# How is it possible for someone to remain completely calm throughout torture? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 16, 2009, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612 "2009-08-16T09:18:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/1 "2009-08-16T09:18:31Z")
In 1584, Balthasar Gérard assassinated William the Silent of Orange, the leader of the movement for Dutch independence from the Spanish monarchy. After being captured, he was tortured. William himself said before dying that he did not want his assassin to be tortured, but they didn’t listen to him, and Balthasar Gérard subsequently underwent torture. > [@](#): > > In the first night of his imprisonment Balthasar Gérard was hung on a pole and lashed with a whip. After that his wounds were smeared with honey and a goat was brought to lick the honey off Gérard’s bruised skin with his sharp tongue. The goat however refused to touch the body of the sentenced. After this and other tortures he was left the night with his hands and feet bound together, as a ball, so he couldn’t sleep. During the following three days, he was repeatedly mocked and hung on the pole with his hands tied behind his back. Then a weight of 300 pounds (136 kg) was attached to each of his big toes for half an hour. > > After this half hour Gérard was fitted with shoes made of well-oiled, raw dog’s leather; the shoes were two fingers shorter than his feet. In this state he was put before a fire. When the shoes warmed up, they contracted, crushing the feet inside them to stumps. When the shoes were removed, his half-broiled skin was torn off. After his feet were damaged, his armpits were branded. After that he was dressed in a shirt soaked in alcohol. Then burning bacon fat was poured over him and sharp nails were stuck between the flesh and the nails of his hands and feet. Gérard is said to have remained calm during his torture. Remained calm during his torture? How does someone accomplish that? Was he simply passed out from being beaten, and this was interpreted as “remaining calm?” Or did he actually manage to remain calm during all of that, _while conscious?_ ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/2 "2009-08-16T09:24:54Z")
Is it possible he was immune to pain? It happens (albeit rarely), and most people who have it presumably don’t hit adulthood (for obvious reasons), but that’s one angle you can look at. I’m having trouble finding any articles on Google scholar, but now I’m curious if anyone has tried to explain this. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/3 "2009-08-16T09:36:52Z")
[Charles XII of Sweden](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_XII_of_Sweden) was also supposedly immune to pain. He never married and reportedly had no interest in women or any other diversions from warfare; his only passion in life was on the battlefield. I think I recall reading somewhere that he may have even been autistic. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/4 "2009-08-16T11:20:14Z")
[Meditation](http://www.vietnampix.com/bilder/fire5e2.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/5 "2009-08-16T13:11:07Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > [Meditation](http://www.vietnampix.com/bilder/fire5e2.jpg)? That was my first thought. On the other hand, having a goat lick honey off your skin hardly sounds like torture. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/6 "2009-08-16T13:56:29Z")
Not off your skin, off your raw flesh. ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/7 "2009-08-16T14:04:40Z")
I think I read somewhere that immunity to pain usually comes bundled with several other neurological defects that affect motor functions etc. That wouldn’t make this guy a very effective assassin. And I doubt that meditation is very effective against the pain of crushed feet bones. Since this story is from the 16th century I don’t think they folowed very rigorous record-keeping practices back then, so my best guess is that both account of the tortures and the assassin’s endurance in that story are highly exagerated. For example, having your feet crushed and boiled will be enough to kill you from the shock or at the very least put you in a coma. ---
**Author:** ![fighting\_ignorant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ac8455/32.png) [@fighting\_ignorant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fighting_ignorant)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/8 "2009-08-16T15:12:43Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > … after that he was repeatedly mocked… Hmm. Like what, they brought in Greg Giraldo to call him names???!? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/9 "2009-08-16T16:18:10Z")
Could he have been a leper? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/10 "2009-08-16T17:26:00Z")
> [@Dog80](#): > > For example, having your feet crushed and boiled will be enough to kill you from the shock or at the very least put you in a coma. Is that really true? ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/11 "2009-08-16T17:33:37Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Is that really true? I can’t see how, unless the crushing and boiling caused enough damage for you to lose significant blood volume. I don’t really understand what Dog80 means when he invoked “shock death”. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/12 "2009-08-16T17:57:32Z")
Keep in mind that there were no effective analgesics during the Middle Ages besides alcohol - no morphine, no chloroform, not even aspirin. If you got sick or broke a bone, there was very little that could be done for you. So people had more practice in enduring pain. Meditation was mentioned above - some people can put themselves into a dissociative state where they can survive unbelievable things. Think about the hiker who amputated his own arm. It is also possible that earlier torture killed the nerves in his skin, so that further superficial burns may not have been as painful as the first. Part of the skill of a good torturer is to know how to go about it so as to maximize the suffering and still keep the subject conscious. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/13 "2009-08-16T18:14:39Z")
