Mirin Dajo

Arnold Gerrit Henskes (6 August 1912 – 26 May 1948), known by the pseudonym Mirin Dajo, was a Dutch performer. He became famous for radically piercing his body with all kinds of objects apparently without injury, even surprising the medical community at the time.

Early life Born in Rotterdam, Henskes claimed to have had strange dreams and "paranormal" experiences during his youth. He would go on to start a career in the Beaux Arts, heading a design firm in his twenties. When he turned 33, he claimed to realise that his body was "invulnerable". As a result he left his job and went to Amsterdam. Later he would claim to have made money by letting people pierce his body with "dagger-like objects", as well as swallowing glass and razor blades. As he saw it people should abandon the materialistic world view and accept there was a higher force, "the Source". Dajo claimed that a God was using him, through his invulnerability, to show us there was something better out there. His conviction was that materialism only resulted in misery and war. however, his autopsy showed no traces of any injuries to the head. The medical examiner announced he had been dead for a day. He was claimed to have died from an aortic rupture.

Books • «Mirin Dajo. Leben, Glaube, Tod, Klärungsversuch», Traugott Egloff, Willy Wagner, 1949, OCLC 18607977

• «De onkwetsbare profeet. Het Nederlandse fenomeen Mirin Dajo», Jan de Groot, 2003, ISBN 90-806700-6-5

• «Das Wunder Mirin Dajo», Luc Bürgin, 2004, ISBN 3-930219-74-3

• «Das letzte geheimnis von Mirin Dajo», Luc Bürgin, 2022, ISBN 978-3-86445-883-5