s t o p s completely. A f t e r the
performance, to restart the flow of blood, roll your arm at
shoulder level anti-clockwise. Tighten your fist and carefully
give a jerk while twisting your hand.
How did this happen? The pulse is the movement of
blood in the artery. When the lemon under the armpit is
pressed the blood flow through the artery going to the arm
becomes slow and then stops. Due to this blockage the pulse
is not detected for some time. If lemons are not available,
you can stop your pulse even by using your handkerchief
rolled into a ball.
6. Piercing a trishul through the tongue

A trick that frightens children and women involves piercing
a trishul through the tongue. The baba would first put the
pointed end of the trishul on the tongue, and then remove it,
indicating that it is there that he is going to pierce it. He
would once again place the trishul on the tongue, cover his
mouth, push the trishul d o w n w a r d and then remove his
hand to show the trishul has pierced through the tongue. In
this bloodless surgery not a single drop of blood oozes out
of the tongue!
What the baba uses is a 'trick trishul' specially designed
with a U-shaped loop in the middle. He holds the trishul in
such a way that the loop is hidden behind his fingers and
the trishul appears straight. After putting the tip of the trishul
on the tongue he covers his mouth with his hand, withdraws
the tongue into the mouth, pushes the trishul downward as
if he is actually piercing the tongue; and when the loop is
level with the mouth he deftly slips it into the mouth and
pushes his tongue outward so that it comes out through the
loop (which now remains hidden inside the mouth). When
he removes his hand from his mouth people are surprised
to see that the trishul has 'pierced' the tongue. To remove
the trishul the baba repeats the process in reverse.
7. Piercing a sword through the neck

In some festivals some people are seen jumping around with
a sword pierced through the neck. This is just not possible,
because even a slight puncture of the trachea would result
in a p e r s o n ' s instant death. They resort to the above
technique of having a loop of sufficient size in the sword to
fit the neck from the backside. The loop is then hidden under
a bandage with a few drops of red colour as blood smeared
over it.
8. Breaking a spoon by psychic power

A similar act of deception is practiced in the much-acclaimed
feat of breaking or twisting a spoon by psychic power. To
perform this trick you need a stainless steel spoon. Bend the
spoon repeatedly both ways at the bulge of the ladle until
cracks appear on that part. Crack it as much as possible
without breaking the spoon so that it breaks into two at a
mere touch. This should be done without letting the audience
know about it. Hide the cracked portion with the thumb
and index finger and show the spoon to the audience. Call a
volunteer; ask h i m / h e r to slowly take h i s / h e r finger over
the ladle part and concentrate. Slowly release the ladle as if
it is bending and then allow it to fall down, in two pieces.
For twisting the spoon you will need 3-4 stainless steel
spoons (not cast iron spoons but those made from pressed
steel sheet), one of which should already be twisted. Hold
the spoons in your palm in such a way that the twisted spoon
is put over the untwisted one keeping the twisted spoon
facing you. Show the spoons to the audience in such a way
that they do not notice the twisted spoon. Next, keep aside
all the spoons except the twisted spoon showing only the
ladle part while hiding the handle in your palm. Turn your
finger in circles at the top of the spoon while moving the
spoon top in circles. The spoon is seen twisted.
9. Making holy rice appear from empty hands

Another trick based on sleight-of-hand is making holy rice
appear from empty hands. For this trick you need a skin
coloured thumb-cap and 10-20 gm of rice. Prior to the
demonstration fill the plastic thumb cap with rice and wear
it. Chant a few mantras and call the volunteers to receive
blessing. Gradually, press your t h u m b and replace the
thumb-cap, and you will find rice coming out in your fist,
which you can distribute as holy prasad.
10. Cutting your body and healing fast

And now for some gory stuff: You must have seen godmen
cutting themselves with a knife, with blood flowing from
the wound, but healing themselves equally fast. Even you
can do it. All you need is ferric chloride (FeCl3), sodium
sulpho-cyanide, a knife, and a small piece of cotton. Before
the performance, apply the solution of s o d i u m sulpho-
cyanide on any part of your body and let it dry. Keep a knife
dipped in ferric chloride solution ready. Act as if you are
cutting a part of y o u r b o d y while all you are doing is
touching the knife to your body slightly. Thick blood starts
flowing from the cut. You know why and how it happened,
the cut being a simple chemical reaction. The solutions of
ferric chloride and sodium sulpho-cyanide react with each

other and results in the formation of blood-red ferric
thiocyanide. The innocent viewer is flabbergasted when he
sees you wiping away the blood and finds no trace of a cut.
He believes this is due to your spiritual powers and begins
to worship you.
11. Bloodless surgery

Using the same chemicals you can also perform an operation
without leaving any impression of stitches. Call a patient
suffering from, say, stones, tumour, etc. Ask him to remove
his shirt and lie down on the operation table. Stand keeping
your back towards the audience to perform the surgery. Use
ferric chloride solution as a cleaning agent, using a wad of
cotton to apply it on the portion to be operated. Dip a leaf in
sodium sulpho-cyanide solution and use it as an operating
instrument. A line of blood will appear on the volunteer's
body. Now take some more sodium sulphocyanide in a pad
of surgical cotton and apply to the 'wound'. Press your
fingers into the stomach in such a way that it looks pierced.
Now take out stones, tumours (suitable pieces of mutton),
etc. already hidden in the surgical cotton and show it to the
audience. Now, with the help of a wad of cotton wipe away
the so-called blood. Show the audience that stitches have
healed and the person has been cured.
12. Cutting the neck of a child

You must have seen a magician cutting the neck of his child.
How does he do this gory act? To begin with he repeatedly
brags about this magic and claims that he is going to do it to
ensure that his family does not go to sleep hungry. This helps
him gather a huge crowd.
Near the end of the show he makes the child lie down
on the ground, with his neck exposed, the rest of his body
being covered by a sheet. While bragging about this gory
act he repeatedly shows the audience one of tht three big

knives he has with him. He warns the audience h maintain
absolute silence, since the life of his own child ;s at stake.
Finally he suddenly picks u p one of the knives end lunges
at the child, piercing it almost half way through tie neck. At
least that is what the people see. The child begin, to shiver
violently and then slowly life seems to ebb out o his body.
Soon he is 'dead'. The magician now spreads hs begging
sheet and beseeches the audience to give alms, md not to
leave the crowd until the child comes to life. Wlen he has
collected enough money he quietly covers the <nife with
the sheet, cleans the blood, and the child gets up
What is the secret? One of the three knives h a a quarter
'moon' cut in the centre. He keeps this knife casually half-
hidden under a sheet. He only shows the other tvo knives,
repeatedly. But when he lunges at the child it s with the
knife with the quarter 'moon' cut into it. Here, peed is of
the essence, because of which nobody notices he flaw in
the knife. And, as in films, he only lunges with speed but
places the cut portion softly on the child's neck. Tie child's
neck is anointed with limewater and the cut in he knife is
covered with turmeric paste. The two materials riact to give
the impression of blood-red cut in the neck.
13. Levitating in the air

Don't be surprised if you find a yogi meditating while sitting
in the air. You too can do it. But you need to mak? elaborate
arrangements. Take a 6-feet long iron rod and twe other rods
approximately 1.5 feet in length. Both the smalle rods have
to be welded to the longer rod—one somewlere in the
middle and the other about 1.5 feet below the op, which
should have semi-circular rod welded to it to givi it the look
of a dand or sadhu stick. Now, in the dead of nijht, plunge
the longer rod into the ground so that the lower mailer rod
is also just covered by the earth. There should bea stool just
high enough to reach the lower side of the upper smaller

rod. You have to sit on this stool, but actually balancing
yourself on the smaller rod, cross-legged. The smaller rod
should not be visible to others. At a certain crucial moment
your disciples should remove the stool. Now people see you
meditating while levitating in the air!
Box 6
How did the Woman go Heavy in the Feet?
The miracle I am going to describe here has never happened—

not yet. But you can have a whiff of it right away.
I was conducting a workshop on explaining the scientific
basis of miracles sponsored by the National Council for Science
& Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of
Science & Technology, Government of India, somewhere in
Uttar Pradesh. A woman, who had attended one of my earlier
programs, was deeply disappointed, because I was
demonstrating almost the same tricks that she had seen earlier.
So, just to please her I decided to demonstrate a scientific
experiment 1 knew, camouflaged as a miracle.
So, next day I told her that I had worshipped the gods in
the Himalayas for 750 years and had acquired immense
powers. So, she need not be afraid if something untoward
happens during the next demonstration. I then asked her to
stand perpendicular to the wall behind me, with her right
shoulder touching the wall, and to swing her left foot to show
that she is comfortably positioned. I then readjusted her slightly,
and warned her not to move her right shoulder from the wall
otherwise it would break into pieces, making her invalid for
life. I then blew an incantation on her left leg (phoo!) and
asked her to now lift the left leg upward. She tried and tried
but in vain: her leg this time would not budge. I then asked
another woman, somewhat more stout, to help her lift her left
leg, without in any way shifting the position of her leg. This
lady sat down besides her, grasped her left leg just above the
ankle, using both her hands, and then both of them together
used their combined strength to lift the leg—but to no avail!
In India people often avoid directly referring to a lady as
being pregnant; instead they refer to her as 'having gone heavy
in the feet.' I referred to this well-known saying and there was
laughter all around in the room. Of course, the lady was also
enjoying the predicament she was in.
I told her not to worry. After all, when will my spiritual
powers, acquired during my sojourn in the Himalayas, be put
to test? Even the tiniest amount of my power would be enough
to lift her leg, I boasted. So, while she was trying to lift her leg
I just pressed my right palm on her left shoulder. Suddenly
her leg flew upward. Immediately, I removed my palm from
her shoulder, cutting off, so to say, the flow of my power. And
suddenly, down went her leg to the floor with a thud. I repeated
this experiment a few times to convince the audience that a
miracle was taking place.
I ended this exercise by asking her to bring forth her right
arm diagonally towards me so that I could grab her imaginary
extended arm by my own similarly extended hand, and pulled
her out of her predicament! In India, you can't hold the hand
of a married woman just like that, you see!
Now, how do we explain this strange miracle? This was a
game played out using the universal, autonomous force called
gravitation. It is gravitation that holds the universe together
and provides stability to all living and non-living things on the
planet Earth. It works by repeatedly creating and softly
dissipating centres of gravity along a body, enabling it to move
around as required.
For example, it enables you to stand erect by creating a

centre of gravity passing through the middle of your body.
This centre of gravity originates right from the core of the earth,
and is extremely powerful but easily manipulated. If you want
to sit down all you have to do is to bend a little, to break the
centre of gravity, and sit down with a new centre of gravity in
place. Can you sit down without bending forward? Of course
not! Or, can you get up from a chair without bending forward?
Try and see. If you observe closely you would find that this
forming, breaking, and reforming of the centres of gravity goes
on endlessly while walking, running, climbing, lying, etc without
your even realising as to what is going on.
So, when the woman was asked to stand perpendicular to
the wall, she instinctively stood comfortably. Now, in order to
shift the centre of gravity to suit my purpose, I repositioned
her slightly—so that the centre of gravity shifted to pass through
her left leg and shoulder. And since she was warned not to
shift her right shoulder on the wall, she was virtually trapped,
and went through all that I wanted her to suffer.
At the end of the experiment, when I asked her to extend
her hand diagonally, that was merely a ploy to make her twist
her body, break the troublesome centre of gravity, and get out
of the trap.
So, as you can see, a person who is knowledgeable enough
can easily convert a natural phenomenon into a supernatural
one. And such instances are galore.
2
THE PROCESS OF LIVING AND

MIRACLE MANIA
He renounced the world while still very young. He was

physically handicapped since birth. Perhaps he wanted to
c o m p e n s a t e for h i s p h y s i c a l disability b y s p i r i t u a l
attainments. He wandered from one holy place to another,
studying religious scriptures, discoursing with religious
scholars, learning the n u a n c e s of v a r i o u s rituals, and
indulging in a variety of yogic practices, penances and
asceticism. But his disability continued to worsen, till he
became a cripple. Luckily, by this time he had acquired
enough clout as a godman to have a retinue of disciples,
w h o carried h i m a r o u n d on a Kanwar—a c o n t r a p t i o n
comprising two pans, one at each end of a pole, commonly
used in India for carrying merchandise.
He soon acquired two ashrams, one in the Himalayas
and another in a holy town in northern India. During the
summers he stayed in the Himalayas, but when it snowed
there during the winters his disciples carried him to the
ashram in the holy town. Here his followers flocked to see
him and seek his blessings. Many of his followers invited
him to visit their respective areas, where his local followers
would flock to have his darshan.
It was during one such sojourn in the holy town that
two eminent followers were requested to invite Babaji, as
he was called, to their area where he was very popular. As
the two men reached the ashram, they met the senior-most
disciple of Bababji at the gate itself. Welcoming them the

disciple exclaimed, "So, you have come! Babaji had told me
about your visit yesterday itself, and I made all the necessary
arrangements for your lodging and boarding in the ashraml"
The two visitors were suitably impressed by Babaji's
power of foretelling a future event. They were then taken to
Babaji's presence. He was sitting on the floor with a low-
height table in front. The tabletop had a holy book, a pen
and a diary, and a handkerchief placed casually. Several of
his followers were sitting in front. After the preliminaries,
Babaji asked his disciple to go and get t w o bottles of a
popular cold drink for the visitors. But the disciple said that
he had only one five-rupee note, while two bottles of cold
drink would cost ten rupees. Although the t w o visitors
protested that they did not need cold drink, Babaji insisted
that entertaining guests was his religious duty. So, he asked
the disciple to cut out a white piece of paper equal to the
size of the five-rupee note. The disciple did as directed and
handed over the plain cut-piece together with the original
five-rupee note to Babaji. Babaji then placed his double-
folded handkerchief in front of him, put the five-rupee note
and the plain piece of paper inside the fold, moved his hands
twice over the handkerchief, and re-opened the fold. To
everyone's surprise there were now two five-rupee notes!
H o w do w e k n o w about this miracle in such great
detail? The t w o e m i n e n t followers of Babaji w h o h a d
witnessed this miracle once attended our w o r k s h o p on
'Science Behind Miracles' when it was held in their town.
They were greatly appreciative of this program. After a
couple of days one of them made bold to describe the miracle
they had witnessed and sought an explanation. I was myself
flabbergasted and could not offer an explanation there and
then. I requested them to give a detailed note about this
miracle so that I could consult my friends in Delhi.
O n e p r o b l e m w i t h miracle, m a g i c a n d r e l a t e d
THE PROCESS OF LIVING A N D MIRACLE M A N I A 67
phenomena is that once w e label them as such, the label or

the word itself becomes a cause and the mind stops further
questioning. This is what had happened with these followers
of Babaji. But I was sure that Babaji had used some trick.
Though I had apparently forgotten about this matter by the
evening, my mind was perhaps busy sorting it out. So, the
same night very early in the morning, I got u p with a start
a n d h e a r d myself a s k i n g , " W h y d i d Babaji u s e the
handkerchief?" Immediately I took out my handkerchief and
some five-rupee notes, cut out a piece of white paper, and
tried out the trick, or the so-called miracle, repeatedly. But a
miracle performed alone cannot be said to be a miracle: it
has to be proved by being performed in front of witnesses.
The next day I reminded the participants about the
miracle that had been mentioned the earlier day and told
them to watch carefully as I performed the same miracle. As
I repeated the miracle everyone was stunned, especially the
two followers of Babaji w h o admitted that Babaji had indeed
performed the miracle in exactly the same way! Without
meaning any disrespect for him, I told, the two followers
that if Babaji could perform this miracle without using the
handkerchief, I would become his slave for life!
What Babaji had done was very simple: he had already
hidden two five-rupee notes in the fold of his handkerchief,
and while raising the upper fold of the handkerchief, when
the line of sight of those seated in front was cut off, he had
quietly dropped the plain piece of paper together with the
five-rupee note into his table's already open drawer, and
merely acted as if he was putting them under the fold of his
handkerchief!
The story does not end here. Soon after tea break, one
of Babaji's followers came u p to me and w h i s p e r e d in
confidence, "Mr Khan, what is your opinion about God?"
Now that his faith in Babaji was shattered, his faith in God
had also been shaken, it seemed. I whispered back, "God is
the projection of our fears." He took this response so calmly

that it amazed me no end.
Let uis now revert to the main theme of this chapter—
namely, the process of living. As already stated in Chapter 4
(Box 3), we humans find it extremely difficult to comprehend,
or even to perceive, things and phenomena that are common,
abundant and universal in Nature. And what could be more
c o m m o n than living—not the word b u t the underlying
process?
Although we are all going through the process of living,
every single moment of our lives, we hardly seem to know
what exactly constitutes this process. During our workshops
on 'Science behind Miracles' we always pose this question
to our participants, and invariably we fail to get a satisfactory
r e s p o n s e . I n d e e d , m a n y p a r t i c i p a n t s c o n s i d e r such a
question as entirely superfluous.
As a matter of fact, Living is nothing b u t Problem
solving—it is as simple as that. We go on solving problems
and that is how we go on living—the two are inseparable
and are, indeed, one and the same thing. In our everyday
life, we unconsciously solve many of our vital problems—
like digestion, absorption, metabolism, blood circulation,
breathing and perspiration. But there are many problems
which we solve consciously and routinely—like taking food
and water, going to the toilet, bathing, shaving, dressing up,
doing business or finding a job. One cannot escape problems
until one dies—when all problems come to an end. Non-
living things do not have to solve any problems.
Look at Fig. 1. Living along with Problem-solving flows
like a river, as s h o w n . Unfortunately, since w e do not
perceive it as d e p i c t e d , w e tend to look at Living as
s o m e t h i n g s e p a r a t e f r o m P r o b l e m - s o l v i n g . A n d this
misperception is further accentuated by the cultural and
religious milieu w e live in, comprising as it does such
concepts as sin and blessing, karma and life-after-death,
THE NATURE
or
LIVING
Unfortunately, our cultural

and religious milieu comprise
concepts like sin and blessing,
life-after-death, heaven & hell,
ghosts & spirits, power of the
mantra, etc which makes us
look at LIVING as two
separate processes...
... and the moment this happens, the 'Seedling of Blind

