Hindu Firewalking
Anthropologist Ruth Heinze observed 800 Hindu devotees firewalk in Singapore. First they spent a couple of days in an Hindu temple fasting and praying, then a thousand logs were burned in a twenty foot pit. One person fell into the pit and died, another was badly burned. About five percent of the people participting in this strange Hindu festival recieved severe burns, the rest were able to firewalk sucessfully.
Fiji Island Firewalking
A physicist named Friedbert Karger used temperature sensitive paints to test firewalkers. It was found that an islander stood on a rock for seven seconds at a temperature of 600 degrees F. Paint on the bottom of his soles revealed that his feet had gotten no hotter than 150 degrees.
Buddhist Firewalking
A group of Kailas Shugendo Buddhists in San Francisco under the direction of Dr. Ajari Warwick firewalk. The ceremony was simple – a a six-foot pit of flaming logs that was walked over dozens of times, quite briskly, generally stepping once with each foot.
Pentacostal Church Firewalking
A number of observations of similar fire-handling among the "saints" of the Free Pentecostal Holiness Church were reported by Dr. Berthold E. Schwarz. Members of this church, in states of religious ecstasy are well known for handling poisonous snakes, swallowing strychnine, and handling fire. Schwarz witnessed such an incident:
Once this saint, when in a relatively calm mood, turned to a coal fire of an hour's duration, picked up a flaming "stone coal" the size of a hen's egg and held it in the palms of his hands for 65 seconds while he walked among the congregation. As a control, the author could not touch a piece of burning charcoal for less than one second without developing a painful blister.
Greek Furewalking
A trip to Greece where firewalking and religious healing meet: the Anastenaria, a northern Greek ritual in which people who are possessed by Saint Constantine dance dramatically over red-hot coals. For more information visit the Psychic Investigator Bookstore.
Firewalking Worldwide
