Who walks on coals. Temperature jump of the skin

Recently, I happened to get acquainted with the practice of angling. The topic turned out to be very interesting, and most importantly, useful! Yes, and more importantly: anyone can walk on coals! The only important role is played by the correct setting, because. without it, you can get burned very well :) Therefore, if you are still going to, take it seriously. And yes, I highly recommend it! A sea of ​​interesting sensations + benefits to the body (which will be discussed later).

Our Ancestors used the element of fire for cleansing, testing the power of the Spirit, healing.

Fire is a living intelligent substance, it is not for nothing that at all times Fire has been treated as a sacred divine manifestation. The energy of Fire, in comparison with other natural energies of the primary elements, has the most powerful transforming quality. We can say that walking on coals is not only a powerful energy training, but also a session of reflexology.

During the practice of calcination, Fire diagnoses and heals the body at the same time. Minor pinpoint burns, which, as a rule, disappear the very next day after practice, indicate a malfunction in one or another organ. Many people are healed of illnesses after walking on coals, although this is not the main goal of the practice.

The ancient practice of walking on coals strengthens the will, psychological endurance, self-confidence. For many, walking is a powerful psychophysical impetus, a stepping stone to new achievements and changes in life. The feeling of joy, delight, positive charge persists for a long time after practice.

Practice makes it possible to realize and feel unity with the element of Fire, Nature, the World. Living Fire comes into contact with a person and purifies his thoughts, energy, body and Soul. The inner reserves of a person are opened. Fire transforms self-doubt and fear into strength and desire for self-improvement. It was not for nothing that the ancient sages said: "Everything burns in the Fire - except the Truth."

A person who has passed through hot coals has boundless faith in himself, a desire to merge with the forces of nature. The fire of Spirit, Love and Joy is kindled inside. A feeling of happiness awakens! All this is nothing but a return to your real self, your inner "I", which loves the world around and is always in harmony...

Benefits of Practice walking on coals :

Tempering the power of the Spirit

Cleansing of energy channels

Improvement of the body

Energy garbage burns in Fire (negative emotions, evil eye, damage, slander, etc.)

After carbon walking there is a huge positive emotional charge for a long time.

Allows you to diagnose the body. There are biologically active points of all organs on the feet. During firewalking, there is a powerful stimulation, “burning through” of these points, which gives a powerful healing effect.

For some people, after walking on coals, vision and sleep improve, blood pressure normalizes.

Firewalking leads to a powerful activation of the immune system, the body itself “knows” where it is out of order – and there is an impetus for self-healing due to its internal forces.

At the subtle level, there is a powerful cleansing of all the subtle bodies of a person (astral, ethereal, mental, etc.), the restoration of the integrity of his aura, the opening and balancing of energy centers (chakras).

Firewalkers are distinguished by excellent health, longevity and strong energy.

Active points on the feet

- everyone can do it! (practice)

Firewalking is an ancient practice, primarily related to ancient Slavic traditions.

Walking on the coals without feeling oneness with nature and harmony within oneself is difficult and pointless. Therefore, before walking, you need to tune in. The tuning method can be both group and individual. According to experienced fire walkers, walking on coals is a sacrament. A vivid, incomparable experience allows you to take a different look at yourself and others, at your capabilities. Walking along the fiery path means taking responsibility for yourself, trusting, trusting and loving.

Another important effect that firewalking gives is therapeutic. On the soles of the feet there are reflexogenic zones of all organs. The impact on these zones leads to a powerful activation of the immune system, and the body itself “knows” where it has a disorder – a “fiery transmutation” begins, as a result of which a person is cleansed, rejuvenated and healed. One can endlessly describe the impressions and effects of firewalking. Still, it is better to go once than to hear many times.

What is charcoal therapy for? Firstly, this method is a good anti-stress; secondly, it will teach you to relax and restore strength; thirdly, it will teach you to be free, but the main thing is that fire, in its essence, has a healing effect. Fire diagnoses and heals at the same time, and the results can be observed at the level of the physical body. With the help of fire, you can restore the properties of the body that were once lost.