Faith' sprouts at the very point of separation of the two
streams. The stream of the PROCESS OF LIVING thus gets
weakened to the same extent it comes under the shadow of
the SEEDLING OF THE BLIND FAITH
Fig. 1: Relationship between Process of Living and Blind Faith

heaven and hell, ghosts and spirits, mantra and magic, and
so on and so forth. This misperception therefore divides the
river of life into two separate streams, one of the Process of
Living and the other of Problem Solving, as depicted in the
lower portion of the figure. The point of separation between
the two streams is the point where the seedling of blind faith
can take root. And the bush that emerges from this seedling
tends to weaken the process of living to the extent one suffers
from blind faith.
Once this separation takes place one steadily loses
confidence in oneself and becomes increasingly dependent
on supernatural powers, even for mundane activities. One
begins to rely more and more on prayers, rituals, mantras,
amulets, godmen, and visits to religious places. In short, over
a period of time, one becomes totally non-productive,
depending on charity and indulging in virtually anything
that may help one escape from the realities of life; one thus
ends u p becoming a parasite on human society; many end
u p taking drugs or smoking hashish—all in the name of
religion.
It is during this phase in life that one comes across
strange people and weird experiences. A few of them, more
enterprising than others, soon realize the great potential of
blind faith and superstitions, and take to the footsteps of
Tu-Hako: They become godmen and miracle-makers. Self-
aggrandisement becomes their passion.
There are two pre-conditions for miracle, magic and '
related feats to happen:
1. There have to be a large number of people who suffer
from all kinds of blind faith and superstition. And
almost 99.99 per cent of people in h u m a n society belong
to this category. These mentally confused, gullible and
s u p e r s t i t i o u s p e o p l e can easily be d e c e i v e d a n d
exploited. Indeed, they provide a fertile ground for
performance of miracle, magic and related phenomena.
But they themselves can never achieve supernatural

powers, in spite of life-long indulgence in prayers,
rituals or piety.
2. There has to be just one person who does not believe in
all this hocus-pocus of mantra, magic, miracle and
related phenomena. It is this person alone w h o has the
potential of becoming a godman, a magician or a tantrik.
And because he has come face to face with the Real Truth
the hard way, he quickly grasps the significance of
supply and demand in the spiritual domain, and begins
to exploit the innocent people of the first category by
learning the tricks of making use of mantra, miracle and
magic. He thus takes to the marketing of blind faith to
ensure a decent living for himself.
Now the question arises as to how this person performs

miracle, magic and related feats? His readymade formula is
to bring the following three factors together:
• KAL : Kala or Technique
• BAL : Shakti or Expression of Power
• CHHAL : Dhokha or Deceit
The Technique has to be novel but utterly simple—so

simple, indeed, that the h u m a n mind fails to perceive it.
The Power can be expressed by dressing u p like a
godman, magician or a tantrik, and adopting their mode of
behaviour including utterance of mantra and abracadabra.
The Deceit component is the icing on the cake: one
cannot perform miracle, magic or related acts without the
intention to deceive the observers. Its importance lies in the
fact that even if one is applying Technique and expressing
Power, but if one does not intend to Deceive, one cannot
achieve magic, miracle or related p h e n o m e n a in this
universe.
MASTER A TRICK
Ignorance among the lay public about scientific principles

comes in handy for tantriks and godmen who, by employing
clever techniques, often succeed in befooling the common
people and exploiting them monetarily and otherwise.
1. Trapping Grahas or planets in a pot of rice

One clever trick that a tantrik or baba plays on ignorant people
who come to him involves the use of a small panchalota—a
narrow-necked pot with sloping sides and a broad
cylindrical bottom—filled with rice. The aggrieved person
is handed a knife. H e is then asked to insert it into the rice
filled in the pot and lift the pot with the help of the knife.
The first time the person does this he is not successful
because the knife comes out without lifting the pot along
with it. The person is then told that God is mighty displeased
with him as is evident from the fact that he could not lift the
pot with the knife. To please God a propitiation prayer will
have to be carried out. For this prayer, the person is asked to
offer a certain s u m of money, clothes, food, jewellery or
whatever else the tantrik feels the person can easily part with.
The prayer over, he once again asks the person to plunge
the knife into the pot and lift it up. Once again the person
fails, for the knife comes out without lifting the pot.
At this point the tantrik announces to the by n o w
perplexed and hapless person that the problem is very
serious and his grahas or planets are in a very bad shape. So
now he will have to catch hold of the problematic grahas,
purify them and re-position them into the planetary system.
He then states a hefty sum, which the hapless person readily
agrees to pay after a couple of days. On the appointed day
the baba visits his victim himself. This time he takes the
knife in his own hand and starts plunging the knife into the
pot filled with rice again and again, each time saying that
he has caught hold of one planet or the other. He traps only

nine planets, although scientists have discovered many more. He
then asks the person to insert the knife once more into the
pot. As he tries to do so, this time he encounters some
resistance but the tantrik asks him to use more force and
p l u n g e the knife deeper. The person n o w f i n d s to his
astonishment that he is able to lift the pot along with the
knife!
The tantrik tells him that his prayers have worked, the
person's grahas are now imbued with strength, and all his
troubles would be over soon. The person goes back home
happy, but poorer by a neat sum.
Now what happens in this case is that when the tantrik
plunges the knife repeatedly into the rice in the pot, the air
spaces between the grains of rice get discharged and the
rice gets packed tightly at the bottom. It is at this stage that
the tantrik hands over the knife to his 'victim'. This person
obviously encounters resistance when he inserts the knife
into the rice, but when he is asked to plunge the knife deeper,
the knife enters the tightly packed layer of rice at the bottom
and gets stuck. When the person now lifts the knife the pot
also gets lifted along with it. To bring out the knife one has
to just tilt the knife to one side so that once again air spaces
are created and the knife comes out loose. A simple trick
that even you can perform at home!
2. Making a havan kund to answer questions

With a little trick you can even have the queries of your
audience answered by the havan kund. For this purpose,
before the performance, take a few pieces of paper and write
on them 'Yes' or 'No' with onion juice. N o w light a havan
and start chanting mantras. After some time, call a member
of the audience and ask him to put a question. Then ask him
to pick up any piece of paper. Place the paper above the
havan kund and you will find that the pre-written words 'Yes'
or ' N o ' become visible. You can tell the person that his
question has been answered.
Actually this is a trick played with the help of onion
juice. Anything written with onion juice and dried would
not be visible. But when the piece of paper is heated the
writing would appear as brown stains. Take care to place
the paper over the havan kund in such a manner that it doesn't
get scorched.
3. Reading a letter in a sealed envelope

Using a similar technique you can read what is written in a
letter w i t h o u t o p e n i n g the envelope. First create the
necessary ambience by lighting a fire, dhoop, agarbatti and
performing havan. Next, take a sheet of plain paper and pen
and ask a volunteer to write a sentence on it. Put the paper
in an envelope, keeping it flat without folding it. Show it to
the audience and then close it with gum. Then chant a few
mantras to please the Goddess Saraswati. Keep a wad of
cotton dipped in ether solution hidden in the cleave between
your thumb and the index finger. Chanting mantras, gently
rub it over the envelope. The written matter will then become
visible and you can read it easily. This is due to a simple
reaction involving ether solution. When it is applied to the
envelope, the paper of the envelope becomes transparent
and the written matter inside can then be easily read.
4. Some other techniques of fortune telling

You may have often seen another trick of fortune telling at
magic shows where the letterings (for example, 'Yes' or 'No')
suddenly appear on plain pieces of paper after they are
d i p p e d in a glass of water. The trick is simple. Using
glycerine soap, write some letters on pieces of paper prior
to the demonstration. At the start of the demonstration show
the pieces of paper to the audience. The letters written on
the papers will not be visible. Then immerse the papers one
by one in a glass of water, after each question from the

audience. After a few seconds the letters or words become
visible on the plain paper. The trick is based on reaction of
glycerine with water.
Here is another trick performed by tricksters in which
they claim to answer your queries by dipping pieces of paper
in water. Even you can try this out. But first the preparations.
Take a few slips of paper, immerse them in a glass of water,
put them on a glass sheet and cover each with another dry
slip. Use a ball pen to write 'Yes' or 'No' on the top slips of
paper. This would leave an impression on the lower slips of
paper as well. Remove and throw away the upper slips and
dry the lower ones. Before the performance, distribute these
slips to the audience and ask people to write their problems
on them. Collect the slips and immerse them in water, one
by one. The pre-written answers 'Yes' or 'No' appear on the
slips and become visible to the audience. This happens
because cellulosic fibres of the p a p e r are already
permanently patterned according to the letterings written
on them. When dry, these patterns become invisible. When
dipped in water the letterings become visible again.
5. Imparting divine power to a pencil

You can even impart divine powers to a pencil. For this trick
fix one end of a suitable length of very fine silk thread to the
base of a pencil with the help of chewing gum. The colour
of the thread should match the colour of your dress so that
it becomes all the more invisible to the audience. Fix the
other end of the thread to your right-hand or left-hand thumb
with chewing gum. Insert the pencil inside a bottle so that
the pencil stands vertical, keeping the threaded side towards
the bottom of the bottle. Hold the bottle in your hand such
that your 'trick' thumb is not visible to the audience. Now
tell the audience to ask any question. If the pencil moves up
it would mean 'Yes' and if it moves down it would mean
'No'. And indeed the audience is surprised as the pencil

moves up and down in response to their questions. But
actually the pencil is moving up and down in response to
the movements of your thumb to which it has been cleverly
attached.
6. Telling numbers by magic

You can also perform a trick where you tell the audience the
number that they had thought of. Tor this purpose you need
a specially designed slate, a clipboard with a few blank
papers, a newspaper, and a slate without frame with a cut
in the corner. Take another slate with a wooden frame. Write
a secret number on it. The number should have at least four
digits. Place the unframed slate on it. Stick the newspaper
on the backside of the unframed slate. Show the clean slate
to the audience. Take a few blank papers and one by one ask
three different people to write any number on it. Then ask a
fourth person in the audience to add u p all the three
numbers. Then collect the paper and meditate. Stand far
away from the slate and act as if you are writing the number
on the slate. Ask the fourth person the total number he had
added. Now place the slate on the newspaper and cleverly
pick up the framed slate that will have the written answer
and read it out to the audience. It will impress the audience
into thinking that the psychic power of the demonstrator
has enabled him to tell the correct total number of different
figures, written by three different people.
The trick is based on the specially designed slate. The
unframed slate should be slipped carefully. While going to
the fourth person to get the total done, the demonstrator
should give his own figures that had been written previously
by him, the total of which is the one that has been written
previously by him on the slate.
7. Playing the game of hypnotism

Here is a trick that can turn you into an expert hypnotist.
Cut out a single column news report from a newspaper.
Make a neat cut just below the headline, turn the text upside
down, and paste it below the headline. The news report has
now been 'doctored', in the sense that while the bold
headline is there as it should be, the text hangs below it
upside down. Now cut one or two superfluous lines from
below; note down the first two lines on a piece of paper, and
get ready for the performance.
Call a volunteer from the audience; ask him to stand at
a distance of at least six feet and to concentrate on your
forehead. Now act as if you are hypnotising the volunteer,
waving your hand in front of his eyes, and closing your fist.
Start bragging "The volunteer is now fully hypnotised,
totally under my control. Our minds are now one. If I ask
him to jump into a well he will do so without a murmur..."
and so on and so forth. Now pick up the doctored news
column and tell the audience that you are going to cut this
column wherever the volunteer would ask him to cut, and
that the volunteer would ask you to cut the column wherever
you want it to be cut.
Now hand over the folded piece of paper (with two
lines already written on it) to someone in the audience. Take
a scissor and tell the volunteer that you are going to move it
down the column and would cut it the moment he says "cut".
Now cut the column accordingly and ask the volunteer to
pick up the cut piece of paper and read its first two lines.
Thereafter, ask the other person to open the folded piece of
paper and read out whatever is written on it. The audience
would be surprised to find this text to be the same as read
out from the folded piece of paper!
Hypnotism is nothing but autosuggestion. Those weak
of mind can be easily hypnotised; those who do not believe
in such hocus-pocus cannot be hypnotised. Yet the above
trick is designed to ensure your success, whatever the

circumstances. Because it is based on the news matter,
invisible from a distance, pasted upside down below the
headline. Since the 'hypnotised' person would have to
reverse the cut-piece to read it, the opening line would
always be at the bottom end of the 'doctored' news clipping;
and so, it does not matter from where you cut off the clipping,
the first lines will always be the same.
8. Performing colour-change tricks

You can use chemicals to create blue letters on paper, as if
by magic. For this purpose take a plain piece of paper,
preferably yellow or pink coloured (but never green). Before
the performance dip a brush into potassium ferro-cyanide
and write some words on the paper and let it dry. The words
will not be visible to the audience. If you dip your finger in
ferric chloride solution and gently rub it on the words, you
will find the printed words suddenly becoming visible to
the audience. This trick is a simple chemical reaction between
ferric chloride and potassium ferro-cyanide.
You can use the same two chemicals for performing a
trick in which letters suddenly appear on your body. Before
performing the show write something on your hand using
ferric chloride. Let it dry. The writing will not be visible on
the skin. Now you are ready to perform the show. Assure
the audience that nothing is written on your hand or body.
Keep a piece of cloth dipped in the colourless solution of
potassium ferro-cyanide at hand and rub it on your palm or
fingers. Now rub your fingers at the place where the name
or message had been written. The pre-written message will
appear on your hand in, green colour. You can claim that
this message has been made to appear by your supernatural
power.
THE PROCESS OF LIVING A N D MIRACLE MANIA 79
9. Turning turmeric powder into sindoor

Another colour-change trick is c h a n g i n g the colour of
turmeric powder into that of sindoor. Turmeric powder and
slaked lime powder are needed to perform this trick. Apply
slaked lime on your index finger secretly. Put turmeric
powder on the other palm and show to your audience. Chant
mantras and put your index finger on the turmeric powder
and mix. The turmeric powder would turn sindoor-red. Show
to the devotees and they will be surprised. The reaction of
yellow turmeric powder with slaked lime converts it to red.
Use only diluted solution of slaked lime.
10. Leaving coloured footprints or handprints on a piece

of cloth
The above technique comes handy if a holy man wants to
demonstrate his spiritual power. He walks on a piece of
yellow cloth that his devotees have spread at a venue, leaving
behind red-coloured footprints. Similarly, a saintly woman
possessed by a goddess can leave behind similar handprints
on a yellow piece of cloth. How does it happen? On arrival
at a venue the holy man's feet are washed with water mixed
with lime. And the cloth he walks on is coloured yellow in
turmeric powder solution, and then dried. The red-coloured
footprints are the result of the reaction of limewater with
turmeric. In the same way, a woman possessed by a goddess
is asked to wash her h a n d s with water mixed with lime,
and then put her fully stretched hands on a yellow piece of
cloth coloured in turmeric powder solution.
11. Changing the colour of cloths by magic

