A Burning Question

On April 14, 1985, about a thousand people gathered at the California Institute of Technology sports field in Pasadena to see a demonstration of one of the most mysterious of human feats – walking on red-hot coals. By the end of the afternoon 125 of the audience had themselves walked through a pit of fire with a temperature that reached 1,400F.

None had any special training or preparation for the event. None had been hypnotized, and none were in a state of religious or mystical ecstasy. They were just ordinary people.

 

Traditionally, matters have been rather different at fir walks. All over the world, from India to Japan to Sri Lanka, Spain to Bora Bora, fire walking  has been a high point of intense religious ritual. The mystery has always been how the human body can withstand the high temperatures involved, how  fire wa;kers emerge unscathed from the burning pit with no apparent sensation of pain.

The usual explanation has been that the powerful rituals preceding the fire walk and the unshakable religious beliefs of the participants have somehow created the conditions for mind to control matter. In this case the matter is human flesh, which the mind makes fireproof.

Citing this premise, a number of self-help groups in the United States and in Europe have proclaimed that they can train people to have total mental control of the body. The results, they claim, include the ability to defeat cancer without drugs, to cure impotence, defeat depression, or restore failing eyesight. What is the proof that such miracles are possible? The fact is that people have ben seen to gain such remarkable mental control that they can walk over coals unharmed.

Strangely enough, it was to disprove such claims that two University of California scientists, Dr. Bernard Leikind, a plasma physicist, and Dr. William McCarthy, a psychologist had arranged the demonstration at the sports field in Pasadena. They said that anyone can fire walk,and that paranormal powers have nothing to do with it.

 

Leikind believes that the secret of fire walking lies in the difference between the temperature of the hot coals and the amount of heat, or thermal energy, they contain. He explains this crucial difference by pointing out that if you put your hand into a hot oven, the air inside does not burn you. But a cake pan in the same oven will burn you at once. Both are at the same temperature, but they contain different amounts of thermal energy.

Leikind insists that the coals used in fire walks are more like the hot air in an oven than like the cake pan. They simply do not contain enough thermal energy to burn the soles of the feet in the short time it takes to walk the length of the pit. He points out, too, that fire walkers frequently perform with wet feet; the dampness acts as an extra insulation against burns.

Not everyone, however, is convinced by this explanation Commentators have pointed out that, like the self-help groups and the priests at religious rituals, Leikind first persuaded his audience in California that walking on fire was easy. Although he used the language of science, whereas others have used psychological and emotional terms, he was still aiming to induce a “fireproof” mentality in his audience. Leikind may have succeeded in a way that he did not intend.