The method of walking on coals is used in group therapy, and is healing and healing. The purpose of group support is stress prevention. It is necessary to create a condition for anti-stress, namely, this is the environment in which a person is able to relax and free his body and head from wrong and unnecessary thoughts. Mind-Body Therapy is a process of learning and developing a new way of thinking in order to be healthy in body and soul. Often this method is used in combination with other methods - complex meditation. Body-soul therapy is intended primarily for healthy people. The basis of coal walking therapy is that through a physical effect on the body, you can remove the clamps and thereby improve the body. Walking on coals refers to bodily therapy, the basis of the method is acupressure of reflex zones. First of all, it's the feet. Thus, acting on active points, we act on the internal organs of a person: the liver, kidneys, heart, brain. Walking on the coals is a wellness massage. “Walking on the coals” or anti-stress therapy, has gentle delicacy, freedom of living in a group and a changed attitude of the inner world. In group therapy, one type of meditation is coal walking, with participants walking barefoot on hot coals. However, before walking on coals, special training is carried out. At the moment, many psychoanalysts and esotericists use this method in their practices. Because the basis of the method - walking on coals - is the transition from one state of consciousness to an altered state, and in this state the processes in the physical body occur according to other laws. With this therapy, “acupressure using hot coal” takes place. Massage takes place on the feet (when walking on coal). It can be said that walking on coals can relieve some diseases, and the effect of such therapy is much higher than in psychoanalytic classes or even when running, swimming in an ice hole. So, what gives walking on coals? Feeling of peace, confidence, increased self-esteem. In terms of health, this is cleansing, rejuvenation and healing, and at the aura level, this is the opening of chakras, the separation of negative karma, the destruction of harmful addictions, fears.

Physics.

So, according to the available descriptions, the following conditions for walking on coals can be drawn up.

1. When walking on coals, the skin must be clean and dry and free from defects. Any part of the skin can come into contact with a hot surface: the skin of the feet, legs, palms of the hands (there are walking on coals on their hands).

2. When walking on fire, one should walk at a normal pace (step per second), one should not stop.

3. The type of hot surface does not matter, as long as there are no sharp bumps that could injure the skin.

4. The typical temperature of coals is 650–800С, the maximum recorded temperature reaches 1200С.

5. The typical walking time is 5-10 seconds (3-7m path), the maximum recorded time is about 100 seconds.

6. Heating the skin to a temperature of 650C under normal conditions for 1–2 s. leads to a 3rd degree burn and full-thickness charring of the skin with blackening.

7. requires entry into a special mental state, characterized by relaxation of the skin.

8. After walking through a fire, an “electrical” tingling sensation is felt in the legs for 3-4 hours, sometimes
slight burns are observed, disappearing after a few hours. I could not find descriptions of thermal processes in the skin in the phenomenon under consideration in the literature, so I will try to independently draw up a physical model of thermal processes in the skin that would not contradict the above conditions. In principle, the idea of ​​the mechanism of cooling due to blood flow is quite correctly described in Burkan's theory, but there are no details of the operation of this mechanism and quantitative estimates of heat flows. The efficiency of liquid cooling of a thin film can be checked in a simple experiment. Take two plastic bags and a gas torch or turbocharged lighter - it produces a very hot torch. Inflate one bag with air, pour water into the second. Bring the flame to the first bag - in a second a melted hole will form in it. The second package can be heated for a very long time - it does not melt. You can take a hot soldering iron instead of a gas flame - the effect will be the same. After prolonged heating with a soldering iron, clouding of the polyethylene surface will be noticeable, and the thicker the material, the more noticeable the damage. If you make water flow along the surface, the heat resistance will increase even more. This experiment simulates the main features of the firewalking phenomenon - the possibility of protection from high temperature using a thin film cooled on one side by a liquid.

The figure shows a diagram of the structure of the skin. You can select a thin layer of the epidermis and the main layer of the skin. The epidermis is also divided into a superficial layer of permanently keratinizing epithelium and a germ layer. The skin is penetrated by a network of capillaries, while the smallest capillaries are located in the growth layer, the density of the network of capillaries is maximum here, and the blood supply to the tissue is also maximum.

With such a skin structure, the cooling system can work as follows. Upon contact with a hot surface, a thin surface layer of the skin provides heat transfer to the capillary system of the germ layer. Due to its small thickness and high degree of blood filling, this process occurs very quickly and efficiently, preventing the stratum corneum from overheating (as in the film experiment). The heated blood then cools in the main layer of the skin, which as a result begins to heat up, but much more slowly than the epidermis. The main layer of the skin can be cooled mainly by diffusion in the interstitial fluid and lymph, which is a much slower process compared to heat transfer by the bloodstream.