You can easily change the colour of a piece of cloth by magic.
You need a 3 cm long and 1.4 cm diameter PVC pipe and
three pieces of soft silk cloth of different colours. Fill the
plastic pipe with two pieces of cloth; the third piece of cloth
should be kept outside before the audience for changing its
colour. Hide the plastic pipe in the left palm, below the
fingers, and grasp it in the fist. Now take the third piece of
cloth and gently p u s h it from the side of the little finger into
the pipe under the fist and take out another cloth from the
other side of the thumb. This will bear another colour. Now
put the changed coloured piece again from the little finger
side and take out the third one from the other side, which
would be of a third colour. The performance is based on
sleight-of-hand. The size of the pipe size must be according
to the size of the fist so that it remains hidden.
12. Eating chillies with ease

You can surprise your audience by eating even the most
stringent chillies with ease. All you require are some olive
oil or Gurmar leaves and chillies for this trick. Before the
performance take a tablespoonful of olive oil into the mouth
and gargle vigorously, to cover your taste b u d s with oil.
Alternatively, take some leaves of Gurmar into the mouth
and chew thoroughly, for a few moments, to block the taste
receptors. Gurmar is a herb that stimulates insulin secretion
and has blood-sugar reducing properties. After these initial
preparations you can eat as m a n y chillies as you want,
without feeling any burning sensation.
Unless the food is dissolved in saliva, experienced by
taste receptors and registered by the brain, one cannot tell
the taste. The illusion of taste is not created in this case since
olive oil coats the taste b u d s on the tongue and mouth.
Similarly, Gurmar leaves make the taste receptors inactive
and the taste of chillies cannot be felt.
2
SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND THE SUPERNATURAL
The hallmarks of science are curiosity for its own sake,

f r e e d o m of inquiry, experimental verification, and a
questioning attitude. Unlike in Religion, there is no place
for authority, faith or belief in science.
The concept of the 'supernatural', so long propagated
by Tu-Hako and his progeny and later nurtured by various
religions and cults w a s buried well a n d d e e p in the
seventeenth century itself, when science abandoned the
Alchemistic attitude. Unfortunately, thanks to religious
indoctrination, this notion is still so deeply ingrained into
the minds of the people that one finds it extremely difficult
to rid them of it. However, to debunk this notion I find it
quite effective to take recourse to three major assertions, as
given by different protagonists (Box 7). All the three
assertions, on the face of it, appear to be quite correct,
considering the present societal and cultural milieu we
live in.
Scientific Assertion: It states that the Universe is a self-
regulating system and all the events happening in it are
governed by the Laws of Nature. Moreover, this Universe
has been there since eternity and will continue to be there
forever. Obviously, science does not find any role whatsoever
for God in the affairs of the Universe. And therefore this
notion of the 'supernatural' has no validity in the realm of
science.
At least people who are science-literate are expected to
Box 7
The Three Assertions
Assertion I: Scientific Approach
This Universe is a self-regulating system, and all events
happening in it are governed by the Laws of Nature. That is,
nothing can ever happen in this Universe against these laws.
Assertion II: Irrational Approach

Miracle and magic do happen, and they always happen against
the Laws of Nature.
Assertion III: Rational/Scientific Approach

Miracle and magic always happen in the minds of the people—
never outside. That is, what happens outside, at the level of
the godman or magician, is always based on natural processes.
subscribe to this Assertion. Unfortunately, however, even

the supposedly enlightened are prone to jump over to the
religious bandwagon, represented by the second Assertion.
Irrational Assertion: It states that miracles and such
other supernatural feats do happen, and that they always
happen against the Laws of Nature. Here again one has to
give credence to this assertion, because all the factors that
go into making a miracle or a supernatural feat, happen to
appear factual, at least to the observer. For instance, the
inputs made into the observer's mind, the h u m a n brain itself,
the way it processes information, and the output recalled,
which enables the observer to see a supernatural feat. The
observer of course does not see as to how the godman or the
magician cleverly hides at least one crucial factor (for
example, a potato in the sleeve) to distort his perception.
We have therefore to p u s h the observer over to the next
assertion.
SCIENCE, SOCIETY A N D THE SUPERNATURAL 83
Rational Assertion: This assertion does not deny a

miracle or a supernatural feat as such, but simply states that
these always h a p p e n in the minds of the people, never
outside; that is, what happens at the level of the godman or
the magician is always based on natural processes, which
anyone with training and practice can replicate. This is thus
as good as t h e Scientific Assertion, w h i c h c o u l d be
scientifically explained then and there by performing any
number of miracles or magical tricks.
As m e n t i o n e d in C h a p t e r VI, o n e can p e r f o r m
s u p e r n a t u r a l feats by b r i n g i n g together three factors:
Technique, Power and Deceit. Let us take a look at Box 8,
which illustrates the fact that when these three factors are
brought together, the mind's conditioned response could be
a supernatural trick of three different levels depending on
the intended objective of the performer.
We could call the first level—albeit arbitrarily—a
sleight-of-hand, if the intention of the performer is just to
entertain or educate the observers, without the slightest
shade of exploitation.
If the intention is to show the trick as 'magical' in order
to entertain the observers and to earn some money in return,
then again no d a m a g e is done since the act is mutually
beneficial for both the performer and the observers.
However, the problem arises when the intention of the
performer is to show the trick as a so-called 'miracle'—
something the performer alone can do due to his nearness to
G o d — b e c a u s e t h i s m a n d o e s n o t just go a w a y a f t e r
performing the so-called miracle, like the good magician,
but stays put in the society as a parasite to constantly harvest
the fruits of w h a t e v e r little labour he h a s invested in
performing that so-called miracle.
This so-called godman becomes the primary source of
all kinds of blind faith and superstition in human society.
By suitable manipulation of people's fears and insecurities,
he soon acquires a captive client-base for his never-ending

s e l f - a g g r a n d i s e m e n t . I n d e e d , he b e c o m e s a T u - H a k o
reincarnate!
It needs to be re-emphasised here that all the so-called
supernatural feats are technically the same. The same trick
could be performed as a sleight-of-hand in a classroom, as
magic in a magic show, or as a miracle in a religious
congregation. W h a t differentiates these three levels of
performance are the desired objectives of the performer and
the social impact the performance has. Box 9, thus, depicts
t h e social i m p a c t of t h e s e t h r e e levels of so-called
supernatural tricks.
Box 8
Levels Of Supernatural Tricks
Technique + Power + Deceit
fy
In association with the conditioned
response of memory produce
£
Level 1: Sleight-of-Hand
$
Level 2: Magic
£
Level 3: Miracle
Which are all, technically, one and the same phenomenon,
the difference being only in terms of the social context of the
performance.
It is obvious f r o m Box 9 that tricks p e r f o r m e d for

entertainment and education could have a very good social
impact, especially since these could trigger creative impulses
in children. Even when performed as part of a magic show
these could h a v e a positive social impact, since magic
provides pure entertainment and helps structure surplus
time available with the people.
However, as already stated, the problem arises when a
trick is performed camouflaged as a miracle, with a purely
exploitative motive. Therefore, tricks performed as 'miracle'
need to be constantly explained scientifically and exposed
for what these actually are.
Box 9
Social Impact of Supernatural Tricks
Level 1: Sleight-of-Hand
Purpose: Entertainment and Education
Impact: Very good; helps inculcate scientific temper;
triggers inventive and creative faculties in
children.
Level 2: Magic
Purpose: Entertainment and Vocation
Impact: Good; provides entertainment; helps structure
the available time.
Level 3: Miracle
Purpose: Personal gain by creating the impression that
the performer is 'nearer' to God.
Impact: Horrible; perpetuates blind faith; promotes
dependency on godmen; curtails freedom of
thought and action; destroys the capacity for
living to the full potential; inhibits mental
development in children.
MASTER A TRICK
Magicians and miracle makers often play u p o n your

psychology to make you feel that they are controlling your
mind. But this is nothing but an illusion they deliberately
create to impress the audience.
1. Tasting your favourite sweet

Take for instance the trick wherein a volunteer is made to
think of his favourite sweet and the very next moment he
can actually taste it. For this trick you need some saccharin
powder, a pencil and small piece of paper. To begin with,
secretly apply a bit of saccharin powder on your middle
finger. Call a volunteer from the audience and ask him to
write the name of his favourite sweet on the piece of paper.
Pick up this paper such that some of the saccharin powder
is transferred f r o m your finger to the paper. Ask the
volunteer to close his eyes and think as if he is eating his
favourite sweet. Ask him also to put out his tongue and touch
it with that piece of paper. Soon he will feel the taste of his
favourite sweet.
As you can see this is just an illusion. What actually
happens is that the saccharin applied to your middle finger
first gets transferred to the paper on which the volunteer
wrote the name of his favourite sweet. When this paper is
skilfully touched to the tongue of the volunteer, a few crystals
of saccharin are bound to get transferred to his taste buds in
the mouth. Saccharin being 600 times sweeter than sugar,
even a crystal or two is enough to give the flavour of
sweetness to the volunteer. And since he is already thinking
about his favourite sweet, he easily takes the flavour as that
of his own sweet.
2. Smelling your favourite soap

In much the same manner you can make a volunteer smell
his favourite soap. Before starting the performance apply a

little mild perfume on the middle finger of your left hand.
Ask a volunteer to come forward. Make him write the name
of his favourite soap on a piece of paper. Then ask him to
close his eyes and take deep breaths. Ask him to imagine
that he is bathing using his favourite soap. This would make
the volunteer concentrate on the perfume of the soap. Now,
pick u p the piece of paper on which the volunteer has written
the name of his favourite soap, rub your perfumed finger
on it, and wave it near the nose of the volunteer. He would
soon begin to smell the illusive fragrance of his favourite
soap.
3. The psychology of a brush

The human brain works almost like a computer. Both can
take in information, store it in their respective memory
banks, recall it and process it to get an appropriate output.
But while a computer works according to a specific program
and never commits a mistake, the h u m a n brain could be
easily tricked into committing a mistake. For instance,
magicians and babas just hide one fact from our brain to
distort our perception. This happens because of our irrational
beliefs. Here is a trick to illustrate this point.
You can play this trick on anyone using an ordinary
plastic brush used for washing clothes. Call a volunteer and
make him stand with his back in front of the audience. Now
take the brush and gently rub it repeatedly downward at
different places on the back. The volunteer has to tell on
which side—right, left or middle—of the back is the brush
being rubbed. This done, tell the volunteer that you are going
to 'lock' the information gained d u r i n g the process by
moving the brush around his head. Now ask him to close
his eyes and once again tell you which side of the back the
brush is moving, as you repeat the process.
But this time around move your fingers on the back of
the volunteer and the brush on your chest, synchronously—

so that he gets the same sound and feeling of movement of
the brush as before. And when you ask him which side of
the back the brush is moving on, he would give the same
reply as before—left, right and middle. That is, he would
not be able to distinguish between the movement of the
brush and that of the fingers—until you ask him to open his
eyes and turn around to see for himself as to where the brush
is being rubbed!
4. The psychology of glass balls

A similar psychological trick is played out with two glass
balls. Call a volunteer and ask him to cross the middle and
index fingers of his left hand. Put two small glass balls on
your hand and ask the volunteer to close his eyes. Now take
away one ball from your hand and ask the volunteer to touch
the 'two' (actually one) balls with his crossed fingers. He
touches the same ball in such a way that first one finger and
then the other touches in turn the same rolling ball. Yet the
volunteer gets the feeling as if he is keeping his fingers on
two separate balls. When he opens his eyes he is surprised
to see only one ball. The physical contact with the ball is the
result of illusion of touch by which the volunteer feels one
ball as two.
5. Uniting quarrelling couples

Godmen are also known to perform simple tricks to overawe ;
their followers into believing that some grave ill has befallen
them and that it is they alone who can save them from a
calamity. Often when a squabbling couple comes to a baba
looking for a way to end their squabbles he performs certain
rituals and charges them a hefty fee. To prove that he has
the power to bring them back together he takes two pieces
of jute thread, called sutli, and by incantation joins them
together without a knot being visible. This he says is an
indication of divine grace having brought them together

once again.
If you take a 6-feet long single-ply sutli, twist it and
double it, you get a double-ply sutli. N o w if you twist this
double-ply sutli and double this once again you get a four-
ply sutli. If you open this four-ply sutli in the centre only
partly, and twist the double-ply sutlies such that they look
like two four-ply sutlies with their tail ends hanging below,
you have converted a single-sutli into a double-sutli. But
don't forget to keep your fingers firmly at the junction of
the two sutlies, otherwise the trick would be out. N o w hide
the twisted parts and the junction in your fist and ask the
quarrelling couple to pull each of the two hanging ends. As
the two ends are pulled the plies get stretched and return to
their original form giving the impression that two separate
sutlies have joined into one without a knot.
6. Cutting banana by mantra

A similar trick involves cutting banana by mantra shakti. Even
you can perform this trick. All you need is a long needle, a
banana and some water. Before the performance pierce the
long needle in the banana, preferably at a black spot (or
chitti), but take care that it does not come out from the other
side. Move the needle in such a w a y that it dissects the
banana into two pieces. Cut the banana in this way at several
places, cutting it into several pieces. The banana is now ready
for the show. Chant a mantra and throw water on the banana.
Now peel off its skin. The inner edible part would come out
in several pieces, surprising the audience. Actually the
banana has already been cut into several pieces with the
help of the needle, but since the audience doesn't know
about it, they are surprised when you peel off the outer skin.
7. Peeling banana by magic

You can even peel a banana by magic. For this trick you will
need a dry bottle (glucose drip bottle), one tablespoon of

spirit, a matchbox and a banana. Keep the dry glucose drip
bottle on a table in front of the audience. Pour one tablespoon
of spirit inside the bottle. Then light a matchstick and throw
it in the bottle. Immediately block the mouth of the bottle
with a slightly peeled banana, with the peeled skin hanging
a r o u n d the m o u t h of the bottle. The audience will be
surprised to see that the bottle sucks in the inner edible part
in such a way that the outer skin is peeled off and drops
outside the bottle.
There is a scientific explanation for this trick. What
happens is that when the spirit inside the bottle burns, it
heats u p the air inside which expands and partly escapes
from the bottle; simultaneously, the oxygen inside the bottle
is used u p due to combustion of the spirit, creating vacuum
inside. When the partly peeled banana is pressed on the
mouth of the bottle, the bottle is sealed. The hot air remaining
inside the bottle cools down creating further vacuum. And
because of the higher air pressure outside the bottle the inner
edible part of the banana is sucked into the bottle, giving
the impression that the banana is peeled by magic.
8. Eating glass
The bananas come in handy in yet another trick that involves
eating glass. Take a fused bulb or a portion of a fused tube-
light, carefully wrap it in a handkerchief and break it into
small pieces. Before the performance eat two bananas. Then
take a piece of glass and put it on the tongue. Carefully
transfer the glass piece to the masticating teeth and chew it
perfectly until it is converted into a fine powder. After
swallowing it completely eat another banana saying that you
are eating it as a prasad given by God. WTien you eat the
banana, the particles of glass stick to it and enter the stomach.
This glass powder sticking to the banana is then eliminated
from the digestive system the next day. However, this is a
dangerous trick and should be performed only under expert

guidance.
9. Cutting glass with a pair of scissors

Can you cut glass with a pair of scissors? You cannot: the
glass keeps slipping away or gets chipped. However, if you
put the glass sheet under water and cut it with a pair of
scissors, it will get cut smoothly at the desired place without
breaking into pieces. This is because glass does not crack
into pieces in a liquid medium and hence the scissors do
not slip while cutting the glass.
10. Reading a text while blindfolded

