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Experiences of a Psychical researcher – Raymond Bayless

Another fakir whose performances I have attended is Mr. Jack Swartz. He is extremely pleasant and during his shows uses a bed of nails and a metal barrel studded with a few long sharp spikes.

He pierces his cheeks with long pins and so on.

His bed of nails is the wickedest example that I have ever seen, and the nails in it were really quite sharp, widely spaced, and easily capable, if incorrectly handled, of piercing the flesh. I have seen him recline upon this instrument, and when he arose the nails tended to stick in his flesh. There is again nothing supernormal about this feat.

I have, for example, pounded my hand fairly heavily on the tips of several of these spikes, and it did not break the skin. As with all such feats, the principle behind the use of this spike bed is the fact that one's weight is borne by numerous nails, hence no one nail bears sufficient weight to be forced into one's body. However, in the case of Mr. Swartz's nail bed, strong nerves were required plus the ability to bear a certain amount of pain.

The metal barrel with its protruding spikes is merely a variation of the bed of nails. Mr. Swartz coiled himself inside this dangerous-looking container and rolled himself about, and pressed constantly against the sharp spikes. It is a very impressive turn and also required self-control and good nerves.

The "pin sticking" is performed by every fakir that I have seen and is no trick, in that the piercing of the flesh by the skewers does really take place. Mr. Swartz gave an excellent display of piercing himself with several pins and, in fact, allowed the audience to look within his mouth to see that the pins had really penetrated his cheeks.