In reality, the average thermal conductivity can be several times less, and then the minimum blood velocity can also be less. The fact is that the surface of the skin is not smooth, but has microscopic tubercles. Therefore, even a flat heater will contact the skin only at certain points, and an air gap will exist on a large part of the surface. The coefficient of thermal conductivity of air is 0.025 W/m/deg. (6 times less than the value taken above). The average coefficient of thermal conductivity will be between these extreme values, depending on the ratio of the thickness of the layers. The presence of a layer with low thermal conductivity (high thermal resistance) provides a sharp jump in temperature on it, as a result of which the possibility of destruction of the most superficial layers of the stratum corneum is reduced. Thus, our simplest estimates show that the circulatory system is quite capable of efficiently cooling the skin surface. Let us now estimate the heating time constant of the main skin layer. We will consider the skin as a flat plate of thickness h, with a thermal conductivity coefficient of 0, specific heat capacity c0 and density p, placed between the epidermis and internal tissues. For such a one-dimensional model, the solution of the heat conduction equation is known, from which the following expression can be obtained for the heating time constant of the plate. In terms of thermal parameters, the inner layers of the skin are close to water (p = 1000 kg/m?, c0 = 4200 J/kg/deg., 0 = 0.6 W/m/deg.), then with a skin thickness of 1.0–1, 5 mm is obtained from (3) t = 0.8–1.5 s. This means that the contact time with the hot surface should be on the order of 1 second, with the skin temperature reaching 1-1/e = 63% of the epidermal temperature. The duration of contact of the foot with the surface is determined by the pace of walking. At a walking speed of 3 km/h and a step width of 0.5 m, the contact time of the foot with the ground is 0.5 s, which is less than the calculated time constant. The time constant of the skin cooling process seems to be somewhat larger than t due to the presence of a less thermally conductive fatty subcutaneous layer, but is about the same order of magnitude. The cooling process is also facilitated by walking itself, during which the pressure on the skin changes dramatically and this leads to additional movement of blood and other fluids. Therefore, the firewalker must walk at a pace no slower than about one step per second, and not walk too long, or take breaks so that the slow mechanism of cooling through the lungs and perspiration has time to work. So, estimates show that walking on fire does not require the presence of any unusual physical conditions in the body. The main condition is that blood should freely flow to the surface of the skin, like water to a film in a plastic bag in the described experiment. In this case, the skin should be dry, thin enough and not have poorly cooled anatomical defects. The thermal conductivity of the epidermis should not be too high, since this will lead to too much heat flow to the blood and violation of condition (3), but it should not be too low, since otherwise the stratum corneum may be overheated.

The miracle stays with the person.

When I started modeling the process of skin cooling during firewalking, there was a hope that the calculation of thermal processes would lead to the fact that the balance of flows can be achieved only with an anomalous value of some physical parameter of the skin, and this will serve as proof of the existence of a new physical phenomenon in the body, so say, the influence of thought on matter, about which Burkan speaks so much. But, alas, this did not happen. It remains to be hoped that some fundamental factor is not taken into account in the considered model, and one of the readers will discover this.

For example, after firewalking, a tenfold increase in the rate of restoration of blood vessels and other tissues was noticed...
And yet there is a miracle in firewalking, only it is in the psyche, and not in physics. The paradox is that walking on a hot surface without injury is, it turns out, a normal reaction of a healthy body, and only our erroneous psychological attitudes and the fear that follows them make us give a command to the nervous system to convulsively compress the blood vessels and block the correct action of the body. And almost any person is able to move into the desired state, sometimes very quickly, especially if there is a shaman teacher nearby - a special person who knows how to influence our consciousness, shifting our “assembly point”. How does the shaman convey this state to the student? My mind got acquainted with the physics of the phenomenon, it knows that it can be quite safe, but my body does not accept this knowledge, and I will not walk the fire on my own for the first time, but will wait for the shaman. And he will help me change in minutes, without math and even without words. This is truly a miracle that physics cannot explain.

