Walking on Hot Coals Without Injuries ?
The Fire Walk
For thousands of years, men of all civilizations have been walking on hot coals in order to honor fire, a purifying element. Thus, the shamans walk in the fire in order to bring healing to their communities. The participants in such ceremonies transcend this experience like a dance with the fire of life. And, very mysteriously, this walk does not cause any injuries to the participants.
Fire walking : an initiation ritual
Many civilizations use walking on hot coals as an eternal initiation ritual. In parapsychology, this practice is considered a royal way to access one's own consciousness. In the esoteric spheres numerous seminars are organized around this tradition, thus offering the possibility of practicing this ancestral ritual without danger, of activating internal resources, of increasing one's concentration and releasing one's stress. The followers of this practice meet almost everywhere in the world, the most famous being in India, Sri Lanka, on the Fiji Islands and in the countries of southern Europe. In Fiji, unlike other regions favoring hot coals, practitioners walk on glowing stones. At the end of May, in Agia Eleni, Greece, followers trample hot coals brandishing icons of Saint Constantine and Saint Helena. The most famous fire passage rite in Europe takes place in the small Spanish village of San Pedro Manrique, in the province of Soria. In Spain, this place is considered, not only as the border between several provinces, but especially as the interface between different worlds. This fire ritual has its roots in Celtic and pagan civilizations, stemming from the belief in the invulnerability conferred by the night of the summer solstice.
The Sampedranos : followers of the fire rite of San Pedro Manrique
Around 10 a.m. on the night of Saint John's is lit in the square, in front of the chapel of the Virgen de la Pena, a formidable pyre, fueled, according to tradition, by oak wood brought from the village of Sarnago. The hot coals are arranged in a rectangle. The place is full of mystery. Hundreds of years ago, the Madonna would have appeared there near a hawthorn bush which, since then, would never have dried. Ancient documents attest to miraculous healings which would have occurred at this site. Many villagers walk on these hot coals. Barefoot and carrying a person on their back, they resolutely cross this carpet of fire, tapping their feet, without burning, neither screaming nor suffering.
But how is such a practice possible without causing injury? In fact, hot coals give off heat of up to 1,000 celsium, according to the allegations of fire walkers. Is this crossing possible for a person in normal mental situation? Scientists who have studied the fire walk phenomenon explain it this way: hot coals cause burns because of their caloric capacity and their thermal conductivity. The ashes surrounding the embers prove to be very poor conductors of heat: the surface of the coal is uneven and the contact surfaces reduced. In addition, fire walkers walk on embers very quickly, contact is therefore limited, less than a second. In addition, the heat is very quickly evacuated by the blood, so the feet do not get any injury from it. Fire walk practitioners only stay a maximum of seven seconds in total on the coals. This is why the feet must be well irrigated when heated before the first turn. In addition, their absolute dryness will prevent an embers from sticking to it. Despite all the instructions, the recommendations issued and the research carried out by the skeptics, the mystery of the Sampedranos, the inhabitants of the village, and their ability to walk on fire with confidence, remains unresolved.
