From: Tim.ONeill@english.utas.edu.au (Tim O'Neill)
Subject: Re: Firewalk
Organization: University of Tasmania (Australia)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 01:04:56 GMT

In article <15523@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, darsie@eecs.ucdavis.edu (Richard Darsie) writes: 
> This past weekend I shared a truly transcendent experience with
> about 25 other people. We attended a firewalking seminar.
> 
> I can recall more than ten years ago first reading about Westerners
> doing this and thinking then "I'd like to do that someday."
> Well, "someday" was Saturday night. 
> 
> First the instructors gave us some background to the practice.
> In most of the "traditional" cultures (i.e., non-European, although
> the Vikings also did something similar) firewalking has always
> had a relationship to healing of body and/or spirit. 

The Vikings did something similar to firewalking? Have you got
any evidence for this?

> The drumming and chanting helped lift the group
> energy, and it really got a boost when one of the instructors did
> the walk. When the first "student" walked, you could see the 
> transformation in her when she got to the other side. By this time
> my leg was shaking so badly I could hardly stand, as I thought about
> actually doing it. But the shakes went away, and the time was right
> and I went and stood in front of the path of coals. With a bow I
> let go and walked. I can't too clearly describe what happened, just
> that it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. But
> one of the most amazing things was that after the walking was over,
> we all knelt down right next to the still hot bed of coals and put our
> hands in and just played with the coals for a minute. It didn't feel
> hot at all.  

> In thinking about this over the past day (has it only been 36 hours
> since this happened?) one thing seems clear: it was the group energy
> that made it possible. In the course of 3 hours 25 strangers became
> a family. Without the love and strength of everyone there, I know I
> would never have been able to go through with it. 

Well Richard, the group support may have had a great deal to do with
your plucking up the courage to step into the coals, but it had nothing
to do with the lack of third degree burns to your feet. That was due to
basic physics. The coals in a fire-walkers' pit can get up to 400 C,
and if you were to heat up a steel plate to this temperature and try
to walk across it you would soon find yourself in hospital. This is not
the case for wood-coals, because they are much less efficent *conductors*
of heat than steel. So long as you walk reasonably briskly, the coals 
are not in contact with your feet long enough to burn you. If you were
to *stand* in the coals, however, you would soon know about it!

I'm interested to know if the organisers of this session told you that
it was some form of paranormal power which kept you from being burned,
and if you were charged money for this session. The organisers of such
firewalking workshops have had the perfectly mundane explantion of how
this feat is achieved explained to them many times, but many of them
continue to tell people that 'there is no scientific explanation for
this' and assure them that it is some kind of mental power or mystical
energy which protects the walkers' feet. Several have also been 
challenged to try the stunt on a steel sheet heated to half the 
temperature of the coals. Oddly, they have always declined. Positive 
thinking sessions are great, but con-men who use cheap parlour tricks to 
make money are not.
Tim O'Neill 
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