As Burkan says, “The new firewalkers are amazed when they discover that they themselves are such amazing beings. Firewalkers discover that, being just people, there is nothing simple about them. Our thoughts are a new fortress, and firewalking is simply the beginning of the process of self-discovery. The involvement of “thought into matter” is truly inspiring and gives new hope to people with serious illnesses, as well as those who are looking to overcome the limitations imposed by the old faith: salespeople, students, athletes ... you can continue the list and include yourself!”

Last Thursday, more than two dozen participants in a motivational seminar led by Tony Robbins burned their feet after trying to walk on hot coals. What did these burn victims do wrong?

The Associated Press reports that most of the victims received second- or even third-degree burns. Meanwhile, the organizers of the event stressed in a statement that 6,000 people walked over the coals that day - and remained unharmed. Let's talk a little about the physical side of firewalking and what you should know in order not to burn yourself.

The first and foremost thing to understand is that walking on coals is not magic. It sounds obvious, but the religious, mystical, and paranormal explanations for this phenomenon are centuries old and are still alive in workshops like Robbins' "Unleash the Power Within" (which, by the way, people paid to attend). up to $2,000). Don't believe? Then read what the seminar participants said about their experience of firewalking.

"It's amazing what the mind can do when it's in the right state," said one participant. “You need to realize your inner strength and just concentrate on walking through the fire,” announced the second.

Complete nonsense. It's not about the victory of mind over matter, but about the basics of physics and the speed of moving over coals. The "mystery" of firewalking is connected with such a physical property as thermal conductivity. When scientists talk about the thermal conductivity of an object, they are referring to its ability to transfer energy in the form of heat to another object it comes into contact with. In this case, we are interested in the transfer of heat from hot coals to bare feet.

Coals, wood chips, and similar combustible materials are composed almost entirely of carbon, and carbon is a poor conductor of heat. Most metals, for example, are much better conductors of heat than a smoldering charcoal or piece of wood. If you have ever burned yourself on a hot pan, you can appreciate the thermal conductivity of the metal.

An additional protective barrier is a layer of ash covering the coals. Like coals themselves, ash is a poor conductor of thermal energy (so bad that it was sometimes used as an insulating material in home glaciers in the past). Keep in mind that the ash itself no longer emits heat, and it will become clear to you why walking on coals is possible in principle.

It is important to remember that the coals are still hot, and if you hesitate, you will definitely burn yourself. “Running is not necessary and not recommended. The best method is brisk walking, in which each step takes no more than half a second, explains University of Pittsburgh physicist David Willey, who regularly demonstrates physical principles to students by walking on coals and broken glass and dipping his hand in molten lead. “Thus, for 14 feet of travel, each foot will be in contact with the coals for about a second.”

It seems to me that the people who got burned on Thursday suffered precisely because they spent too much time on "realizing the inner strength" and "concentrating on walking on fire", and not focusing enough on getting away from the coals quickly. .

No one has lived here for many years - and suddenly fifteen people arrived in three cars. They opened the dilapidated house and began incomprehensible preparations. They dragged branches and boards, laid them on the finished site, from which the top layer of soil was previously removed. The result was a rectangular pile three meters long and one and a half meters wide. She was set on fire from different sides. The flames rose above the house.

If in Bulgaria they know how to walk on hot coals, then why shouldn't we try? - explained to the audience the head of the group, chairman of the Moscow research and development center "Eidos" Igor Yuryevich Matyugin.

There were five daredevils: two high school students from a Moscow school, a recently demobilized soldier of the Soviet Army, a professional musician, a masseuse nurse in one of the capital's clinics. They 1 ate on chairs set in a circle. Matyugin entered the center and began to speak in a calm voice:

We closed our eyes, began to breathe quickly, entered the desired state ... We imagined that the feet were cold as ice. And under the feet - also icy ground. Everything will be like that, no matter what you touch.

Then Igor Yuryevich was given a branch from a fire, at the end of which coals were smoldering. Taking it, he calmly continued:

Now I will touch your feet with a stick - and you will feel how cold it is.

Red coals touch the girl's delicate skin... But she doesn't seem to feel any pain. Continuing () to breathe measuredly, monosyllabically answers the questions of the leader:

Cold?
-Yes.
- Hurt?
- Not.

