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When the Thuggee cult is first revealed in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984), we see Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) tearing out a fellow’s heart and dunking him in lava as a human sacrifice. The curious thing is after the sacrifice’s heart is removed, he’s still alive, and is conscious and screaming as he’s lowered to his fate. What’s up with that?

One theory is that Mola Ram didn’t actually rip out the heart - it was a mass hypnosis type of thing where the people watching the sacrifice saw the heart being ripped out when it actually wasn’t. Supporting evidence of this theory comes later on when Mola Ram performs a similar ceremony on Willie (Kate Capshaw), but doesn’t actually rip her heart out. During that attempt, we see what is “really” happening - Mola Ram just holds his hand up as if he’s holding a heart but isn’t. The flaw in the theory is that the first time around, Indiana (Harrison Ford), Willie, and Shorty (Ke Huy Quan) all seem to witness the actual heart removal. There’s no reason for them to be at the mercy of mass hypnosis as unknown bystanders of the event. Additionally, Mola Ram threatens to tear Indy’s heart out during the bridge scene at the end, implying it’s something he can actually do. It’s more likely he can do it and was simply toying with Willie during her scene. (Plus, from a filmmaking/rating standpoint, a man sticking his hand into a woman’s chest in 1984 would have been a risque act.)

A second, more agreeable idea is that it was a form of black magic, which is something that explains many of the oddities in Temple of Doom. Black magic was used to keep the guy alive as he plunged to his death, despite having no heart. Simple enough, and on par with the suspension of disbelief required for films of this nature.