How do magicians read blindfolded? To do this trick you
need a standard sheet of cloth (1.5 m length, 8 cm width),
and some reading material. Shut your eyes tightly. Blindfold
your eyes with the cloth sheet. Now open your eyes. Place
the reading material or book just below the nose on a table
or in hand. Then chant some mantras or hymns and start
reading the material. What is the secret behind this trick?
When you blindfold your eyes after tightly shutting
them, then because of your protruding nose, you can open
your eyes slightly and see the material or book placed just
below the nose. While covering the eyes with the cloth you
must bring the cloth u p to the mid-length of nose so that the
protruding nose leaves enough space between the eyes and
the cloth so that you can see through it.
11. Miraculous appearance of an idol from the ground

The miraculous appearance of a Shivling or an idol of a deity
from the ground is a standard practice of capturing public
land to build a place of worship. How is this done? Take an
idol weighing 1 - 2 kg. Secretly dig a pit one foot deeper
than the height of the idol. Fill half of the pit with black
gram and place the idol over it. The rest of the pit is filled
with earth so that the top of the idol is just a few inches
below the ground level. The best time for doing all this is
the dead of night, and the best season is just before the start
of the rainy season.
At the appropriate time you have to spread the rumour
that a particular deity appeared in your dream and asked
you to take it out and build a temple at the spot. Take some
people to the spot where the idol has already been buried.
Now start performing prayers and rituals around the spot
while at the same time throwing a good quantity of water
around it. The water seeps through the earth and wets the
layer of black gram. In a couple of days the black gram
sprouts, increases in volume and pushes the idol upward.
One fine day people actually see the idol rising from the
same spot the person had mentioned. All this excitement
would have raised enough public sentiment to pave the way
for a grand temple around the spot.
12. Giving birth to divine Shivlings

Some babas go through the pangs of giving birth to severed
pieces of divine Shivlings, all emerging from the mouth. Even
you can do this. All you need is a towel or a one-meter piece
of cloth, a glass of water and several 6-cm size Shivlings.
Show the towel to the audience while holding one of the
Shivlings in your palm, covered by the cloth. Keep the other
pieces of Shivlings hidden in the loincloth between your
thighs. Keeping the idol in between the thumb and the index
finger, spread a n d shake the towel several times in all
directions to gain the trust of the audience. While keeping
the towel on one side, gently release the idol from your hand
and on to the towel, but cover it by folding the towel over it.
Take enough water in your mouth and spit it out. Show the
audience that your mouth is empty.
Now act as if the birth of the idol is causing great pain
in your stomach. In between chanting of mantras and calling
upon Shivshakti divert the attention of the audience, wipe

your face repeatedly with the towel, and in the process
transfer the idol into your mouth. And the very next moment,
with great expressions of pain and vomiting, let just half of
the idol pop out of your mouth. Now, during all this hanky-
panky, pick one more idol from your loincloth, fully covered
by the towel. Take the idol close to your mouth, so that the
mouth is fully covered by the towel. Now take the first idol
back into the mouth, and place the other one in front of the
audience. Immediately go into another traumatic experience
of giving birth to another Shivling, letting the idol in the
mouth once again emerge only half way, picking u p another
Shivling in the towel, taking the towel right u p to your mouth,
pushing the first Shivling back into the mouth and placing
the other Shivling in front of the audience. In this way you
can give 'birth' to several pieces of Shivlings and keep the
audience fully charmed by your spiritual powers.
10
MIND IN A MUDDLE
The y o u n g girl w a s having fits every n o w and then,

throughout the day and night. During the fits she suffered
heavy palpitation of heart and chattering of teeth; she
clasped her hands so tight that no one could unclasp them.
She would dream of being dragged by her locks by a very
old woman. She was possessed, they said, by an evil spirit.
They tried all kinds of exorcism to rid her of the ghost. She
was even sent to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.
But nothing worked.
It so happened that we went to the same village in the
hills to conduct a four-day workshop on science behind
miracles, and stayed with the same family. As was my
practice, at the very outset of the workshop I told the
participants not to believe in w h a t e v e r I said. I then
proceeded to debunk miracles and magic, ghosts and spirits,
and so on. The girl's grandfather, who was also present,
intervened and said, "We the people of the hills always see
ghosts and spirits dancing naked in these hills. How do you
expect us to believe that they do not exist?" I reminded him
of what I had said at the very outset: Not to believe in
whatever I said. "Since you have yourself seen ghosts and
spirits, you are welcome to believe in their existence," I said.
However, after two days he p l e a d e d with m e in
confidence to do something to save his granddaughter from
the evil spirit. I expressed my inability to be of any help in
this matter, since I did not believe in ghosts and spirits. But
M I N D IN A MUDDLE 95
he persisted and over the next two days he brought to bear

upon me enough pressure from different quarters that I had
to agree to see the poor girl after dinner on the last day of
our stay.
Ghosts are established in a child's brain during the
growing years, from age one to five. The child is then eager
to learn and its brain is like a clean slate; it tape-records
everything that the child is told, without editing. As the child
becomes more and more active, its parents and other elders
try to control it by frightening it of non-existent ghosts and
spirits. When the child grows u p it actually observes the
consequences of such beliefs—of how people are 'possessed'
by ghosts, how these are exorcised by godmen, and so on.
Her belief in ghosts thus becomes firm. By the age of five,
when a child's critical faculties begin to emerge, its mind is
already conditioned by irrational beliefs like magic, miracle,
mantra, ghosts, spirits and what not.
Obviously the girl was suffering from the consequences
of her own conditioning. I had never exorcised a ghost; so
on that fateful night, all I could do w a s to help the girl
understand her o w n conditioning and to get rid of her
ailment of her own accord.
Soon after dinner her father and grandfather led me to
her room. The girl was lying on a cot. I placed my left palm
on her forehead and asked her to grasp m y wrist by her
right hand; I also called for her left hand and grasped it with
my right hand. I then asked her to close her eyes, relax and
listen to what I w a s going to say. "You need not accept
whatever I am going to say," I told her, "just listen and let it
pass".
There was hardly any deliberation on my part in what
I was doing. All I wanted was to put the girl in a receptive
frame of mind. Finally, I delivered the following speech in
the local language, slowly but emphatically:
"Fear is a capital all living beings are born with; non-
living things are devoid of this asset. Through education

and understanding, this capital later gets transformed into
bravery and spirit of self-sacrifice. Fear is not separate from
you; indeed, you are your fear and your fear is none other
than yourself. Trying to run away from fear is like running
away from life, for life cannot be lived without fear. So, do
not dissipate your fear—live with it. When you see a frightful
dream, be happy, for your fear is active. When you see ghosts
and spirits in these hills, again be happy for your fear is
alert and watchful. When you get another fit, ask everyone
to leave the room, and carefully watch the chattering of your
teeth, the palpitation of your heart, the clasping of your
hands, and so on, until your fear becomes one with you.
There are no ghosts and spirits in this world: They are only
the projections of your mind. Indeed, your fear is the
protector, guardian and companion of your life. So, stop
running away from your fear."
I then stepped off the bed and told her parents, in her
presence itself, not to talk about ghosts and spirits, for these
only constitute the language through which our fear tries to
communicate to us.
She did not suffer any fits during the night. Next
morning she insisted on going to school. In a couple of
months she was married to her fiance. She would never ever
suffer from such fits, even if she wished, because the relief
came from an understanding of Truth.
The human brain is the most powerful and complex
system. It is m a d e u p of nearly 100 billion
(100,000,000,000,000) neurons. Each neuron has hundreds
of tentacle-like dendrites, through which it is 'wired' to other
neurons to establish the basic circuitry of the brain. In
comparison to human brain, the brain of a honeybee has
only 1 million (1,000,000) neurons; yet it can perform tasks
that the world's most powerful computer cannot; indeed, it
is superior by about seven orders of magnitude to the latter.
Moreover, computers are devoid of feelings and emotions,

and they cannot be judgmental about right or wrong.
Apparently both human brain and computer work in
the same way. You can feed information and data into them;
these can be stored into the respective memory banks; and,
when needed, these can be recalled and processed to get the
required output. But computer is superior to brain in one
respect: It always works according to a pre-determined
'program' and never commits a mistake. On the other hand,
the human brain can be made to commit mistakes even by
simple trickery. For instance, a magician or a godman can
easily trick your mind into believing the outcome of an
ordinary set of processes as magic or miracle. And to alter
your perception all that they need to do is to simply hide
just one critical factor from reaching your brain!
MASTER A TRICK
Often in villages one hears of young girls and even married

women being possessed by spirits. They have fits or start
behaving in a very peculiar manner. Today we know that
all of those symptoms are essentially convulsions and fits
brought on due to medical problems or simply an act put on
by the victims to demand more attention. The possession
syndrome is often an outcome of problems at home. Instead
of looking into the cause of the problems people in their
ignorance turn to tantriks and ojhas for help w h o in their
eagerness to earn easy money are always ready to oblige.
These people then carry out several rituals to kill the ghosts
and spirits. This may involve animal sacrifices and, in more
bizarre cases, sacrifices of even y o u n g children! Often,
however, the tantrik befools ignorant people with simple
tricks disguising them as miracles.
1. The funeral of a ghost

For instance, a tantrik called in by a family to cure a girl
supposed to have been possessed by a spirit, manages to
create fire just by sprinkling some water on a coconut and
claims that he has burned the spirit. Further, when he breaks
open the coconut red liquid flows out of it, which he claims
is the b l o o d of t h e spirit, w h i c h n o w h a s b e e n t r u l y
vanquished. Leading to this ultimate so-called miracle is a
carefully worked out rigmarole which the tantrik resorts to
in order to make the family members believe that the victim
has indeed been possessed by a spirit. The ultimate miracle
is the icing on the cake.
The supposedly possessed girl is often beaten u p by
stick or broom and forced to give the name of the dead person
whose ghost has possessed her. The tantrik himself often
suggests a name. Sometimes he pushes the branch of a tree
into her ears and twists it causing excruciating pain. Even
red chilli powder is blown into the girl's eyes or a red-hot
iron is pressed on her body. Frightened with such torture
the girl agrees to be well or is simply numbed into silence.
The tantrik then proceeds to burn and kill the ghost. He hands
her a coconut saying that he has imprisoned the ghost in it.
Then he sprinkles holy water over the coconut that suddenly
bursts into flame. The coconut is then hit on the ground and
blood flows from the broken coconut. After grandly
announcing that the ghost has been killed, the tantrik asks
for money, food, clothes, jewellery and whatever else he feels
the family can easily provide and moves on in search of other
victims. With a clever interplay of psychology, acting and
some subtle chemistry, the tantrik m a n a g e s to d u p e the
family leaving the sick girl in much the same condition as
she was earlier, or even worse off.
The so-called miracle that the tantrik p e r f o r m s is a
simple trick that can be performed even by children. Now
let us see how he does it. The coconut that the tantrik uses,
MIND IN A MUDDLE 99
already has a small piece of sodium metal hidden in its fibers.

The moment water is sprinkled on the coconut it reacts with
sodium thus causing fire. To create a red coloured solution
inside the coconut, the tantrik first makes a hole through
one of the eyes of the coconut and takes out the coconut
water in a bowl. He then dissolves granules of potassium
permanganate in the coconut water, which turns red. This
red liquid is then p o u r e d back into the coconut using a
syringe, through the hole, which is then sealed with wax.
When the tantrik breaks the coconut it is this red solution
that comes out giving the impression of blood.
2. Ghost jumping in a coconut

O f t e n a c o c o n u t is m a d e to j u m p a r o u n d g i v i n g the
impression that it is the evil spirit captured inside which is
making this happen. To achieve this effect, the tantrik takes
a dry coconut, cuts it into two pieces at the centre using a
hacksaw, and takes out the fruit. A frog is then placed inside
the coconut and the two parts are sealed with an adhesive;
the cut is covered with lace or sindoor. The soft eyes of the
coconut are punched out with a needle, to allow the frog to
breathe. The tantrik then performs a havan throwing red
chillies into the fire. A s the pungent smoke enters through
the hole of the coconut, the frog starts jumping making the
coconut roll around.
3. Murder of a ghost
Killing a ghost can also be carried out after imprisoning it
inside a lemon. But before this the tantrik puts on a great act
of running throughout the house after an imaginary ghost
whom he claims is difficult to lay hands on. In doing so he
rummages through almirahs and cupboards observing all
the while the belongings in the house. Finally he announces
that he has caught the ghost, asks for a lemon and imprisons
the ghost inside it. The tantrik then takes out a knife and
cuts the lemon. Blood oozes out from the lemon, which the
tantrik claims, is of the ghost w h o m he has just killed. The
feat lies in a simple trick: although the family provided the
lemon, the knife was his, which had already been coated
with a little amount of methyl orange. It was this chemical
which turned red on coming into contact with citric acid as
the lemon was cut.
There is another way of doing this trick. Ferric chloride
can be injected into the lemon beforehand with the help of a
syringe and the knife is coated with sodium sulpho-cyanide.
A reaction between ferric chloride and s o d i u m sulpho-
cyanide produces a red colour.
4. A dancing wick
Here is another interesting method of capturing and burning
a ghost. The tantrik would come with a special cotton wick
having an earthworm rolled into it. Since the earthworm
would feel quite comfortable, it would not move. For the
actual performance the tantrik would take out an earthen
pot, fill it u p with mustard oil and place the wick into it.
Then reciting mantras, he would light the wick and call upon
the ghost to present himself/herself. Initially the wick would
burn with a steady flame. But as soon the fire reaches the
m o u t h of the earthworm, it would start wriggling with
pain—and the flame would start dancing mysteriously. The
tantrik would convince the people that it is the ghost that is
burning. *
5. Drawing the picture of a ghost

Even you can make a ghost appear on a glass sheet. Spread
a white cloth and place a glass sheet on it. The glass sheet
has already the invisible outline picture of an evil spirit
d r a w n on it using potassium sulpho-cyanide. Cover the
drawing with turmeric, akshat, etc. Now you can start your
performance. Chant mantras and throw wine-coloured ferric
chloride solution on the glass sheet. The picture of the evil

spirit suddenly becomes visible as the ferric chloride reacts
with potassium sulpho-cyanide.
6. Calling spirits
Calling spirits is big business. Some people, called mediums,
make lots of money calling the spirits of the dead and letting
the relatives talk to them. You too can do this. But you need
an accomplice and some elaborate arrangements to make
the atmosphere in the room as eerie as possible. There should
be no lights in the room except for a candle. Burn incense
and agarbatties. N o w sit on a chair opposite the accomplice.
Two relatives or friends can sit on the other two sides, with
a table in the centre. All the four persons should place two
of their fingers on the tabletop. You and your accomplice
should have your feet below the footrest.
Now begin to recite mantras calling for the spirit from
the world beyond. Suddenly change your voice, as if the
spirit is upon you. Simultaneously you and your accomplice
should raise the footrest from below, unstabilising the table
and signalling that you are now fully possessed by the spirit.
Now you can talk, on behalf of the spirit, to the relatives or
friends, keeping in mind what you have already gathered
about them and the deceased.
7. Flowing nectar from the framed picture of a saint

There are several babas from whose framed photographs flow
nectar, honey or oil. This is cited as evidence by his devotees
that the baba is indeed an incarnation of God. However, the
trick behind the miracle is simple. A drip-set is taken and its
inlet is connected with a balloon or small bottle filled with
oil, nectar or honey. The outlet of the drip-set is connected
to the framed photograph from the backside. The drip-set
and the balloon or bottle are suitably concealed beneath a
small carpet or by some other means if the photograph is
hung on the wall. The needle of the drip set-is inserted at a

particular point on the photograph in such a way that its
point is not visible from the front. As soon as the controlling
lock of the drip set is released, oil, nectar or honey flows out
from the photograph for as long as the lock remains opened.
To expose the miracle just shift the photograph from its place
and whatever was flowing out of it will stop suddenly.
8. Fresh flowers emerging from coconut

In India we use coconuts on a variety of occasions, especially
inaugurations of various functions. Many times we call holy
men to do the needful. The holy man would come with a
retinue of disciples with a decorated coconut, which he
would break to signal the inauguration. People would be
surprised to see that, as the coconut is broken, a bunch of
fresh jasmine flowers emerge from it! They are stunned to
see his spiritual power.
You too can achieve this end. All you need is a fistful of
jasmine buds collected in the evening and a coconut. Open
one of the eyes of the coconut with a pin, drain out the
coconut water, and drop the jasmine buds one by one. Close
the eye by dropping over it some wax from a lighted candle.
Leave it overnight. In the morning the buds would in full
bloom. And when you break the coconut fresh jasmine
flowers would be at your feet!
10
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND THE