Two things that should be understood about physical torture: [ul][li]The threat of pain and mutilation is considerably more effective than actual pain or mutilation. The ideal is to provide just a sense of what is coming if the victim fails to comply. [/li][li]While everyone has a threshold of pain they can withstand, there is also a point at which pain no longer matters, instead just producing and enhancing a state of physical dislocation, and it is only the skilled torturer who can keep a subject in-between these levels for an extended perior. Many American POWs from Viet Nam describe enduring horrible tortures and physical injuries with a detached, almost clinical interest. The same is true for other accounts of physical torture.[/ul][/li]Acclimatization to the pain of torture can often allow the subject to withstand pain and threats that would cower an untrained subject; basically, by having withstood conditions like torture, the threat of pain or mutilation is no longer effective. I doubt any Zen-like meditation is going to be effective in achieving that state simply because the entire goal of torture is to prevent the subject from being able to focus away from the pain. Most effective physical torture regimes change up the methods of pain application frequently just for this reason. Whether the subject described in the o.p. actually endured the tortures described is subject to interpretation, but certainly such methods were routinely applied, albeit with limited effectiveness, and often more _pour encourager les outres_ than to elicit a confession or extract information. Physical torture is, in general, an unreliable method of obtaining information, as is extortionary interrogation (threats to harm family members and so forth), as this usually involves the torturer guiding the subject to a pre-determined conclusion that the subject will concur with to end the threat. Confusion and ambiguation, joint questioning (“good cop/bad cop”), behavioral reflex and the Reid technique, ego-down, and other methods of psychological attack are far more effective at obtaining genuine information and capitulation, even against sophisticated subjects. One of the most effective methods is to fatigue the subject by glucose loading (providing a diet of only fast carbs that ramp up and crash blood sugar possibly supplemented with stimulants and depressants, producing a state of accelerated state of fatigue) combined with personal and sensory isolation, followed by an “interrogation” in which the subject is indifferently presented with a coherent story of known facts and calculated mistakes or disinformation, is asked no questions, and given no indication that information is desired. After two or three sessions of this (or just one for a truly unsophisticated subject) all but the best-trained and experienced subjects will start volunteering information just to make some kind of human connection to his interrogators and correct their misapprehensions. Once a subject breaks in this way, they typically break completely, spilling out information freely and identifying with their interrogators. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/14 "2009-08-17T02:20:11Z")
While some of the theories presented are certainly possible, the simplest and most likely explanation is that it’s just baloney. Accounts of events in that time period are often preposterously inaccurate, sometimes more fiction than fact. History was quite often changes to suit the fancy of the author or his employer, or just to appeal to the audience. It’s around this time, for instance, that William Shakespeare began his career, and we know very little about him - huge chunks of his life are a complete mystery to us. Balthasar Gérard is about 1/100th as important a historical figure as William Shakespeare. If I had to bet on anything just before someone volunteered to step into the SDMB Time Machine to watch the poor man be tortured, I’d put my money down that he was shrieking like a little girl, and the story that he remained calm was made up long after the fact and either pushed the truth aside or (likelier still) filled a void about an event that wasn’t accounted for by firsthand witnesses. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/15 "2009-08-17T03:14:41Z")
Another possible explanation is that ‘calm’ might mean a lot of things dependong on context. Ie it might be shorthand for ‘did better than most torture victims’ rather than the ‘I say that stung a bit’ stiff upper lip that the sentence tends to suggest. Words dont always translate exactly over the centuries. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/16 "2009-08-17T03:47:21Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Or did he actually manage to remain calm during all of that, _while conscious?_ If I read it in a book I wouldn’t believe it but now that I’ve seen it posted on the internet… I still don’'t believe it. Unless he did not feel pain there was a reaction and it wasn’t calm. Calm might have been the demeanor prior to the event which means he didn’t try to beg his way out of it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/17 "2009-08-17T04:12:20Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > I can’t see how, unless the crushing and boiling caused enough damage for you to lose significant blood volume. I don’t really understand what Dog80 means when he invoked “shock death”. IIRC, dying of shock is high school health 101. Everybody and there dog know what that is. of course, I shouldn’t care to debate the subject if challenged, so, there we have it. BUT, the story sounds a bit too “chansons de geste” or whatever that is called. A bit too much of the old Beowulf or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. 300 lbs attached to each toe??? Get real. And, if you are wearing a shirt soaked in alcohol, and burning bacon fat is poured on you, that isn’t the only fat that shall be combusted. Could be wrong, tho. hh ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/18 "2009-08-17T07:11:42Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > IIRC, dying of shock is high school health 101. Everybody and there dog know what that is. > of course, I shouldn’t care to debate the subject if challenged, so, there we have it. > > BUT, the story sounds a bit too “chansons de geste” or whatever that is called. A bit too much of the old Beowulf or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. 300 lbs attached to each toe??? Get real. And, if you are wearing a shirt soaked in alcohol, and burning bacon fat is poured on you, that isn’t the only fat that shall be combusted. > > Could be wrong, tho. > > hh The shock that you’re talking about is different from clinical shock. The stuff we learned in biology or medical school about shock involves not getting enough blood/oxygen to the brain, most commonly due to blood loss or severe infection. I know you weren’t looking for a debate, but you can check out the wikipedia page for circulatory shock, which is what medical people refer to as just [“shock”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_(circulatory)). It has nothing to do with pain levels or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/19 "2009-08-17T07:24:58Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > BUT, the story sounds a bit too “chansons de geste” or whatever that is called. A bit too much of the old Beowulf or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. 300 lbs attached to each toe??? Yeah, and also what’s with the “raw dog’s leather?” Why dog’s leather and not a more conventional kind of leather? Did they commonly use dogskin for stuff back then? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612/20 "2009-08-17T15:17:29Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Yeah, and also what’s with the “raw dog’s leather?” Why dog’s leather and not a more conventional kind of leather? Did they commonly use dogskin for stuff back then? Dogs were insulting. And oddly enough, they did use dog and catskin for stuff back then, and what is mink, except fancy rat =) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-possible-for-someone-to-remain-completely-calm-throughout-torture/506612.md?page=2)