Dancing With The Fire by Michael Sky is the very best book written on the modern practice of firewalking. It is a comprehensive exploration of the scientific, artistic, psychological, historical and spiritual aspects of the practice.
An important premise of Dancing With The Fire is that firewalking is compelling evidence of the human mind's ability to interact with and alter reality in ways not yet understood by science. Chapter four of the book, is entitled the "The Skeptical Mind." In the section excerpted below, Michael Sky addresses head-on issues raised by skeptics in their attempts to 'explain away' and discount this important phenomenon because it doesn't fit comfortably within the limitations of the materialist world view.
The excerpt (as well as the the book cover) is reproduced with the kind permission of the publishers, Bear & Company, of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Headings within the excerpt have been added to facilitate presentation of this information in a hypertext environment. Likewise, large paragraphs have been divided into smaller paragraphs to enhance the material's readability.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SKEPTICAL MIND
No More Surprises?
The Posture of Skepticism
A Bad Mental Habit
The Opposite of Skepticism
Science, Trust and Openness
Closed Mind = Crippled Mind
Science Declines
Studious Avoidance
Explaining It Away
Self-limiting Science
The Leidenfrost Effect
Low Conductivity
What Burn Specialists Say
What Burn Victims Say
People Do Get Burned
Psycho-Emotional States
The Skeptic Within
Notes for Chapter 4
No More Surprises?
When we are certain that a phenomenon such as firewalking does not happen, we are really saying: "My basic knowledge of how the universe works is so complete and so accurate that the cosmos holds no more surprises for me. I know all the real truths and the details will all fit them." How sad... If only experience and life would not keep teaching us how little we know. (1)
Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. (2)
Doubt is not ultimately transcended through beliefs. Doubt is a state of mind that is fundamentally without content. It is an expression of the contraction of the being. It is not cured with positive beliefs that are the opposite of doubt. It is cured by the release of this contraction so that there is a continuity between consciousness and forms and relations, an unobstructed continuity between the being and Reality altogether. (3)
The Posture of Skepticism
The first barrier which most people encounter on their way to the firewalk is something which I call the skeptical mind. The skeptical mind is that part of us which tends to doubt and distrust certain things, especially things which we have never experienced before, such as firewalking. It is a 'show me' attitude, which assumes that something is false until proven true, a predisposition of disbelief toward anything which would stretch us even slightly beyond our current convictions about the nature of things. Persisted in, it becomes a mentally, emotionally, and physically ingrained habit, a fixed posture of skepticism, from which it is impossible to even entertain notions such as firewalking, much less to participate in and truly learn from such realities.
The skeptical mind is a total way of being in the world which is endemic to our culture, a highly valued trait within our scientific, medical, legal, media business, and educational communities. All of us carry some degree of the skeptical edge in our lives, though for some it is much sharper than for others. It is a deeply rooted pattern of psycho-physical response, taught to us at an early age, and supported by virtually all our cultural institutions.
Above all, the skeptical mind is viewed as absolutely essential to our survival in these modern times. This is a dog-eat-dog world after all, filled with harsh truths and hard realities, filled to the brim with shams and charlatans, rip-offs and scams, so many fictions masquerading as fact. Our survival depends upon our ability to separate the snake oil from the real thing, to discern the true from the false. Thus, we talk of healthy skepticism, of street smarts, of hard-bitten cynicism, and of cold, relentless logic, all terms which suggest strength and intelligence to us. Asked to define the opposite of skepticism, we will usually come up with words such as naivete, romanticism, idealism, and innocence, all suggestive of weakness and stupidity.
The Opposite of Skepticism
In fact, the word skepticism means doubt, distrust, and disbelief, and its true opposites are faith, trust, and openness. The more we approach the circumstances of our lives with the attitudes of doubt, distrust, and disbelief, the more fully committed we become, mentally, emotionally, and physically, to the skeptical mind and the resulting posture of skepticism. The more fully we have adopted a posture of skepticism, the more difficult it becomes to approach anything in life with the attitude and posture of open faith and trust.
This is especially true for new things, strange things, foreign things, unheard of things, 'too good to be true' things, and 'impossible' things. Eventually, a deeply ingrained posture of skepticism operates like a set of blinders which will effectively screen from one's awareness anything 'out of the ordinary.' It is then no longer a matter of doubting and distrusting such possibilities - the skeptical mind will not see them to begin with.
