by Tom Margrave
What Is Firewalking?
A young woman stands barefoot at the edge of a bed of glowing coals. The coals burn fiercely and she can barely stand the oppressive heat of the fire before her. The tension within the circle of participants and supporters is palpable. With an intensity born of fear and determination, she focuses her attention on the other side of the fire and quickly steps across the red-hot coals unscathed. Previously, she hadn't believed it possible; now she feels transformed.Firewalking is the practice of walking over red-hot coals. It's generally accepted that these coals have an average temperature of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit. Firewalking has been part of many widely diverse cultures throughout history and into the present era.
Where Did It Come From?
It was popularized in the United States by Tolly Burkan, Director of F.I.R.E - the Firewalking Institute for Research and Education, in the early 1980's. In his book Dying To Live, Tolly explains that he learned firewalking in 1976 from a friend who studied with a Buddhist monk. In 1978, he incorporated the firewalk as part of a two-day workshop. In 1982, at the suggestion of his wife, Peggy Dylan, he designed a four hour workshop devoted entirely to the firewalk.Since then, virtually everyone who conducts firewalks has learned from Tolly and his now former wife, Peggy. Tolly estimates that there are 40 to 50 active firewalk instructors in the United States and that over the years an estimated 300,000 people have walked on hot coals.
A Typical Firewalk
A typical firewalk might have anywhere from ten to 50 participants. Tony Robbins, author of Unlimited Power,has had as many as 1200 participants at one of his firewalks. Most firewalks takes place in the evening and are divided into two sections - the workshop and the walk.The workshop begins with introductions and some kind of process for the participants to get to know each other and the instructor. Then the participants are led outside to build the bonfire. Half a cord of wood is stacked into a pile five feet wide by five feet high. The pile is then doused with kerosene and lit.
Within a few moments the fire is leaping 15 feet into the sky. The participants then return to the class room space and the workshop continues. Topics covered in the workshop may include dealing with fear, growing beyond self-imposed limitations or the creative power of mind and intention.
Walking The Walk
After about two and a half hours, the fire is burned down to pile of glowing, red-hot coals. As the participants gather around, the coals are raked out into a pathway 12 feet long and six feet wide. Often the heat from the coals is enough to singe the hair from the fingers of the person wielding the rake even though the handle is six feet long.When the bed is fully prepared, the tension and fear within the group is tangible. The workshop leader moves to the head of the bed and strides quickly across the coals. Just seeing someone walk the coals is a powerful transformative experience. A person's sense of the wonderful possibilities inherent in living on this earth expands beyond its current limitations.
Even more powerful is when a person opens to his own fears, listens to his own inner guidance and, if appropriate, moves beyond the limitations of fear and crosses the fire himself. Usually 85% to 95% of the particpants walk the fire and usually, there will only be a blister or two in the whole group. Sometimes we need a blister just to prove to ourselves that the fire was really hot!
How Is It Possible?
So how is firewalking possible? After all, aluminum engine blocks are poured at 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees below the average temperature of the coals used in firewalking. Electric burners on a rangetop only reach 600 degrees. Human skin chars at 325 degrees and second degree burns occur at 160 degrees.There are two popular scientific theories, known as the Leidenfrost Effect and the Low Conductivity Theory, used by skeptics in their attempts to force firewalking into the realm of their conventional world view and in effect, explain it away. Have a look at What The Skeptics Say for a better understanding of these two theories.
Both of these theories make some sense, but in my opinion, they are inadequate and do not fully explain the firewalking phenomenon to my satisfaction. For one thing, while they attempt to explain why people don't get burned, these theories don't explain why people sometimes do get burned.
Doing The Impossible
Neither do they explain why people can stand on the coals for minutes at a time, sit down and even lie down with their hair in the coals and remain unscathed. It doesn't explain how people can walk great distances over coals (the current record is 120 feet), or how people have managed to walk across burning hot basaltic rock, an excellent conductor of heat energy.During my firewalk instructor training, I witnessed an individual named Michael, from Seattle, Washington, walk into the center of a bed of glowing hot coals and stop. He reached down and picked up some coals and held them in the palm of his hand for ten or fifteen seconds. After dropping the coals, he proceeded to walk up and down a still flaming log on the edge of the coals. He then stepped back into the center of the coalbed. After a short time, he finally and reluctantly left the bed in order to make room for others who were growing impatient to walk themselves.