All subjects responded in this way. Verification completed successfully. Igor Yuryevich smiled, satisfaction sounded in his voice:

You have seen that hot coals seem cold. The same will happen while walking on fire... We continue to breathe deeply, get up. I'm going to the fire...

Beginning fire walkers accepted the leader's call with enthusiasm. They resolutely walked barefoot on the "icy" ground. The coals were bright red, but it seemed that the participants in the experiment saw everything in a different light.

It's ice, ice! - the nurse Nadezhda Ivanovna Pasechnik inspired herself. And with a smile she walked over the coals from the beginning of the site to the end.

They are really cold! she shouted enthusiastically and ran back. She began to stomp her feet - the piss-1 splashed from under her feet. Some of the coals went out - black marks remained on the red area.

Seeing this, the subject seemed to go into ecstasy. With a squeal and a laugh, she began to jump and dance on the coals.

Many observers were heartbroken with horror. Indeed, among the coals there could be red-hot nails that could pierce the foot of a frantic dancer.

Fortunately, she soon got tired and emerged from the fire completely unharmed. She jumped on the grass and laughed like a happy child.

Encouraged by her success, the other test subjects boldly walked over the coals one by one. Former warrior Oleg Yurievich Nikiforov literally marched through the fire. Not? musician Galina Logvinova and schoolgirl Marina Skuratova crossed the platform feeling their feet. And here is her | the same age - fifteen-year-old Irina Smyk could make up her mind for a long time. With her eyes closed, she stood on the edge, "breathing rapidly ... Finally she went - slowly, swaying, as if in a dream. But she did not get burned either.

"Firewalkers" trampled down the site great - half! the coal went out. But they did not want to stop the experiments. They were asked to throw thick smuts with smoldering coals into the fire, which had previously been specially thrown out of there. Well, the unburned firewood began to be piled up again in a pile. But, frightened by the fury of the newly minted narcs, they selected only those that did not contain nails.

The nurse began to walk around them, as if along Tverskoy Boulevard. She smiled happily and hummed something. ] Then she saw a stick on which a light was still dancing. And | without hesitation, she brought her foot to her: “This is ice!”

According to all the laws of physics and biology, she should have received a severe burn, because the flame “licked” her skin for a long time. But there was no injury. When Nadezhda Ivanovna | washed her feet with black soot, then on the white skin there was not a single red spot, not a single abrasion. It seems that the masseuse has learned to walk not only on coals, but also on nails...

But the experiments are not over yet. More significant tests lay ahead. And, to relieve tension, Matyugin addressed the audience with the words:

Don't worry, nothing will happen to the guys. They prepared for these tests for several days. They learned to breathe correctly, to enter the right state. They rolled a bottle of boiling water with their feet, brought their palms to the flame of a candle ...

And now a great torch has been lit for them. A tin can was nailed to the stick - it contained cotton wool soaked in alcohol. | spectacle is not for the faint of heart: the fire began to immerse i and spared the hands of a fifteen-year-old girl. Flames whether-i.ipo brushes, wrists, elbows, forearms. And the schoolgirl said in a perishable way that there was no pain. And even the skin is not red-iH-la.

This is demonstrated on stage by the artist of the Astrakhan Regional Philharmonic Svetlana Georgievna Tim. But she mastered this art after many years of hard training. And here - fifteen-year-old girls in four days ...

The spectators were shocked. For too long, psychological stress had accumulated - some kind of relaxation was needed. And then, by the way, a smiling Caucasian with skewers appeared. Another ritual began - the preparation of shish kebab. Lamb meat perfectly fried over the remaining coals - the best proof -. Nude that they were hot.

What power must the human psyche have if it is capable of making the body fireproof! How can a mental image, an immaterial idea, create such powerful physical changes in the body? Science must provide answers. The guys from the Eidos cooperative would be happy to cooperate with scientists - they would have

Researchers desire to study their abilities.

In the meantime, the practical side of the problem is more important. Probably, some readers have already had a question: why do we need these terrible experiments? Is it really impossible to find less dangerous entertainment?