WEB OF ILLUSION
One cannot extract fact from non-fact. Illusion can only beget
illusion. Try, as much as you like, you cannot convert untruth
into truth, and vice versa. And here lies the dilemma of
religious thought.
The bizarre concepts propagated by Tu-Hako and his
clan of sorcerers for nearly 9,45,000 years were deliberately
concocted to manipulate and exploit people's fears and
insecurities for self-aggrandisement. The magicians knew
what they were doing. But when the same concepts were
imbibed by religions, they not only believed in them blindly
but also imposed them on their followers as divine truth.
Belief in gods and goddesses, heaven and hell, angels and
devils, life-after-death, and so on and so forth became the
cornerstones of religious thought. And since none of these
were verified concepts, religious thought became the biggest
purveyor of illusion in h u m a n history.
Breeding conflict is the chief quality of illusion. Because
in order to save itself from being annihilated, illusion must
stand combatively in opposition to reality. If you look around
the world you would find that behind every conflict lurks
religious thought. Religious thought, by its very nature, can
disseminate only more illusion and, hence, more conflict,
antagonism and misery.
Scientific approach or outlook is a total anathema to
religious thought. Being itself based on illusions, religious
thought tends to base its approaches on the illusory, the non-

tangible. This comes naturally to it because of its lopsided
notion that "one can produce something out of nothing," if
only one perseveres enough with rituals, prayers and self-
denials. For example, it wants to achieve the values of non-
violence, selflessness, security, certainty, etc without even
realising that these do not exist by themselves, without their
opposites—violence, selfishness, insecurity, uncertainty,
etc—being there; and that, unless the latter are dealt with
directly and dissipated the former cannot come into being.
Try m a k i n g a m a n i m b u e d w i t h religious t h o u g h t
understand this simple logic, and you would be surprised
to see his incapacity to grasp such a notion.
We live in an age of rapid and radical changes. The man-
eat-man society that we have created for ourselves means
that most of us are afflicted by unprecedented stress and
strain. These are fertile conditions for the growth of godmen.
Most of us are aware of several such godmen claiming to
have a direct link with God, but w h o with a shrewd
manipulation of public attention by performing so-called
miracles, and b y e m p l o y i n g p o w e r and deceit, have
managed to establish vast fiefdoms of their own. Often such
godmen manage to amass huge wealth and establish links
with the high and mighty, specially the politicians. A sort of
networking that is beneficial and lucrative to all the players
involved. So, behind all the public posturing of a saintly
behaviour and godly endeavour, the ultimate aim is more
often to grab power and accumulate wealth.
The only antidote to religious thought is science. But
the two do not mix: science is too dazzling a mirror for the
carriers of religious thought to look into and see the illusions
they suffer from. Hence the great antipathy religious thought
has t o w a r d s the m e t h o d of science; because it is too
f r i g h t e n e d of its very basis—the illusions—getting
annihilated under the glare of scientific enquiry.
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT A N D THE WEB OF ILLUSION 105
One such godman came from Mattalai in Sri Lanka. He

established an ashram in a rented building at Kirapatti near
Trichy. H e g a t h e r e d a r o u n d h i m a b a n d of f o l l o w e r s
impressing them with his 'miracle' of producing holy ash
from empty hands. He would also take out a lingam from
his stomach once a month before a large gathering. We have
seen how such miracles are performed.
Soon his fame spread far and wide. Money poured in
unasked. He expanded his ashram, started an orphanage
and a school, and built cottages for his disciples and devotees
on the campus. However, one day an inmate escaped from
the ashram, came to Chennai and lodged a complaint against
the godman. A raid was conducted in the ashram and many
incriminating documents, photographs and letters were
confiscated. It came to light that he had raped more than 20
girls in the ashram. He had also snared many bigwigs in his
trap. His m o d u s operandi was simple. The bigwigs w h o
visited the ashram were lured by young girls; they would
then be videographed and later blackmailed. He had also
murdered an engineer and buried him in the ashram. After
a t h o r o u g h i n v e s t i g a t i o n h e w a s s e n t e n c e d to life
imprisonment.
MASTER A TRICK
Godmen often start small, performing miracles and

gathering followers. Slowly as money starts pouring in, the
godmen's desires and needs for self-gratification multiply
manifold. They thrive and prosper on the faith of the people
in God, religion and superstitious beliefs.
1. The miracle of Ghanti baba

One tantrik w h o became famous was the Ghanti Baba who
also p e r f o r m e d tricks to fool his followers. Whenever
XX
xx MANTRA, MAGIC A N D MIRACLE
someone approached him with a problem he would tell him

that his stars were in a very bad condition. To see if his
prediction was correct he would give him a bell without a
rod and ask him to ring it. The bell would not ring for it did
not have any rod. The person was then told that divine grace
was not with him.
The tantrik would then collect a small sum of money
for the propitiation prayer. After the prayers he would take
the bell in his own hand and move it, the bell would ring.
He would then hand the bell back to the person and ask
him to do the same. But once again the bell would not ring.
The tantrik would then tell the hapless person that all this
was due to very strong ill effects of stars and so he would
have to perform another more powerful prayer, for which
he would collect a heftier sum of money. After performing
the prayers he would hold the hand of the person and move
the bell and the bell would ring! H e would then bless the
person and send him back assuring him that everything
would be all right from that moment onwards. But nothing
of t h a t sort h a p p e n e d . O f t e n G h a n t i b a b a ' s v i c t i m s
committed suicide, as they were unable to repay the loans
they had taken to satisfy him. As for the tantrik, in 1976 he
was caught in Chennai with 76 lakh rupees of unaccounted
money.
The Ghanti baba had a simple trick u p his sleeve. He
would tie a small cowbell on his shoulder tightly in such a
way that it remained hidden under the armpit. The bell
would not ring when the armpit was tightly pressed. But
when the armpit was loosened the bell would ring when
the hand was moved. When the tantrik moved the bell that
had no rod with the same hand, it was actually the cowbell
hidden under his armpit that rang. After the propitiation
prayer had been carried out and the tantrik had collected
his loot, he would hold the hand of the person with the same
hand under the armpit of which he had tied the cowbell.
The ringing of the cowbell gave an illusion that the bell in

the hand of the person was ringing.
2. Taking samadhi in a deep pit

Another self-professed god man was famous for his feat of
live burial. He would go into samadhi inside a deep pit. The
pit would be covered with mud. He would then emerge after
four to five hours. However, there is no supernatural feat
involved here. Indeed, even an ordinary person can perform
this trick. All you have to do is to have a pit of size 6 feet x 3
feet x 3 feet d u g in the ground. The air inside the pit will
have enough oxygen for a person to remain sealed in for
nine hours without any difficulty. Besides, since the pit is
not sealed completely with cement, there is still enough room
for air to enter through the air holes in the m u d used to seal
the pit. However, it is advisable to emerge from the pit after
five to six hours.
3. Going into samadhi in water

The same god man also specialised in taking Jal Samadhi—
burial in water. He claimed to have performed Jal Samadhi
in the Himalayas—for as much as 10 days. He later came
down to perform Jal Samadhi in Delhi—for just four days.
The site for the special tank was a wide sewage channel.
The time selected was the height of bitter Delhi winter.
On the first day, after lunch, the Baba submerged himself
into the tank filled with water. Immediately his disciples
covered the tank with a large tarpaulin sheet. As he settled
into the tank he immediately pulled out the plug of an outlet
pipe that went underground into the central sewage channel.
The tank got empty except for 3.5 inches at the bottom, as
the outlet pipe was fixed only after the first layer of bricks
was laid while constructing the tank's walls. There used to
be a huge mela outside the tank. But then, this being a bitter
winter, the c r o w d w o u l d melt a w a y by 9 p.m. Then,
presumably, the Baba's disciples would pull him out of the

tank for necessary ablutions, dinner, siesta, etc. Early next
morning he would go back into the tank before the crowd
began to assemble.
On the last d a y of the Jal Samadhi the Baba w a s
confronted with some nasty questions from journalists. One
fellow asked, "How come your lower parts look whiter than
the rest of your body?" The Baba flew into a rage, accusing
the media persons of being atheists, having no respect for
godmen. He also rebutted w h a t appeared in the papers
during the last four days. Another journalist asked, "How
come you know what was reported in the newspapers, when
actually you were in Jal Samadhi?" His disciple then butted
in, "I used to communicate the news reports to Baba through
mental power!"
4. Walking on water
In the 1960s, a Hata Yogi had also gained prominence with
his feat of walking on water without getting his feet wet.
But the trick that he employed was a simple one. He would
show the audience the empty tank. The tank was then filled
with water. But as the tank was being filled up, a glass sheet
would rise u p to the surface. The Hata Yogi would then walk
on t h i s glass sheet to t h e w i l d a p p l a u s e f r o m h i s
unsuspecting audience.
In 1968, he tried to repeat this trick in the presence of a
large gathering on the Chowpatty in Mumbai. The program
was given wide publicity by the then famous weekly Blitz,
which increased its circulation manifold during the build
u p . U n f o r t u n a t e l y , h i s rivals b r o k e u p t h e specially
constructed tank on the seashore. There was not much time
left to construct a tank that could allow for the glass sheet to
rise u p to the surface swiftly as water was filled u p in the
tank. So, as the performance started on that fateful day, the
tank was filled u p with water. But the glass sheet failed to
come up. As the Hata Yogi stepped on to the water he just

went straight in. He clarified to the stunned audience that
since he had an injury on his leg therefore his performance
had failed. However, he was never heard of again after that.
One Baba even tried walking on. a rope stretched and
hidden just below the surface of the Ganges!
5. The miracle of Bichhi baba

While in Deogarh, Jharkhand, we heard about a Bichhi
(scorpion) baba. Persons stung by scorpions or wasps or even
bitten by snakes would be taken to him. He would just pour
a few drops of a solution in the eye opposite the body part
affected, and the person would feel instant relief. A professor
of chemistry who attended our program once got hold of
the solution and analysed it. It contained only common salt
(sodium chloride). Our explanation of the miracle was
simple: The right hemisphere of our brain controls the left-
hand side of the body, while the left one controls the right-
hand side of the body. When a scorpion stings you, say in
the left leg, the right hemisphere goes into a tizzy, not
knowing what to do and thus enhancing the pain. When a
salt solution is dropped into the right eye the mild irritation
caused spurs the left hemisphere of the brain to stabilise the
right hemisphere, lessening the pain, which is merely a
psychological phenomenon.
I was once walking to the market when something stung
me under the sole of the left foot. I quickly removed my
slippers to see what had bitten me, but found nothing. Since
the pain was shooting up I remembered Bichhi baba and
quickly pressed the right eye's corner adjacent to the nose,
and the pain was gone in a jiffy, thus confirming the above
explanation.
6. The baba who tasted sweet

There are other babas as well. The Sweet Baba of Satara
(Maharashtra) would taste sweet when licked. He used to

take bath with a pinch of saccharin mixed in water and let
the body dry. So whenever someone licked him he would
taste sweet. Saccharin is nearly 600 times sweeter than
ordinary sugar.
7. The miracle of Balti baba

One Balti baba used to demonstrate his supernatural skill
by asking four persons to write d o w n their queries on a
perforated paper fixed on a clipboard, using a ballpoint pen.
Each person would tear off his query at the perforations and
keep it in his/her pocket. The baba's assistant would then
collect the clipboard. It had an extra sheet hidden below.
The assistant would stealthily take out this sheet, tear off at
the perforations and place the apparently plain pieces of
paper in front of the Balti baba. The baba would then take
one slip, recite incantations, and dip it in milk kept in a
bucket (balti) and read out the query. He would do the same
with the other slips. This miracle has already been explained
in Chapter VI.
8. Reading by the ear

While we were performing in Atraulia in district Azamgarh
(U.P.), practically everyone wanted to know how a famous
Ojha baba had performed his miracle when he visited the
area several years back. The baba would ask people to bring
any small object—seeds, spices, insects, etc—hidden in balls
of wet clay. The baba would pick u p one ball, walk some
distance reciting a mantra, bring the ball near his ear, and
announce the name of the hidden object. Somebody would
confirm having hidden that object in his ball. He would then
open the ball, say "very correct", and throw away the
crumpled ball. He repeated this process with all the other
balls and correctly predicted the objects hidden.
He was actually performing the miracle of Karn Pisachini
Devi who is said to impart to her devotees the power to read

by the ear. So w e distributed 10 slips of paper to 10 persons
and asked them to write one word and their names below
it, fold the slips twice and hand them over to our assistant.
We then picked u p the first slip, recited a mantra, brought it
near the right ear and announced "Ramesh has written lion."
Ramesh stood u p and confirmed. We then picked u p the
second slip, the third slip and so on and correctly announced
the w o r d s / n a m e s written on all the slips.
Now the explanation: You have to have an accomplice,
say Ramesh. He collects all the slips and places his own slip
at the bottom. But when you pick u p the top slip you say,
"One Mr Ramesh has written lion." Ramesh confirms. You
open the top slip, memorise whatever is written on it, say
"very correct" and tear it into pieces. You then pick u p the
second slip and announce whatever was written on the top
slip. That person stands u p and confirms. By now you are
already privy to the secret of the third slip. This is the
technique the Ojha baba used to perform his miracle.
9. Miracles galore
When all has been said about babas, godmen and miracle-
makers, the final word has yet to be said. The biggest miracle-
maker of our time has been the Satya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi.
Said to be an incarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi, almost 50 per
cent of all the miracles reported owe their origin to his
ingenuity. There used to be a running feud between him
and the well-known miracle-buster, B. Premanand of the
Rationalist Society. No sooner did the Baba come u p with a
miracle, B. P r e m a n a n d w o u l d c o m e u p w i t h its
demonstration and explanation.
The Baba was ultimately caught on a TV camera, which
explicitly recorded the w a y he w a s 'materialising' gold
chains from thin air. The Baba now devotes his time and
wealth accumulated over the years to welfare schemes,
community services and satsangs. Claimed to be a God by

many of his followers, Satya Sai Baba is now over 80 years
of age and is already wheel-chair bound.
10
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
During our interactions with the public we have often been

asked some very tantalising questions: Is there a God? If
not, who created the Universe? What is the purpose of life?
If mantras have no effect how come in villages people are
cured of snakebites by mere recitation of mantras? If there is
no soul, how do we live? Is there life after death? Is it possible
to predict a forthcoming event? And so on and so forth.
Some of these questions may not appear to be relevant
to the theme of this book, yet we would like to present them
here since these were provoked d u r i n g discussions on
similar aspects of h u m a n life as presented in this book.
However, while going through this chapter please remember
that we are talking things over in the light of Science, not of
Religion.
1. What is life?
A participant at one of our workshops asked this question,
and then apologised:
"\ am sorry I asked this question, although it is outside
the domain of miracles," he said.
"What makes you think that this question is outside
the domain of miracles?" I asked. "Indeed, life is at the very
top of the real miracles. The miracles we have assembled
here to discuss are no miracles at all: they are mere tricks
masquerading as v miracles'. The process of making such
v
miracles' can at best be dubbed as Trickery or Fakery."
Life is a kind of fire. Not the kind of fire we are familiar

with but quite the opposite of it. You can call it anti-fire—in
the sense scientists talk of anti-matter or anti-particle. Let
me explain. Take a gallon of petrol in a bucket, light a
matchstick and drop it into it. What happens? The petrol,
which is accumulated energy, bursts into flames and is
destroyed within seconds. N o w take another gallon of petrol
and pass it through the internal combustion (IC) engine of
your car. The petrol n o w burns in a very regulated and
p u r p o s e f u l m a n n e r , t a k i n g y o u a n d y o u r car m a n y
kilometres away! You can call it negative fire.
What the IC engine does is to generate motive power
to drive the vehicle. And the entire system involved here is
made u p of only non-living matter. If you magnify this system,
in reverse, several millions of times over, you might reach a
stage where living matter would be producing Life in a
somewhat similar manner.
The sources of this Life are the giant-size living
molecules. While the non-living molecules may consist of a
few dozens of atoms, living molecules can contain hundreds
of thousands of atoms. For example, proteins, the basic
building blocks of living beings, can have molecular weight
as large as four million! It is these giant molecules, evolved
over millions of years, which serve as the IC engines of living
beings. Imagine billions of such living IC engines in your
body accumulating energy from outside (through food,
water, oxygen, etc) and automatically firing away to generate
the miracle called Life!
2. Is there life after death?

