Controlling Peristalsis

It's possible, using biofeedback techniques, to learn deliberate, conscious control of peristalsis, and to become able to shut it off at will. This trick is fairly common among certain Eastern mystical religions and people are trained to do so as part of a transcendental experience. There are many reliable reports of "fakirs" who are capable of inducing what amounts to a state of suspended animation, during which they have been buried alive and emerged, unharmed, months later. Strictly speaking a fakir is a mendicant holy man, a member of a Sufi order who live by begging. The word comes from the Arabic for "poverty," but it has come to be applied to the garden-variety street conjurer and itinerant magician of the East, especially India. The carte de visite shown at left is for a 19th-century entertainer whose holiness might have been minimal, but who doubtless made a good living.

It's hard to image what kind of control freak you'd have to be to want to learn how to stop your own intestinal peristalsis. Of all the functions of the body you'd want to be handled automatically, peristalsis would be right at the top of the list.

Personally, I've got too many other things to worry about to spend any time wondering what part of my innards is contracting at any given moment. People who can do this give a whole new meaning to the term "anal retentive."

If by some chance you have any interest in learning it, there are web sites that will teach you how to do it. Use Google and search under "Biofeedback techniques." Just don't say I didn't warn you....

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