The heroine of the day answered him, dancing so famously on the coals:

You need to walk on fire ... for health, - said Pasechnik. - Until recently, I was a frequent visitor to neuropsychiatrists. They gave me anti-anxiety drugs, but they made it worse. I was upset and cried over trifles, or even for no reason at all ... But, fortunately, I found out that there is a cooperative in Moscow, where everyone is taught to control the psyche, to be the masters of their emotions. I started going to classes at Eidos - and now I don’t recognize myself. What used to upset me, now it seems like nothing. It has become common! Feeling the joy of life. And today I experienced happiness | overcoming psychological barriers. It seems that! All my complexes collapsed. If I didn’t burn out in the fire, then< какой вред мне может причинить крикливый начальник? Убеждена - в наше время психологических перегрузок и стрессов овладение этими методами нужно каждому человеку...

Nadezhda Ivanovna is by no means alone in her opinion. Similar thoughts were expressed by other participants in psychological experiments. At first glance, their statement about the healing power of fire seems paradoxical. But the same Bulgarian nestinars are engaged in healing. They themselves get rid of ailments and help others to do it. For example, mothers ask fire walkers to hold their children in their arms. Babies are not afraid, do not cry, but blissfully fall asleep in the middle of the fire. And when they wake up, they feel healthy.

Bulgarian researchers suggest that in extreme conditions the power of a person's physical fields increases sharply - and if he is healthy, then they have a beneficial effect on those around him. And the well-being of non-stinars can be envied - it is not surprising that while walking on fire, children are recovering in their arms.

Of course, we do not call for doing this in our country. We have other traditions, you cannot mechanically transfer someone else's experience. But to begin with, it is useful for readers to know that hardening by fire is not such an incredible phenomenon.

By the way, walking on coals and immersing in flames are just special cases from the practice of lovers of psychological experiments. In the center "Eidos" they master the most diverse abilities, which previously shone only artists of the original genre, fakirs and stuntmen. And they claim that this gives them health and a sense of happiness.

But enthusiasts can be wrong. Therefore, the opinion of a specialist in the reserve capabilities of the psyche is not without interest. Here is what the doctor of medical sciences Leonid Pavlovich Grimak said:

There can be no unequivocal opinion about fiery trials. If the guys experiment on themselves without the help of an experienced specialist, then trouble is not far off. And burns can be obtained, and pain shock. But when a competent psychotherapist directs the experiments, he will weed out volunteers for whom they are contraindicated. And the rest of such experiments can really be useful. Young people will get rid of psychological complexes, temper their will, make character ... Therefore, one can only welcome walking on coals, “hanging” on the backs of chairs, instantly memorizing hundreds of numbers and words and other numbers that used to be demonstrated by so-called phenomena.

When the walking on the coals was over, fifteen-year-old Marina Skuratova asked:

Shall we go on water?
"Soon," replied Matyugin.
And it was impossible to understand whether they were joking or serious.

The phenomenal ability of yogis to sit on nails and walk on coals was so often played up in cartoons that we were convinced that these are all fictions for children. Is it possible to believe in fairy tales for an adult? Especially when you consider the fact that with the spread of yoga in Europe and the United States, people walking on burning coals have not increased. But when you yourself become a witness to something that you always considered impossible, you begin to doubt that you know at least something about this world and about yourself.

fire ritual

Residents of the island of Mabinga, part of the Fiji archipelago, clear a flat area several meters in diameter, fill it with cobblestones the size of a soccer ball, cover it with firewood and brushwood and set it on fire. The fire burns all night. When the red-hot stones begin to crumble and burst like soap bubbles, a piercing signal is heard, announcing that it is time for the dancers to take the stage.

Participants of the ritual spend the night in a separate hut, where outsiders are not allowed to enter. There they have a leisurely conversation with the "spirit of fire." And, having received an invitation to go out, they put on special clothes made from fresh leaves of various plants.

Without a shadow of fear and doubt, without looking around, they enter the very heart of the smoldering fire and, shifting from foot to foot, repeat the words of the sacred hymn. After a while, the tribesmen begin to throw green leaves on the hot stones. Everything is shrouded in clouds of smoke, sounds like the hiss of snakes are heard. This is the signal for the start of the main action - the brave conquerors of fire join hands and begin to make such steps on hot stones that take the breath away from the audience.

Ritual walking on coals

At the end of the ritual dance, the stones are poured with a special drink made from the leaves and fruits of exotic plants, and covered with earth. Until the next disco.