During a program in Deogarh, a well-known religious place
in Jharkhand, a lady participant asked, "Can a person blind
by birth see dreams? If he can, how can he when he has not
seen this world at all?"
Since I could not formulate an immediate response, I
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 115
invited any one from the audience to answer the question.

A religious person in saffron clothes said that such a person
could dream because he must be having the memory of his
previous birth. Obviously he was referring to the concept
of punar-janam. Later, in my comments I said that science
does not find any evidence of re-birth. However, even if this
were true, what would happen if this person in his previous
birth was a single-celled amoeba or paramecium, which have
no brain and hence no memory. Besides, even if he were a
wolf or a cat or a dog, he would not be able to dream like a
human being. But a person blind by birth still has his other
senses (touch, smell, hearing, etc) to fall back upon and h e /
she can definitely dream based on the perceptions derived
through these senses.
I then offered a different kind of punar janam that is
recognized by science. For example, though my ancestors—
right from the time life emerged on this planet to the present
day—are no longer living, I am the repository of all the traits
transferred to me through their genes, through generations
after generations of evolution. Similarly, I would die but m y
children would carry my genes, and the genetic make-up of
all their ancestors—who would thus, in a sense, live through
the genes of my children and their progeny.
Even infants dream. They often wake u p crying and
frightened as if they were dreaming. Most children dream
of being chased by monsters in a jungle, then coming across
a vast expanse of water, and to escape the monsters they
start flying; they sometimes dream of falling from a great
height. Yet, they have never seen a forest or an ocean, nor
do they know anything about flying or falling from a great
height. Indeed, they are re-living the lives their ancestors
once lived and triumphed over great hurdles despite their
many handicaps.
The concept of re-birth is not peculiar to HinJuism.
Even Islam, Christianity, etc talk of men rising from their
graves on the Day of Judgment. But such concepts are mere

products of our minds, designed to ensure survival, even in
the fires of Hell, forever.
3. If there is no soul how do we live?

The concept of the soul, propounded aeons ago, is now
outmoded. During the Alchemistic phase even non-living
things were supposed to possess soul. But this notion was
given u p by the m i d d l e of the Seventeenth century.
Unfortunately, however, various religions continued to
propagate this notion, especially in respect of living beings.
With the advent of the biochemical sciences in the early
Twentieth century, it became evident that even living beings
do not live by soul but by manipulating energy from food,
water and oxygen. Can we live without these if we were
living by soul alone?
To derive and utilise energy our body is endowed with
a host of biological and biochemical processes: digestion,
absorption, assimilation, blood circulation, respiration,
metabolism, perspiration, excretion, etc. To keep these
processes going, we also have a number of specialised
organs: mouth, stomach, intestines, blood vessels, heart,
lungs, kidneys, brain, neurological network, etc. Problems
with any of these systems may incapacitate us, even leading
to death. However, with prompt medical attention even the
severely incapacitated can survive and live normal life.
Today, there are advanced machines like the heart-lung
machine and the dialysis machine that can even substitute
for vital organs during surgical treatment.
4. What about the near-death experiences?

Our beliefs that condition our minds give shape to all our
experiences. For instance, if we are conscious that a black
cat had crossed our path, or someone had sneezed when we
were leaving our house, we are more likely to meet with an
untoward incident, thus confirming our beliefs. All our

beliefs are thus self-fulfilling.
This becomes all the more true w h e n we are going
through a traumatic condition. For example, when someone
is 'clinically' dead, he or she is totally cut off from the outer
realities of life, and there is no other way but to fall back
upon our inner deeply conditioned consciousness. In this
state whatever w e experience is the conditioned response
of our memory. This is why in near-death experiences, most
people see the same things: the soul leaving the body,
sometimes hovering above and seeing people mourning,
then flying above and crossing through tunnels or ultra thin
bridges and seeing a bright light, even meeting long-dead
relatives and friends, and so on and so forth—all their beliefs
coming true.
In a recent study, some of those who reported near-death
experiences said in follow-up interviews that they had not
had them, while a few w h o had said they had not had them,
reported that they now remembered them. This suggested
that near-death experiences were nothing but a play of false
memories.
5. How true is the belief that a cat crossing our path brings
forth upon us an untoward accident?
Contradiction is the hallmark of all irrational beliefs—and
that's w h y w e call them blind faiths. We Indians h a v e
believed, perhaps since ancient times, that cats are holy
animals and killing them may bring forth the sins of nine
lifetimes (Nau janamoun ka pap lagega!). Why then do we not
say that a cat crossing our path bestows good luck upon us?
Since I have been interested in this field of blind faith
and superstition for the last over 30 years, I have been
particularly mindful of cats crossing my path. Indeed, at
times I have almost deliberately allowed cats to cross my
path just to ascertain the veracity of this widespread belief.
And although I have suffered the usual kinds of misfortunes

and accidents, times without number, an untoward accident
on account of a cat crossing my path has yet to take place.
A few centuries ago, in Europe, cats were considered to
be highly auspicious. Every family had cats as pets. It was
widely believed that cats brought good luck to the family
they lived in. A cat entering the room of a girl of marriageable
age and sneezing was considered to bring forth a husband
in shining Armour!
Soon such irrational beliefs reached the ears of the Pope.
He issued an edict condemning such superstitions. People
then chased the cats out of their homes and killed them on
the streets. Since we were then under the suzerainty of the
Europeans (English, French, Portuguese, etc), perhaps this
superstition about cats travelled from Europe to India on
the shoulders of our erstwhile rulers. As a result, today we
simultaneously believe in both the good and bad omens
about cats—and that's the contradiction we don't see.
Over the ages, cats have evolved to live with human
populations. They move from one house to another in search
of food. Because they like to have only fresh and clean food—
not stale and dirty food f r o m the garbage d u m p , as
rummaged by dogs and pigs. They frequently enter our
houses, often creating disturbance followed by commotion
by the residents, who drive them out. They have to visit
several houses in a d a y / n i g h t to feed themselves, often
crossing our path. But they do so with great dignity! Please
bear with them.
6. Is it possible to predict a forthcoming event?

Life on this planet is informed by its basic qualities of
Impermanence, Insecurity, Uncertainty and Changeability.
It is, therefore, unwise to straitjacket it by the incongruent
quality of Predictability. Unfortunately, due to the transient
nature of life, these very qualities impel man to seek their
opposites—Permanence, Security, Certainty and Stability -

which are, indeed, the basic qualities of non-living things
like rocks, a clump of clay or dead wood. It is to commercially
exploit this human weakness that a whole market peopled
by clairvoyants, soothsayers, diviners, prognosticators,
fortune-tellers, astrologers, palmists, tarot-card readers and
what not has sprung up.
N o n e of these systems of f o r t u n e telling has any
scientific basis. Take the case of astrology. It is based on the
p o s i t i o n s of n i n e p l a n e t s ( a l t h o u g h scientists h a v e
discovered many more) at a particular time. Of these nine
'planets' at least two, Sun and Moon, are not planets at all;
besides, Rahu and Ketu are merely reference points, not any
astral bodies. Well-known planets Uranus and Neptune find
no place in this list of so-called 'planets'.
About a quarter of a century ago, Dr S. Chandrashekhar,
one of the best known astronomers of modern times, along
with several other Nobel Laureates and 180 leading scientists
issued a statement condemning astrology in very strong
words.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, French
scientist Marquis de Laplace came u p with the idea that the
Universe could be completely deterministic if only we knew
its complete state at a given time. He therefore argued that
there could be laws governing everything else, including
h u m a n b e h a v i o u r . This doctrine of D e t e r m i n i s m w a s
strongly resisted by many people w h o felt that it had left no
room for God to intervene in the affairs of the Universe.
However, even otherwise this idea of Determinism had to
be abandoned in the beginning of the twentieth century in
the light of new scientific discoveries.
In 1926, a G e r m a n scientist W e r n e r H e i s e n b e r g
formulated his famous Uncertainty Principle, which stated
that one can never be exactly sure of both the position and
velocity of a particle in a cyclotron: the more accurately one
knows the one, the less accurately one can know the other.
This p r i n c i p l e w a s s u b s e q u e n t l y r e c o g n i z e d as a
fundamental and inescapable property of the Universe.
Today, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle together with
Planck's Quantum Principle forms the basis for Quantum
Mechanics, one of the two basic theories known to mankind
to describe the Universe, the other being Einstein's General
Theory of Relativity.
If the Uncertainty Principle is the fundamental and
i n e s c a p a b l e p r o p e r t y of t h e U n i v e r s e , h o w can t h e
s o o t h s a y e r s , f o r t u n e - t e l l e r s , etc be so certain of the
predictions they make?
In our programs we demonstrate certain techniques of
prediction. And we have consistently found that about half
(50 per cent) of the predictions we make come true, p l u s /
minus one or two.
7. Can one make predictions on the basis of dreams?

People who try to make predictions on the basis of dreams
do not know what dreams actually are. Dreams are nothing
but thoughts, and thinking is always based on previous
knowledge stored in our memory. The knowledge stored in
our memory is therefore always limited, as it cannot access
the knowledge that we are likely to lay our hands on in the
moments ahead (that is, in future). So, any process based
on l i m i t e d k n o w l e d g e — b e it t h i n k i n g , d r e a m i n g or
p r e d i c t i n g — w i l l a l w a y s be l i m i t e d , i n c o m p l e t e a n d
unreliable.
When we are awake thoughts arise, in words, from our
conscious mind, which is the repository of relatively recent
knowledge useful for day-to-day activities. When we go to
sleep the conscious mind also goes to sleep, giving a free rein
to our unconscious mind. The unconscious m i n d is the
repository of very old knowledge accumulated over the ages
past, including k n o w l e d g e inherited f r o m our earliest
ancestors through their genes. It is in this state that we start

dreaming, in pictures.
Obviously, like thinking, dreaming too cannot have any
link with the knowledge that we are likely to lay our hands
on in the moments ahead. And therefore it is unwise to
make any predictions based on dreams - as these have
nothing to do with life in the future, but everything to do
with life in the past.
8. If mantras have no effect, how come in villages people

are cured of snake bites by mere recitation of mantras?
During a workshop in district Nalanda, Bihar, I had the good
fortune of having a Bhagat as a participant. A Bhagat is said
to be able to cure victims of snakebites or other ailments by
mantra. One night I asked him to recite a mantra. The mantra
went on and on for almost two minutes. I then asked him to
explain its meaning.
"I don't know its meaning," he said. "But that is not
important. W h a t is i m p o r t a n t is its pronunciation and
intonation."
"From whom did you learn the mantra," I asked him.
"I learnt it from my Guruji. We were eight disciples w h o
learnt the mantra but only two succeeded in proving it." He
used the term Siddh karna.
"How did you prove the mantra?" I asked.
"We prove a mantra by performing certain rituals in a
cemetery or a funeral ground."
"Why did the other six disciples fail to prove it?"
"Because d u r i n g the proving ceremony ghosts and
spirits hound and frighten you, and the six disciples were
too frightened to even perform the ceremony."
"Did you also see the ghosts?"
"No, I didn't."
"Is this mantra 100 per cent effective in curing snake
bites?"
"No, it is effective in about 93 percent of the cases; about

7 per cent victims do not survive," he said.
I then proceeded to explain why his mantra was not 100
per cent effective. In India, there are about 252 varieties of
snakes. Of these about half are fresh water snakes, which
are non-poisonous. The rest about 126 varieties live on land
or trees; of these about 70 per cent (88) are non-poisonous
varieties. This leaves us with only 38 varieties of snakes that
are poisonous. Even out of these 38, only three—Cobra, Viper
and Krait—are deadly; while the rest 35 varieties are just
poisonous but their victims can survive. Even a victim bitten
by the three deadly snakes can survive if the snake has eaten
another animal (like a frog or mouse) just before biting h i m /
her, because then its venom-sack would be empty. Moreover,
the victim can also survive if h e / s h e is given an antivenom
serum injection within six hours of the snake bite.
Even if we presume that all the 126 varieties of land-
based snakes bite h u m a n beings with equal regularity, the
percentage of those bitten by the three deadly snakes would
be just 2.38 per cent, with most other victims dying of
shock—because the fright of snake bite is said to be deadlier
than the snake venom itself.
Bhagatji agreed with this analysis and then narrated an
incident. A farmer went inside his barn at night and was
bitten by something. He thought that a mouse had bit him.
After three days he had to go inside the barn during the
day. There he saw a snake. He cried out loud, ran out of the
barn and developed all the symptoms of snakebite. Bhagatji
was then called and he cured the farmer by his mantra.
Bhagatji a d m i t t e d t h a t mantras only p r o v i d e a n
emotional support to the victims. He also showed me a
temple where the victims of snakebite are left to worship
Nag Devta until they are cured. Indeed, mantras work, if at
all, through a sort of placebo effect.
9. What is the placebo effect?

A placebo is an inert substance or 'fake pill' of no medicinal
value, given to a patient to make him feel that he is being
given the right medicine. It often w o r k s especially in
psychological cases wherein the ailment is thought to be 'all
in the mind'. H o w exactly a placebo works is not yet known,
but it certainly provides the patient a 'feel good' factor that
helps him recover.
A p a t i e n t ' s beliefs a n d h o p e s c o m b i n e d w i t h
suggestibility o f t e n h a v e significant biochemical a n d
n e u r o l o g i c a l effect. For instance, in a study, d o c t o r s
successfully treated warts by painting them with a bright
coloured but inert dye and suggesting that the warts would
go as the colour wore off.
All treatments by mantra, jhad-phoonk and the like are
forms of faith healing through placebo effect. But such
treatments often give the patients only temporary relief by
m a s k i n g the real ailment, w h i c h m a y later aggravate.
Moreover, treatment by placebo effect opens the door to
quackery. Most forms of 'alternative medicine' like bio-
h a r m o n i c s , chiropractic, a r o m a t h e r a p y , h o m e o p a t h y ,
magneto-therapy, reiki, vaastu, etc work through placebo
effect.
This kind of treatment promotes dependence on non-
scientific practitioners, masks symptoms that require urgent
medical treatment, and often leads to unforeseen medical
and psychological problems.
Placebo is a medical term. Even in the case of snakebite,
the first shot of an injection given to a victim admitted to a
hospital is just a 'placebo' injection (distilled water), to make
him believe that his/her treatment has started. Most quakes
in remote villages and tribal areas make lot of money by
giving placebo injections to patients, which often work.
10. What is the difference between Jadu and Jadu-tona?

