I noticed that recently Mirin Dajo (link to the original ModBlog mention with videa) was on the front page of Digg, and they linked to the absolutely laughable theory put forth by a “doctor/expert” that suggested he had fistulas running right across his body.

You may remember my interview with “the indestructible man” (more, more, more) in which we talked to someone doing very deep and quite large skewer play without apparent long-term harm. I actually just talked to him this morning — he’s still doing heavy play but not this type, but I wanted to show the scars he has from it, which actually somewhat resemble some of the residual scars on Mirin.

The pictures are not particularly dramatic, because the reality is that there are many, many people out there who are perfectly capable of healing repeated serious injuries. That said, as impressive as it was, “FK” didn’t skewer super deep in terms of what he penetrated… Last year I also posted an interview with a friend who’d play pierced a spinal needle through his ribcage so that it was resting on his heart and twitching to the beat, and I’ve posted other deep skewer folks before here as well.

Now, in no way am suggesting it’s “safe”, but I certainly know many people who are capable of surviving deep skewers, including through the inner body cavity and “organ territory”, with minimal adverse effects or downtime. My personal assessment of Mirin Dajo is that there was no trick in what he did either on a sideshow or a supernatural level, and that he was operating in the same general realm.