FAKIR, fa-ker' (Ar. faqir, beggar, religions mendicant. from fagura, to be poor). In general. a religions mendicant ; more specifically, a Hindu mars el-worker or priestly juggler. usually peri patetic and indigent. The fakir may be regarded as a differentiated shaman or sorcerer, stand ing midway between the best and the worst prod ucts of the original class—i.e. between priest and beggar. There are, however, many classes. de fined chiefly by cult. but also by race, school, or particular craft. In Mohammedan countries fa kirs are usually divided into two classes—the orthodox, or those 'within the law,' and the het erodox, or those `without the law.' In portions of India, also, there is a particularly orthodox or elevated class, known as yogis, with a much larger irregular or outlaw' class; and in some sections the fakirs grade into dervishes, some of whom engage in religions rites or invocations involving peculiar postures or movements, such as spinning on the toes with outstretched arms for hours at a time. The Hindu fakirs are prob ably the most expert jugglers in the world, and many of their feats have puzzled the most acute have never been fully explained. They appear to be adepts in sleight
of-hand, in hypnotism, in ventriloquism, in pro ducing illusions, and in controlling organic reae lions by voluntary effort, and many of the env rent devices of jugglery in other parts of the world have hem) borrowed from them. The paral lelism between the Hindu fakir and the Amerind shaman is particularly close, as in the mango trick of the one and the corn trick of the other. In both eases the plant is apparently grown in sight of the spectators, in a few minutes, from the seed, through the tender shoot, the forming bud, the full bloom, the immature fruit, arid the ripened product, all by an ingenious series of illusions, but the Oriental trick has become little more than a feat of jugglery; the Occidental one remains a part of a solemn religions eeremony. See MAN, SCIENCE OF, section Sophiology.