The difference between jadu and jadu-tona is the same as
between magic and black magic or witchcraft. While magic
or jadu involves the predominant elements of secrecy and
entertainment of others to make a living, the predominant
elements of Jadu-tona or black magic / witchcraft are secrecy
a n d m a n i p u l a t i o n of h u m a n e m o t i o n s , like fear a n d
insecurity, for ruthless exploitation of others for self-
aggrandisement. The practitioners of witchcraft are Tu-
Hako's disciples in the true sense of the term. So, while
magic can be beneficial to human society as it helps structure
the free time available with the people, black magic or
witchcraft is almost always harmful to the people as it tends
to emasculate their very existence.
The practice of witchcraft also means 'to fascinate'.
Some people, whose psyche is deeply flawed by fear and
insecurity, easily get 'fascinated' by bizarre happenings.
Suppose you are such a person and you notice human excreta
one fine morning at your doorstep. Instead of thinking that
someone has played a prank upon you, you are 'fascinated'
with the negative feeling that someone has done this to harm
you by 'supernatural' means. After a couple of days you
find some blood. Another day you find a dead chicken, and
so on. Instead of ignoring such incidents, you get deeply
disturbed and 'fascinated' by such happenings. Anything
m a y h a p p e n . Sometime even stones m a y fall in y o u r
courtyard. Obviously, you get worried and try to get in touch
with an ojha, sokha or a tantrik to handle the problem. These
people always live in the vicinity of such localities where
they can make a living by the practice of witchcraft. More
often than not they themselves engineer such happenings.
And once you call them in they make a huge drama of getting
you rid of the problem, of course at a cost.
They might discover a bunch of hair in a crack in the
wall and attribute it to an enemy having planted it there. Or
they might discover a 'doctored' coconut containing ribbon,

pins, plastic rings and other trinkets. Often, having won your
confidence, they themselves plant such things secretly, or
seek the help of an accomplice (e.g. a servant). And all this
keeps you in a state of 'fascination' and you go along with
whatever they suggest. Sometimes they even motivate you
to sacrifice a child to get rid of the problem or to get the evil
spirit off your back.
The only antidote to such evil practices is a scientific
attitude. Furthermore, the practitioners of these evil
practices themselves suffer from an overload of guilt feelings,
and I have never known of a witchcraft man or woman who
has not come to grief on account of the excesses of his/her
evil deeds. Call it natural justice.
11. How do magicians make the male sex organ to vanish?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions in our
programs. Invariably, someone will take me aside t'nd ask
this question in confidence. But I make it a point to answer
this question in public, of course without identifying the
questioner.
As we have repeatedly said, magicians a harlatans
always take advantage of our gullibility and irrational beliefs
to run their trade. Given the situation, in this case also the
magician makes his moves subtly. For example, to collect a
huge crowd, he repeatedly brags that he can even turn a
boy into a girl (but never the other way around, for a girl
may happily go home as a 'boy!'), his magical powers being
so great! But he keeps this item to be demonstrated at the
end of the show.
During this period he repeatedly increases the circle of
the audience, both to accommodate more people and to
increase the distance between the centre of the circle and its
periphery. He also identifies a simple, gullible person from
the audience for the act. This is not difficult for him, because
this is what he has been doing all his life. Sometimes he

may even have an accomplice. When the time comes for this
demonstration, he calls this person at the centre of the ring.
He also w a r n s the audience not to leave since this is a
question of life and death for this gentleman.
During the process of casting the magical spell on this
person, he quietly whispers into his years: "Sir, my children
are hungry. My wife has not cooked the meal for many days.
You would not lose anything if you just say 'yes' to every
question I ask. And I bind you in the name of God (Bhagwan
Ram ki Saugandh, etc) to never ever reveal this matter to
anyone." W h e n this is done, he immediately casts the
magical spell and asks this person to check whether his organ
has vanished or not. The person says, "Yes!" The magician
asks him once again to check and tell the audience loudly
whether his organ has vanished or not. The person again
says, "Yes!"
He now spreads his begging sheet and asks the audience
to loosen their purse strings if they want to ensure that this
gentleman is e n d o w e d with his manliness again. After
having extorted sufficient money from the audience by a
combination of cajoling and threatening, he casts his magical
spell again and asks the person if his organ has been restored
or not. The p e r s o n checks and again says, "Yes!" The
magician now closes the show.
And p e r h a p s this is the time our good Questioner
decides to find the truth. He approaches that person in
confidence to find whether his organ had really vanished.
And the person once again says "Yes!" since he is under
oath not to reveal the truth.
12. Can one diagnose the sickness of a patient by a

swinging pendulum?
Some medical practitioners of 'alternative medicine' resort
to this technique of diagnosis. This is nothing but playing
with the life of the patient.

Let us understand the phenomenon of the swinging
pendulum by drawing on a sheet of paper a circle with a
radius of, say, 2 inches. Also draw its diameter passing
through its centre. We now have two figures in front of us:
A straight line AB representing the 4-inch long diameter and
a circular line ABA. Now hold the pendulum at the centre
of the circle and concentrate on the line AB, repeatedly
shifting your eyes from point A to point B and back again
for a couple of seconds. You would soon find the pendulum
also tracing the line AB, without your making any conscious
effort to do so. N o w stop the p e n d u l u m and start
concentrating on the circular line, repeatedly moving your
eyes clockwise from A to B to A and so on. You would soon
find the pendulum tracing the circle clockwise. Stop the
pendulum and start concentrating on the circle again, this
time anti-clockwise. Soon the pendulum would be tracing
the circle anti-clockwise.
How does it happen? As you move your eyes in one
direction or the other your fingers holding the pendulum
receive neural impulses from the brain because of their
greater tactility, pushing the pendulum in the direction of
the eye movement.
Now let us examine how a lay medical practitioner uses
a pendulum to diagnose the sickness of a patient. To begin
with, the patient himself describes his ailment in some detail.
The lay doctor then surmises that the patient is suffering
from one of the four sicknesses—say, bronchitis, tuberculosis,
pneumonia and ordinary cold and cough. And based on his
own expertise or resources available with him he decides
that the patient is most likely suffering from ordinary 'cold
and cough'. To impress the patient, he now makes a chart
on a piece of paper randomly writing all the four sicknesses,
holds the pendulum somewhere in the middle, and after a
couple of seconds the pendulum starts swinging in the
direction of 'cold and cough', because this is what is already

in his m i n d . H e m a y f u r t h e r confirm his diagnosis by
changing the pattern of the chart, and the pendulum would
once again swing to 'cold a n d cough'. So, as w e h a v e
repeatedly said, what is in one's mind always comes to pass.
The patient thus ends u p being treated for ordinary
cough and cold even if he were suffering from tuberculosis
or pneumonia. This is not all. Indeed, some lay medical
practitioners even decide upon the particular medicine that
needs to be administered to a patient!
Such divining techniques for diagnosing sickness may
cost the patient his life. Because pendulums can't see, think
or examine—they can only imitate what is already in the
mind of the diviner.
The phenomenon of the swinging p e n d u l u m is also
some time used by a tantrik to identify the dead whose spirit
has possessed a person.
13. How do gems influence the fortunes of people who

wear them? Is it true precious stones absorb beneficial
rays from the environment to benefit the wearer?
How can gems, which have been mere playthings of the high
and mighty, influence their fortunes? At the most these
stones, howsoever precious, can give them a false sense of
security, nothing more. This is the most unscientific notion
prevalent in h u m a n society, especially among the elite and
the celebrities. It is most unfortunate to see .such people
blatantly promoting a highly irrational and harmful belief
among the common people.
Let us examine first things first. There are no 'beneficial'
rays, except perhaps light rays that help us see things. Even
if there are rays that are useful to humans, their usefulness
stems not from their healing power but from their ability to
destroy unwanted growth/disease, as in the use of laser
beams in various operations.
There was a time when Yogis used to stare at the sun—

a n d p e r h a p s m a n y still d o — t o e n h a n c e their 'Jiyoti'
(eyesight) and suffered damage to their eyes by the harmful
ultraviolet rays emanating from the sun. There has been
considerable international scare over the last one decade
about the growing hole in the Ozone layer, which filters out
these harmful rays. If this hole grows further, more and more
people would start suffering from lesions and cancerous
growths in their bodies. This is because ultraviolet rays can
penetrate the nuclei of our cells and make them multiply
violently, creating lesions and cancerous growths.
If you pass through the market, you are subjected to all
kinds of harmful rays from electric poles and various kinds
of equipment which have become commonplace these days.
If you are living in the vicinity of a transmission tower of a
cellular operator, you and your family are at grave risk,
health-wise. Recently, there was even a scare about the cell
phones people use so commonly for the likelihood of the
rays reaching them or emanating from them causing lesions
in the brain; but the scare was finally suppressed, perhaps
for obvious business reasons. The latest news on this front
is that those using cell phones begin to suffer from reduced
s p e r m c o u n t , drastically r e d u c i n g their capability of
producing children.
Even inside your home, equipment like TV sets, PCs,
etc. emanate rays. In hospitals doctors avoid subjecting
patients to f r e q u e n t X-rays to obviate d a m a g e to their
i n t e r n a l o r g a n s . The f o e t u s of a p r e g n a n t w o m a n is
particularly susceptible to damage if she is subjected to X-
rays. All these rays are harmful pollutants of the already
heavily polluted environment we live in. Fortunately, these
rays are not present in the environment in any significant
amount to cause serious damage to humans in the short term,
but they are certainly not 'beneficial'.
Secondly, gems don't 'absorb' rays or energy from the
environment—they emanate them. That is why you see the

genuine ones shining in the dark. And even if some of these
rays enter your bodies, what is the guarantee that they are
not h a r m f u l b u t 'beneficial' to y o u ? Which scientific
laboratory has certified their efficacy, as far as your health
or fortune is concerned? Who knows what kind of damage
they may be causing to the wearer? Not long ago people
were advised not to wear wristwatches having radium dials,
which shine in the dark by radiating radioactive rays.
But since many people believe in such frivolous notions,
let us see how even an illiterate person can easily befool
them to palm off a worthless stone as a 'precious' stone
matching their Rashi: You would find a Babaji with rows of
'precious' stones in front of him on the pavement of a busy
street. If you want a stone, he would first evaluate your
paying capacity to select a stone accordingly. He would then
pick u p an ordinary stone, place it on your palm, and pour a
little water over it from his bucket. If there is no change in
colour it is not suitable for you. He would repeat this process
with several other stones. Finally he would pick u p a stone
that matches with your status and repeats the same process.
This time it becomes pink! Which means that this particular
stone matches with your Rashi. So, you go for it whatever
be the cost.
What is Babaji's marketing strategy? The 'water' in the
bucket is mixed with a little lime (chuna). He also keeps a
little amount of turmeric (haldi) paste hidden beneath the
upper rim of the bucket. When he wants to sell a particular
stone he lightly touches the haldi paste with his index finger,
and while pouring the 'water' on the stone he cleverly brings
it closer to the other fingers, so that the 'water' passes over
the turmeric paste. And instantly chuna reacts with turmeric
chemically, producing red colour that turns the stone pink.
And this is how you finally get a stone that matches with
your Rashi—and you pay u p the price demanded!
But this is not the only technique used to p a l m off

worthless stones as 'precious' stones. I have recently come
to know of a Babaji w h o doesn't mess his hands with chuna
and haldi and still achieves the same result. If you are coming
down from the Taragarh Hillock in Ajmer you may come
across this Babaji surrounded by a crowd. He sits with framed
pictures of religious symbols, dhoop and agarbattis, etc and
four stainless steel cups in front of him. The first cup has
three stones, the second five stones, the third seven stones,
and the f o u r t h contains ordinary water. If you w a n t a
suitable stone Babaji would first ask you to pay u p some
advance. He would then ask you to pick u p one stone from
the first cup and drop it into the fourth cup. It would settle
down at the bottom without a hitch. Then he would ask you
to pick u p one stone from the second cup and drop it into
the fourth cup. If this one, too, settles d o w n without dancing
a little, he would ask you to pick u p a stone from the third
cup to repeat the process. This one would probably dance a
little before settling down at the bottom. So, this one becomes
the most suitable stone for you! He would then quote a
price, perhaps keeping in view your paying capacity, which
you would readily pay u p to get a stone, which is just right
for you.
H o w does Babaji achieve this end? He makes use of the
quality of water called buoyancy, which makes things lighter
because of the up-thrust exerted by water. When the first
stone is d r o p p e d into the water it settles at the bottom
without any hitch, because it encounters no resistance. When
the second stone is dropped it might hit the first one and,
because of the up-thrust exerted by water, settles d o w n after
dancing a little. If even this one doesn't dance before settling
down, then perhaps the third stone would hit any of the
two stones already in the cup, dance a little, and then settle
down at the bottom. If even the third stone does not dance
before settling down, then you may have to go through the
entire process all over again to discover the stone most

suitable for y o u . This is w h a t w e call ' m a r k e t i n g in
AndhvishwasV
14. Hypnotism is widely practiced in the medical domain.

How come you have listed it under blind faith?
Hypnotism is a much misunderstood and abused subject.
To begin with, the term derives from Hypnos, the Greek god
of sleep. But it has nothing to do with sleep. On the contrary,
hypnotised subjects are fully awake!
In an article in the Scientific American (reprinted in
Science Reporter, June 2002), Michael R. Nash of the University
of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, has listed 15 widely held
misunderstandings about hypnosis. In India, where it is
called summohan, the misunderstandings could be countless!
I am quite aware of competent psychiatrists using
hypnosis to relieve pain and suffering of patients. So far so
good. But its use in the public domain by charlatans is
nothing short of being scandalous. In India the irrational
beliefs about summohan are so widespread that any Tom,
Dick and Harry can cast a hypnotic spell—say, by performing
a weird ritual, by waving one's hand, or just by staring into
the eyes of a pretty girl—and suggesting that she is now
hypnotised!
Some y e a r s back n e w s p a p e r s r e p o r t e d a s t r a n g e
incident. People saw a Sadhu with a girl in tow, somewhere
in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. As they were passing through
a village mart someone noticed that the girl was weeping,
tears flowing d o w n her cheeks. "Why is this girl crying?"
he asked the Sadhu. The Sadhu looked back, saw her crying
and immediately took to his heels. It later transpired that
the Sadhu had cast a spell on the girl, convinced her that she
was now hypnotised and totally within his power, and that
she must follow him or her mother would die. Such incidents
are quite common in India.
Hypnosis is basically autosuggestion. Suppose I ask you

to close your eyes and visualise that you are in a beautiful
palace. Immediately a picture of a palace emerges on your
mind's screen. If I then tell you that the palace is surrounded
by a vast garden, the same emerges on the screen, too. If I
now ask you "What else do you see?" immediately your
imagination takes over and you start visualising beautiful
fountains, waterfalls, birds singing, deer frolicking, beautiful
girls roaming around, and so on. Hypnotists take advantage
of this disposition of the human mind and wilfully direct
the mind to believe in whatever they want. They can even
make you regress to your childhood, w h e n you start
behaving like a child, or guide you to your 'previous birth,'
when you see yourself frolicking around in a forest with
your mother, who happens to be a deer. This is not hypnosis
but quackery.
Charlatans can exert enough power to make you do
weird acts. According to a newspaper report some years ago,
a robber in Iran approached a sorcerer to make him invisible.
The sorcerer charged him five million dinars and gave him
some charms to tie over his arms. He then convinced him
that he was now totally invisible. The robber then headed
straight to a bank, entered the cashier's cabin and began to
loot the cash. He was overpowered by customers and handed
over to the police.
Since charlatans specialise in turning your irrational
beliefs into reality, innumerable innocent people, especially
women and children, fall victim to hypnotism. In my
programs I make it a point to tell the women that the only
antidote to hypnotism is to "beat the hypnotist".
15. What about the horrors of the Bermuda Triangle?

The human mind is ever seeking signs of the all-powerful
supernatural force as an antidote to its inherent insecurities
and fears. More than 99.99 per cent of the people suffer from
this weakness. A n d anyone w i t h e n o u g h cunning a n d

intelligence can mint millions by catering to the fanciful
needs of this huge client-base. The Bermuda Triangle, also
called the 'Devil's Triangle', is one such enterprise designed
exclusively to make money by tapping this inexhaustible
source.
Incidentally, the term was first used by one Vincent
Gaddis in "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle' that appeared in
the February 1964 issue of Argosy, a magazine devoted to
fiction. Ever since then it was popularised by hundreds of
articles, books, films and TV programs—all purporting to
present "scientific evidence' of the existence of this mythical
Triangle. The best known among these was a bestseller by
Charles Belitze published in 1974.
The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic Ocean,
adjacent to the southern coast of the USA, bounded roughly
by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. It is alleged that many
people, ships and planes have mysteriously disappeared in
this area. Over the years the size of the Triangle has varied
from 500,000 square miles to three times that size, going as
far as the Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Indeed, the myth is now so deeply lodged in the minds of
the people that few realise that its perpetrators have n o w
invented 12 Triangles, all called Bermuda Triangle, covering
the entire globe; so that all they need to do to perpetuate the
myth is to locate any tragic event near any of the triangles
and attribute it to the influence of the Bermuda Triangle! It
does not matter if the distance from a Triangle is 10 km or
1000 km; because all that the perpetrators of the myth say is
that the event occurred in the vicinity of the Triangle or after
passing through the vicinity. So, many of the disappearances
of ships and planes are not in the Bermuda Triangle at all!
Bizarre explanations have been offered for the events
allegedly occurring due to the influence of the Bermuda
Triangle: evil extra-terrestrials, evil humans in possession
of anti-gravity devices or other technologies, strange

magnetic field, methane gas shooting from the bowel of the
earth, strange vortices that transport people, ships and
planes to other times and places, and so on. None of these
explanations have stood scientific scrutiny. But the most
bizarre is the belief that Bermuda Triangle is the centre of
UFO activity organised by extra-terrestrials to abduct
earthlings and their crafts and technologies to the outer
world!
16. How true are the claims regarding Flying Saucers or

UFOs?
This is another of the modern myths. In popular perception,
Flying Saucers or Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have
come to mean visitations by alien spacecraft from outer
space. Thousands of people live off this myth: by publishing
reports, books, and magazines, garnering f u n d s f r o m
philanthropists and the general public for conducting
'scientific investigations' into this phenomenon. The myth
has pervaded especially the American society so much that
many schools and colleges even assign projects on UFOs to
their students.
The Scientific Study of the University of Colorado on
UFOs, as also the Committee on UFOs headed by Edward
U. Condon, have categorically rejected this myth, and have
found further 'scientific' study of UFOs as positively harmful
to science and society.
Scientific investigations have revealed that such objects
as meteors, disintegrating satellites, weather balloons,
certain types of cloud formations, high flying aircraft, rocket
stages, even flocks of birds have been mistaken as UFOs by
hyper-sensitive people. The many photographs of UFO
sightings presented have been found to be unabashed
forgeries. Physical evidences like debris from alien plane
crashes or burn marks on the ground due to alien landings,
even accounts of i m p l a n t s in n o s e s or brains of alien

abductees have been found to be quite terrestrial in origin.
17. What makes people succumb to irrational beliefs?