Michael's feet and hands were unscathed. It seemed like Michael was on the coal bed for a minute and a half to two minutes. With even the most conservative of estimates, he was there at least 45 seconds. I was blown away. Because of the length of time involved, neither the Leidenfrost Effect nor the Low Conductivity Theory, in my mind, satisfactorily explains what happened.
A Special Energy
So, again the question is, how is firewalking possible? I believe the answer is Life Energy. Life energy is the animating force that is common to all living beings. It is the organizing, anti-entropic essence of life and it is composed of consciousness. Cultures throughout history have had a concept of life energy.
In China it's known as ch'i and is the foundation of Chinese medicine. In India, life energy is known as prana. The Kalihari Kung Bushmen call it Num. It's expression in the western tradition has been known as elan vital, life force, orgone and vital energy. All of these conceptions of life energy, both Eastern and Western, are very similar.
According to the Chinese system ch'i circulates in the body through a system of meridians or pathways energizing the various systems of the body. When the flow of this energy is open and unrestricted, the body harmonizes the energy for optimum functioning. Stress can cause constriction of the meridian flow. Chronic constriction on one or more meridians can result in a degradation of the life functions associated with those meridians causing physical imbalances and disease.
The Energy Behind Fear
Life energy freely flowing protects and energizes us. Life energy is experienced in a variety of ways and one of it's most common expressions is the feeling of fear. In his book, Dancing With The Fire, Michael Sky describes two phases in the experience of the energy of fear.The first phase is excitement. It comes as the automatic response to any threat (or perceived threat) to the safety and well-being of the individual. Excitement is a rapid increase in life force in the body's energy system and changes in the body's physiology and biochemistry.
These changes have been described as the fight or flight response and they serve the very positive function of mobilizing the system's energies for handling the threat. The rapid buildup of energy anticipates a release of this energy in some kind of immediate action to neutralize the threat.
When you think about it, the excitement phase is an intense feeling of aliveness that comes from the increase in life energy and corresponding changes in the body. It has a very positive, survival value. F-E-A-R can be thought of as an acronym for Friendly Energy Announcing Risk. If we recognize it and accept it as such, if we allow ourselves to open to it and feel it, we can use its energy to create positive changes in our lives. If we don't, we move into the second phase in the experience of fear that Michael Sky describes as contraction.
The Danger of Contraction
Many people consider fear to be an intensely negative experience. They do anything and everything they can to avoid feeling fear. Fear is bad. In the presence of fear, they feel helpless, hopeless and impotent. Their habitual response is to contract and withdraw from feeling the fear. This leaves them with an inability or unwillingness to take action to address the threat.The excitement phase requires action, movement and response for its resolution. Our universe gives us abundant energy to meet life's challenges to the best of our abilities. When we fail to use that energy, when we stifle it, constricting and inhibiting it by our inaction, the energy of the excitement phase collapses in on itself.
Excitement energy denied begins to clog and constipate the system. The energy, originally a healthy life supporting response, becomes, when blocked, poisonous and destructive. It manifests its toxicity in the form of rigidity, tension, lowered self-esteem, suppressed immune system function and various other forms of dysfunction.
Opening To Fear
One of the most powerful and successful ways to open to the energy of fear and transform it into a potent catalyst for positive change in your life is through the Firewalk Experience. Throughout our lives we have been told in a thousand different ways that fire is dangerous. "Hot, hot!" the mother tells her baby, "Don't touch!" We also know fire is dangerous through our own painful experience. So standing before a 1200 degree bed of coals with the intention of walking across, is likely to raise a good deal of fear no matter whether you've done it before or not.Now, remember fear is a rapid increase of life energy in the system. It is Friendly Energy Announcing Risk. As also mentioned earlier, life energy is composed of consciousness. An intense and free flowing life energy seems to have an extraordinary effect on the matter that makes up our physical bodies.
Field of Consciousness
According to Deepak Chopra in his book Quantum Healing, consciousness orders and structures our physical bodies. I believe that during a firewalk, the consciousness that is the expanded life energy triggered by fear, interacts with our physical body, and possibly the environment, in some special way in which damage to the body is precluded.Life energy not only circulates within the body, it envelops the body as documented by Kirlian photography. This is a special kind of photography that records the field of energy, or aura around the body. I believe this aura, when energized with the additional life force activated by fear, creates in some way a protective field around the physical body. This field not only interacts with the physical body but with the environment as well in a way that is not yet understood.
