« Right Brain Workouts

Thank You, Sword Swallower

By Peter Lloyd

Introduced to the world more than 4000 years ago, sword swallowing still amazes the uninitiated. While the practice requires serious self-control to master, so does playing the oboe. But has oboe playing saved lives? Maybe. No maybes about the practice of sliding a sword down one’s throat. Experiments on sword swallowers beginning in the 19th century opened the door to medical practices we take for granted today.

German physician Adolf Kussmaul performed the world’s first esophagoscopy on a sword-swallower in 1868. Kussmaul’s peek down the throat was not only inspired by the idea that a medical device might possibly go down a living person’s throat, the experiment could only have been attempted on someone with the ability to endure the intrusion. Other physicians followed Kussmaul’s example, studying the digestive system and later performing the first electrocardiogram, via the esophagus of a sword swallower.

Up with the Bizarre!
The value of doing bizarre things just because they can be done need not raise a debate. Instead let’s hail circus performers and their kind as heroes for their creativity and perseverance. During the Inquisition, no friend to new ideas or novel practices, the Church condemned sword swallowers and other performers of eye-opening feats. Did that stop them?

At our local county fair, I watched a man drive a nail into his head through his nostril. Having seen him do it, I went home and paged through Gray’s Anatomy to learn that the nail had plenty of room to move safely over the top of the palate as far back as the ear! About four inches on my head. An anatomy lesson from a head nailer.

You can always learn from any phenomenon that appears impossible or other-worldly. There’s always an explanation, and it will always be instructive. Even if all you learn is that the performer is a quack.

Down with the Abuse!
In its earliest days, swallowing swords may have been used to demonstrate the swallower’s special connection with higher spiritual power. Shame on those swallowers! If that was the case, you can understand why the Church would go after them. I’m not pleased with contemporary charlatans who claim their other-worldly powers enable them to bend spoons. I can make it look like I bend spoons with my mind. It’s a trick.

Neither am I pleased with crackpots who get people to walk on coals and associate that perfectly natural ability as an exceptional benefit of shelling out big bucks for their self-help seminars. I can walk on coals. Only the disreputable use nature’s secrets to mislead.

Bob Dylan painted a picture of magical deceit in his song, “Ballad of a Thin Man.”

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan.”

Your response to honest magicians and skilled performers of amazing feats matters. You can give them your throat by falling for false claims. Or you can separate fact from deceit and appreciate the learning opportunity you’ve been presented when you witness a wonder.

Now if I can only figure out where all those steps go when the end of the escalator swallows them...

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.

Right Brain Workouts Explained