Behind every irrational belief lurks an unscientific attitude.
Scientific attitude comes from imbibing a scientific temper
that, in turn, stems from an understanding of the scientific
method. The scientific method consists of a keen observation
of t h i n g s a n d p h e n o m e n a , scientific e n q u i r y ,
experimentation, analysis of results, and then coming to a
rational conclusion. But the common man does not want to
go t h r o u g h all this rigmarole, a n d prefers to believe in
whatever he is told. An unscientific attitude thus becomes
his hallmark, a n d he readily s u c c u m b s to all k i n d s of
irrational beliefs.
Let me illustrate this point by an anecdote. A well-
educated person met me in a fair at Delhi and began arguing
about supernatural phenomena. The discussion finally led
to the phenomenon of some people having 'evil' eyesight,
which makes others especially children sick. I told him that
this is an irrational belief based on the wrong notion that,
when we look at things and people, light rays emanating
from our eyes fall upon them. O n the contrary, the fact is
that light rays reflected from things or people reach our eyes,
make an image in our brain, and this is what we see. But he
was not convinced and came u p with another argument: If
the phenomenon of 'evil' eyesight is not correct, he said,
how come when a red chilli is moved over a child afflicted
by 'evil' eyesight and then burnt no pungent odours emanate
nor do we feel any irritation in our eyes. I asked him, did he
perform this very experiment with another child who was
not afflicted by 'evil' eyesight? Of course, he hadn't. I asked
him to first perform this experiment and then we can talk
further. He promised to do it and let me know the result the
next day, but he never rang me up.
We tend to accumulate 'proofs' to strengthen our beliefs,

right or w r o n g . Let u s e x a m i n e h o w w e came to the
conclusion that a red chilli moved over a child afflicted by
'evil' eyesight and then burnt, doesn't emanate pungent
odours—otherwise it does. Did w e come to this conclusion
after having performed a controlled experiment? Of course
not. H o w then did we get this notion?
It is a matter of every day observation that when spices,
chillies, onions, etc. are semi-cooked in oil in preparation for
cooking the meal we get a sharp pungent odour that often
irritates our eyes and the nasal passage. It is from this (right)
observation that we have drawn a (wrong) conclusion that
when a red chilly is completely burnt we must get more
pungent odour; and this, without realising that in a 'semi-
cooked' state all the ingredients responsible for the pungent
odour remain intact, while in the ' b u r n t ' state they are
altogether destroyed, leaving behind only ash and carbon
dioxide, which are odourless!
18. It is said that a very old snake, especially a King cobra,

often wears a 'Nagmani' as a crown, and anybody who
possesses it becomes very rich and powerful. Is it true?
Logically, if this were true, poor snake catchers would be
rich and not performing on streets to earn their living. Snakes
do not carry anything on their heads.
Unfortunately, the many good qualities of this charming
creature h a v e been totally lost d u e to the innumerable
s u p e r s t i t i o n s a n d irrational beliefs a b o u t snakes t h a t
mankind has come to imbibe over the ages. For instance,
how many of us know that:
• Snakes are extremely shy of humans and would rather
slink away and hide than chase and attack us. They
attack only when they are cornered.
• Snakes target, feed upon and thus keep within control
the exploding population of animals like rats, mice and
other rodents that compete with us for the food we eat;

indeed, there would be severe famines if people killed
and eliminated snakes from their surroundings.
• Of the 252 varieties of snakes found in India just about
38 are poisonous, out of which only the cobra, viper
and krait are deadly.
• For the snake itself, the venom is nothing but a kind of
saliva that helps stun, ingest and digest its food; the
only antidote to snake poison is anti-venom serum,
which means that the use of mantras, special stones,
certain herbs, oils, etc for snake bite are futile exercises.
There is also no truth in such irrational beliefs as:

• Snakes are revengeful and chase people: Snakes are not
vengeful; their brains are primitive and incapable of
retaining memory and maintaining a database. They
just want to get away from you. If you happen to be
standing between them and their hiding place, you may
find yourself in their path, but they are not interested
in chasing you.
• Snakes guard wealth: Because of their shy nature,
snakes generally like to live in places that are secluded,
old and dilapidated and abound with rodents that they
can feed upon. In olden times, treasures also used to be
hidden in such places to make them unreachable. The
presence of snakes in the vicinity of such treasures gave
rise to this belief.
• Snakes can hypnotize people: Snakes lack eyelids and
cannot blink, giving the impression that they are staring
to hypnotize. Many prey species will freeze in place
out of fear, or as a method of trying not to be seen by
blending in the immediate vicinity.
• Snakes sway to the music of the flute: Snakes can't hear;
they only follow the m o v e m e n t of the f l u t e in
anticipation of being attacked.

• Snakes suck milk from the udder of cows: Milk is not
the natural diet of snakes nor can they properly digest
the milk. But in a crisis when severely dehydrated, a
snake might drink any liquid available. Besides, they
lack the suction mechanism to do the sucking. Also the
cow would hardly stand still having a snake's teeth
clamped to one of her teats. But snakes do enter barns
sometimes in pursuit of mice and other small rodents.
• Kraits can suck away a man's breath as he sleeps: This
is perhaps just to explain the after-effects of snakebite
when the victim fights for breath due to respiratory
paralysis.
• Pythons can suck their victims from a distance: An
utterly foolish belief.
• Green tree snakes can pierce a man's head with their
pointed head: Actually, their pointed heads are as soft
as rubber.
• Very old snakes have hair on their bodies: Hairs do not
grow on a snake's body. Molting of the outer skin often
gives this impression, and some snake charmers fuel
this irrational belief by pasting hair on the snake's head.
• A small snake found in Kashmir is so poisonous that
snow melts as it crawls over it: Snakes are cold-blooded
animals and go into hibernation in winters.
The list of such absurdities and unfounded beliefs is

long—shun them.
19. What is the standpoint of Science with regard to God?

Almost 99.99 per cent of the people believe in the existence
of God. Yet these are the very same people who raise this
question, repeatedly. As of today, scientific researches
indicate that Time and Universe have been there since
eternity and will be there forever. Under these circumstances,
science does not find any role in the affairs of the Universe,
for the entity we call God.
Indeed, the concept of God came into being as an
antidote to the fears and insecurities inherent in man due to
the transient nature of life. Therefore, this concept needs to
be either dropped altogether or, if it is so necessary for h u m a n
life, redefined in the light of prevailing scientific knowledge.
For e x a m p l e , w e k n o w t h a t all l i v i n g b e i n g s a r e a
manifestation of Matter, only imbued with life. And therefore
it is Matter that is the Creator of this Universe, in all its
manifestations. Even a fistful of dust is not something
imaginary. It exists. And it is not as powerless as we believe.
It contains billions of atoms, each with a dense nucleus
consisting of protons and n e u t r o n s and with a host of
electrons p e r p e t u a l l y revolving a r o u n d it. The atomic
structure is just like the solar system in which all the planets
orbit around the Sun. And all this is not happening without
the expense of power. If all the atoms in a fistful of dust
were made to release their energy all at once, that perhaps
may be enough to obliterate a big town in an instant!
Einstein's famous formula E-mc2 shows that matter is
nothing but energy. Unfortunately, we humans can see only
matter but cannot see its equivalent, which is pure energy.
As you all know, electricity is nothing but a flow of electrons.
All matter is known to be surrounded by a Field of Force,
and there is a constant give and take between matter and
this Field. And this Force is not without Intelligence either—
another attribute of God. If this were not so, how else could
an apparently 'lifeless' matter have converted itself into
'living' matter eons ago, and then evolved into you and me
and all the living and non-living world we see around us?
And finally, according to the law of conservation of
energy, energy (and its equivalent in mass) can neither be
created nor destroyed, though it can change form. Now you
can draw your own conclusion.
20. We have been trying to promote scientific temper

among the masses over the last 60 years, without
success. Why?
Every problem has two facets: the Problem itself and its
Solution—both being born almost simultaneously. But the
Problem alone is the tangible part—it exists, can be seen in
all its ramifications, and be dealt with. The Solution is the
intangible part—it does not exist by itself and hence cannot
be 'achieved'; indeed, more often than not, it is merely our
desire, a wish or a need, which we begin to perceive by virtue
of the tangible part—the Problem—being there.
Let us understand this logic by a concrete example.
Suppose a hall is littered with garbage that you can see, smell
and even feel nauseated about. This is the Problem. The
Solution is cleanliness. But can you bring in cleanliness
unless you throw the garbage out? You cannot, obviously.
Which means that you must deal with the Problem directly
to make the Solution come into being.
The same applies at the psychological plane as well.
When we talk about scientific temper we are actually talking
about the intangible part—the Solution—of a Problem which
we do not want to talk about. Because the Problem—the
tangible part which must be dealt with—is concerned with
people's irrational beliefs, baseless faiths and unscientific
notions, which we do not want to challenge for fear of
antogonising a majority of our people, especialy co-
religionists. Unfortunately, in India, even the supposedly
enlightened people—who talk the most about promotion of
scientific temper—are deeply steeped in blind faith and
superstition. They keep on talking about scientific temper
while keeping their heads firmly buried in sand so as not to
look at the Problem, which is actually a part of their own
psyche.
Sixty years is nothing; we can keep on trying for another
1,000 years to promote scientific temper and still will not be
XX
xx MANTRA, MAGIC A N D MIRACLE
able to succeed in 'achieving' it, unless one can learn to deal

with the Problem directly. Because the Problem and the Solution
cannot co-habit the same space, both physically and psychologically,
try as much as you like. Unfortunately, this is what we have
been trying to 'achieve' over the last 60 years—a humanly
impossible task.
References
Note: The information given in the book is primarily based on the authors'
personal knowledge, experiences and interactions with the people. These
interactions took place during the workshops they conducted on explaining
the scientific basis of miracles; sponsored by the National Council for Science
and Technology Communication (NCSTC), Department of Science &
Technology, Government of India, New Delhi; as also several other
programmes they conducted on their own, all over the country. They also
took advantage of the extensive knowledge base of the Internet.
Seeing is Not Always Believing..., Vigyan Prasar (on behalf of

the NCSTC), New Delhi, 1993.
Science versus Miracles (Vol. 1), B. Premanand, Indian CSICOP,
Podanur, 1994.
Miracles in Religion, Anil Sarwal, Royal Publishers, Lucknow,
1996.
Secrets of Yantra, Mantra and Tantra, L.R. Chowdhri, Sterling
Publishers Private Limited, New Delhi, 1998.
Myths and Legends of India, J.M. Macfie, Rupa & Co., New Delhi,
1996.
Our Sciences Ruled by Human Prejudice, D.G. Garan,
Philosophical Library, New York, USA, 1987.
Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, Julian Huxley, George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., London, UK, 1948.
The First and Last Freedom, J. Krishnamurti, Krishnamurti
Foundation India, Chennai, 1998.
Practical Hypnotism, Comte C. De Saint-Germain, Taraporevala,
Mumbai, 1991.
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking, Bantam, USA.
".. .Through the growth of superstition and obscurantism, there
is also the growth of totally irrational approaches to dealing
with problems in life, and the development of dogmatism and
of fundamentalism whose consequences we are all witness to."
Prof. M. G. K. Menon
This book aims to take its readers on a scientific exploration of

age-old concepts and beliefs that have no validity today, besides
intending to free us of the many baseless, irrelevant and
irrational beliefs that have conditioned our mind since ages.
While discussing issues of blind faith, its social impact, and
the origins of irrational beliefs, the authors also analyse
scientifically popular 'magic' or miracles, resorted to by
godmen and quacks, and prove them as being nothing more
than tricks to cheat.
Badiuddin Khan is the Founder of Human Resource Development

Foundation. A well known Science Writer and Communicator, he
was formerly Editor of many popular science magazines including
Invention Intelligence, Science Reporter a n d Science-ki-Duniya. The
NCSTC has designated him as the Resource Person for their
programme 'Science behind Miracles'. He has campaigned against
blind faith and superstition all over the country and conducted
various workshops, public demonstrations, and classroom activity
workshops in schools. Shri Khan has over 300 popular science
articles to his credit, published in well-known magazines and
newspapers, besides a few popular science books. He was awarded
the Lifetime Achievement Award 2004 by the International
Association of Educators for World Peace.
Hasan Jawaid Khan has to his credit over 250 articles published
in various magazines and newspapers, and a few popular science
books. He has delivered more than 50 radio talks on scientific
topics. Honoured with the National Science Popularisation Award
by ISWA in 2000, Shri Jawaid Khan is currently the Editor of Science
Reporter.
ISBN 978-81-237-5514-4
N A T I O N A L B O O K TRUST, I N D I A

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What are the authors' backgrounds?

What are the authors' backgrounds?

\ S c i e n t i f i c E x p l o r a t i o n

Badiuddin Khan • Hasan Jawaid Khan

NATIONAL BOOK TRUST, INDIA

Published by the Director, National Book Trust, India

Do You Know? xix

I am happy to write a Foreword to this interesting book,

element in society. This book is an effort in this direction,

merely out of respect for the teacher

H u m a n beings have evolved through a process of

when there is no other recourse, human beings do turn to

To summarise this part: The functioning of the human

community but should permeate all levels of the society. He

beliefs, the social impact of blind faith, the conditioning of

If an alien were to descend on Earth, it would be shocked to

something, in the real sense of the terms, and also be in a

qualify 'life' itself; that is, it must be imbued by the qualities

THAT all kinds of faith—Gods, Goddesses and Angels;

and social context of the performance that determine

So, we need to learn and unlearn many notions about the

yet. Suddenly he noticed a fire burning on the right-hand

it is easier to save oneself from ordinary dacoits and thieves,

All so-called miracles and magic are mere tricks. Anyone

3. Precious garment shedding coins

4. Multiplying currency notes

5. Another game of doubling and multiplying

6. Restoring burnt currency note

7. Converting one into many

This innovative device lends itself to several interesting

8. Catching a currency note by fingers

GULLIBILITY AND BLIND FAITH

Here is a classic example: On the m o r n i n g of 21

several centuries, all because some joker had spread the

All irrational and unscientific notions promote human

If one believes in miracle, magic or related phenomena

Materialising a taweez or amulet out of thin air is nothing

1. Making an amulet shed holy ash or bhabhuti

2. Producing bhabhuti from an aluminium coin

3. Framed picture of a saint producing bhabhuti

4. Producing bhabhuti from air

5. Producing a huge amount of bhabhuti from a small

the vessel and allowed to dry. The central portion of the

A word of caution: Never swallow bhabhuti offered by a

6. Writing with bhabhuti

few pieces of paper with glycerin soap. The writing would

7. Converting stone into sweet

8. Getting desired things from the earth

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

Aeons ago, our ape-like ancestors lived on treetops in the

cover of forests evolved into chimpanzees, gibbons, baboons,

fend for himself. He grew u p into a good-for-nothing chap,

People of his community were already out, watching the

sorcery and black magic. They thrived by influencing and

1. Blocking water in a tumbler with paper

2. Blocking water in a tumbler with a handkerchief

3. Blocking water in a tumbler inverted on a sieve

4. The Water of India device