Men Try to Beat Devil Out of Boy

1914

Holy Roller Preacher and Two Illinoisans Accused of Assault

Lad Sustains Broken Arm

Cousin, With Club, Ends Attack After He Is Seriously Injured — Fanatics in Jail Try to Pray the Prison Doors Open

Murphysboro, Ill., Feb. 10. — Noah Hickman lies at the point of death at his home in the foothills of the Ozarks, in Jackson county, as the result of flogging and trampling he suffered when he refused to accept the Holy Roller faith. Dolph Hickman, young Hickman's father, Walter Ellis and Adam Cripps were arrested on the charge of assault. Cripps was released on $500 bond.

Friday night the Holy Rollers held an all-night meeting at the Hickman home. Young Hickman, who is an epileptic, was told that he was possessed of evil spirits, and the Holy Rollers said they would trample the demons out of him.

Cousin Halts Attack

Hickman's father, one of his sisters, Ellis and Cripps bore their victim to the floor after flogging him and trampled on him. He sustained a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder and several internal injuries. The arrival of Tom Hickman, the boy's cousin, with a club ended the attack.

The Holy Rollers have held all-night prayer services at Macedonia, Dutch Ridge, Poplar Ridge and other remote centers in the hills. Some of them have killed off swine and let them die in the woods as things unfit to touch. The district is aroused and will try to stamp out the faith.

The Holy Rollers in the Jonesboro jail are attempting to pray the prison doors open.

The Wonderful Yogis

1901

Dr. Peebles tells some tall, strong stories of wonderful yogis in The Humanitarian. One of these yogis came one day to surprise Peebles. He did. The yogi said he could hypnotize an inanimate object. "Make the book lying on that stand move," said the incredulous western man. "Pointing his long, bony finger to it, he exclaimed: 'Come! Come!' The stand trembled; the book fell upon the floor and slid to his feet."

"While in Madjura," the good doctor goes on, "I spent considerable time in casting out demons — that is, in demagnetizing and dispossessing those hypnotically influenced by the ignorant, demoniac denizens of the invisible regions, known, among other names, as pitris, bhutas, manes, pissellas, demons, devas, etc. Certain eminent physicians conclude that the majority of the insane are in some way the subject of hypnotism, of obsessing demons."

The yogis are queer ducks. If you want to be one, you get into a quiet place and fix the thought on the point of the nose ten minutes, then on the bridge of the nose ten minutes. Then close the ears with the middle fingers, pronouncing audibly 12,000 times the sacred syllable "om," or put the left ankle on the right side of the chest, and vice versa, so you look like a cow's mouth, and say "om" 144,000 times. Amusing to try it sometime.

—The Portsmouth Herald, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, January 31, 1901, page 2.