Hypotheses of scientists

The American scientist Robert Macmillan, who for many years studied the phenomenon of coalition, believed that the answer lies in the stones used by the natives. In his opinion, the conquerors of fire walk only on special rocks that cool instantly on the outside, while remaining hot inside. However, upon verification, it turned out that this version is absolutely unfounded.

Following Macmillan, the Australian magazine Walk About suggested that before stepping on hot stones, the natives lubricate the soles with a powerful anesthetic and therefore do not feel pain. However, an anesthetic can relieve pain for a while, but it cannot protect the skin from burns. In addition, the conquerors of fire not only walk on hot coals, but also apply them to various parts of the body, some even bite off pieces of a burning tree.

The English physicist Harry Pryson hypothesized that when walking on hot stones, people move so fast that they simply do not have time to properly feel the heat and get burned. However, representatives of some tribes not only dance on stones for several minutes, but also stand in one place for a long time.

The famous anthropologist Stephen Cain argued that walking on coals is nothing more than a classic example of the predominance of force. suggestion over nervous and excitatory processes. In his opinion, during many hours of meditation and self-hypnosis, the participants in the ritual set themselves up for positive, and therefore do not feel pain. During the ceremony, the daredevil's vascular system "shrinks", which leads to a reduction in blood flow and suppression of the activity of a substance known as bradykinin. Namely, its deficiency, as Kane suggests, makes a person less susceptible to external stimuli.

During meditation, participants in the ritual set themselves up for positive

The well-known German physicist Friedbert Karger, an employee of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, considered the arguments of Dr. Kane not entirely convincing and in 1974 he personally went to Mabinga Island to see the strange ritual with his own eyes and explain the phenomenon of carbonization from the point of view of physics.

Dr. Karger's experiment

To begin with, Karger and his medical assistants carefully examined the dancers who were to demonstrate their art in the morning. However, no changes in the skin of the feet were found in them. And the doctors themselves envied the psycho-emotional state of the "extreme-seekers".

Before the start of the ceremony, Karger applied a layer of indicator paint to the feet of the dancers, which changes color when a certain temperature is reached. Thanks to this, the scientist proved the incredible - the temperature of the stones on which the natives danced reached 330 degrees Celsius. The feet of the islanders did not suffer at all. Moreover, their temperature at the time of the dance did not exceed eighty-three degrees.

Immediately after the ritual, Karger placed a piece of hardened skin cut from the sole of an aboriginal dancer on one of the hot stones, and it charred almost instantly. After that, the physicist admitted that he was not able to explain the phenomenon of coalition from the point of view of science.

Religious ecstasy?

This is how an outside observer describes the ritual of walking on coals in honor of god the fire of Agni, which he observed in the town of Kataragama in Sri Lanka.

“About twelve they lit a fire. The priest threw several handfuls of incense into the fire and sprinkled it with holy water. Excitement ran through the rows of spectators, the cry was heard: “Haro-Hara!” In place of a burning fire, a hot strip of eight to ten meters long and three meters wide was formed. The group, who decided to subject themselves to voluntary torture, prayed to the fire god Agni, asking them to strengthen them and give them the strength to endure the test.

Smelchakov was led by an experienced firewalker Muttukuda. He moved slowly and sedately.

The others followed him, some at a run, some at a slow pace. Aborigines fell ankle-deep into hot coals. Their eyes, fixed on one point, shone with a fanatical brilliance, their lips were covered with foam, their bodies were shiny with sweat.

Religious ecstasy was the inner force that dulled the participants in the ritual action of the feeling of pain.

The only surprising thing was the fact that the soles of their feet were completely unaffected by the flames.

From conversations with firewalkers, it became known that before taking part in the next ritual dance on the coals, they tune in a special way. A person repeats phrases for several hours in a row, the meaning of which boils down to the fact that everything will be fine, avoiding definitions with a “not” particle: “it doesn’t hurt”, “it’s not scary”. Then he proceeds to create visual images: now he imagines cool moss, now a fast mountain river washing his feet. Modern scientists have come to the conclusion that such a mood before the ritual is a kind of self-hypnosis, due to which the left hemisphere of the brain becomes immune to external stimuli and blocks the feeling of anxiety and fear.