Steve Bisyak is a firewalk instructor in the Seattle area. Steve was part of the team that holds the record for the hottest fire walked at 1547 degrees Fahrenheit. He also was a member of the team that broke the record for longest firewalk at 120 feet. In an effort to verify the protective field theory, Steve walked a fire wearing knee-high nylon hosiery; Steve crossed the fire with his feet and hose intact. He then removed the hose and dropped them onto the coals. Almost before they touched the hot coals, they burst into flame.
Intention and Consciousness
In addition to an intense flow of life energy, successful firewalking seems to depend on additional factors. A belief that it is possible to walk the fire without being burned is a prerequisite. If a person really doesn't believe it's possible, he will not be able to create the focused intention necessary to cross the coals safely. Focused intention is concentrating consciousness on the accomplishment of the desired goal.When walking the coals, the thoughts a person thinks are excellent feedback as to their degree of focused intention. By way of example, the first time I firewalked, when I was half way across the coals, I could feel their heat but they didn't burn. Suddenly I had the thought "This is impossible!" At that moment, I felt a lick of pain. Immediately I refocused my attention and made it across the rest of the way without further problems. A small blister was the result of my broken intention.
Attention and Intention
Limiting and non-accepting thoughts are basically judgements and come from the critical, judgemental part of ourselves. Judgements are based in the past and come from the subconcious level of awareness that is the repository of all our beliefs concerning who we are, how we fit into our world, what the world is like and what is possible and what is not.When you have a limiting, judgemental thought, you cannot be fully present in, and attend to, the moment. Attention in the moment is essential to focused intention. Anything that brings you out of the present moment interupts focused intention.
One firewalk I experienced was truly amazing. As I began to cross the coals I was astonished to realize that the coals felt absolutely cold; it was like walking on cold smooth stones. I thought to myself "This is crazy!" and, of course, I immediately felt a bite of pain. I was able to quickly refocus and crossed without blistering. I walked the coals many times that night.
Benefits of Firewalking
Since I began firewalking, my world has become a much more magical, sacred place. The boundaries for what I believed is possible have to a large extent disappeared. When someone tells me this or that's impossible, I just have to laugh. I used to think walking on fire was impossible.During my firewalk instructor training, my roommate said to me "What do we have today? Oh yeah, it's body piercing in the morning, a 180 foot rappel this afternoon and a 40 foot firewalk tonight. You know, it's one fuckin' impossible thing after another around here!" Impossible? Maybe, but by the end of the day, I had personally accomplished all three seemingly impossible feats.
As a result of firewalking, I also have a lot more confidence in myself. When new or frightening situations come up, I tell myself, "I've walked on fire, I can certainly handle this." Walking on fire, especially multiple times, has given me a lot of practice opening to and accepting fear. I am now aware that fear is a powerful form of life energy that I can consciously use to enhance my life when I open to it rather than contract and pull away from it.
It's like jumping off the high board. The first time, it was all I could do to get myself to jump. I wasn't really aware of what was happening as I did it. With each successive jump, I became more and more conscious of the process. And so it is that an individual can develop very positive associations with the intense aliveness that one feels when moving through fear.
Affirming Life
Through firewalking, I believe I have a much more direct and tangible experience of my own life energy. I truly believe that one of the keys to leading a happy life is to open to one's feelings with acceptance and love by letting go of judgements. Loving acceptance of one's self and others allows the life energy to move and transform. It increases our experience of life, multiplies our joy and empowers us.Much of our pain in life comes through resisting, contracting and withdrawing from what's happening in the moment because of judgements based in the past. Judgement, non-acceptance, and limiting thoughts and beliefs, stifle and constrict the flow of life energy locking us into reaction rather than response, no choice rather than choice. It decreases our aliveness, limiting our experience of life.
Firewalking has shown me that it is valuable for us to open to life, let go of our judgements, feel our feelings, take some risks, affirm our aliveness, and love ourselves. We are children and perfect expressions of our Creator. Joy and love are our inheritance. Now is the time to claim them.