A Bad Mental Habit
I must stress at this point that in using the term 'the skeptical mind' I am not implying that the mind is by nature skeptical. Quite to the contrary, I believe that the human mind is essentially open, trusting, and believing and that skepticism is a trait which most minds learn which then develops into an overall way of being in the world, a posture of skepticism, very much to the mind's detriment. Ultimately, skepticism is nothing but a bad habit, necessary in the way that bad habits are always necessary, but ultimately of no redeeming value to the human species.
Science, Trust and Openness
To those who might argue that skepticism is vital to good science, I would answer that the very best scientists are children. During their first seven years, children are endlessly exploring, touching, tasting, and smelling life; testing, trying out, and learning, learning, learning, absorbing vast quantities of data. Their brains expand in great bursts of cellular growth, their eyes and ears wide open and accepting of everything.
They steadily expand their understanding of the world, figuring out gravity and nourishment and human relationship, a breakthrough every hour, a Nobel prize worth of discovery every day - and they do it all, this prodigious learning, without the slightest trace of skepticism, without the slightest need for doubt, distrust, or disbelief. Rather, it is precisely the child's wide-eyed innocence and absolute believing which makes such learning possible.
Closed Mind = Crippled Mind
Likewise, to those who would argue that a good, healthy dose of skepticism is necessary protection in this cruel-hearted world, helping us to 'wise up' and 'know better,' keeping us from buying all of the various Brooklyn Bridges that life offers, I would point out that it is informed intelligence that keeps us from such follies, not skepticism. It is quite possible to be wide open and trusting of all that comes one's way and to still say no to those things which sound false or misleading.
In fact, experienced con artists claim that the best marks are those who appear to be rigidly skeptical, as it is simply a matter of using their prejudices against them. A skeptical mind is invariably a closed mind, is invariably a crippled mind. Truly, skepticism is neither essential to the learning process nor essential to the intelligent negotiation of life, and is ultimately a serious hindrance to both. This has not, however, prevented the skeptical mind from becoming one of the most highly valued and firmly rooted traits of Western culture.
Science Declines
It has been through such a deeply rooted posture of skepticism that the Western world has always viewed the firewalk. To date there have been only a few scientific investigations of the firewalk, and what little literature there is on the subject is for the most part anecdotal in nature. There have been a small number of Western institutions that have gone off to various parts of the world to report on the subject, and they have always confirmed that it is in fact happening.
Many such reports have included a theoretical explanation of the event, while on other occasions the investigators have admitted to being stymied by what they witnessed. Yet, despite the widely known and highly provocative nature of the firewalk, very little serious scientific investigation of the phenomenon has ever been pursued.
This is especially ironic since the scientific community has for so many years dismissed out of hand most, if not all, paranormal phenomena, such as the firewalk, for being anecdotal, unverifiable, and experimentally unrepeatable. Since the early 1980s there have been a number of firewalkers such as myself traveling about, in full public view, and essentially performing the same experiment over and over and over again, with the same basic results, while enthusiastically inviting full scientific scrutiny. Yet, as I say, the scientific community has for the most part been unwilling to approach the firewalk, unwilling to study it, and unwilling to learn form the data it presents.
Studious Avoidance
Quite to the contrary, there has always been a rather studious avoidance of such a study. As Dr. AndrewWeil points out: "Hardly any physiologists or medical scientists have studied the phenomenon, and those who have written about it have mostly tried to make it appear unremarkable. Their aim is to defuse the challenge it poses to the materialistic conception of the human organism." (4)
Up until a few years ago the Western world, entrenched within its posture of skepticism, was content to simply say, "It's impossible; it's a trick, a sham; it can't be happening" and to let it go at that, enough said, no need for any further thought, just another instance of the phenomenal flotsam from the uncivilized world. Over the years, however, the reports from well-respected observers have slowly gathered, saying that it is indeed happening, that the coals are very hot, the feet uncalloused and untreated, and that real people are really walking without burning.
These reports, coupled with the recent well-publicized firewalking in the United States, have made it impossible for the skeptics to simply deny the experience any longer. Yet this has not led, as one might have thought, to an eager rush to understand how it could be happening, but instead, to the next defense of the skeptical mind: that of explaining it away.
Explaining It Away
'Explain-aways' begin to arise when the skeptical mind is finally willing to admit that firewalkers are in fact doing what they have always been claiming to do, that the coals are hot, and that the walking happens - for the most part without burning. Having acceded that much, the skeptical mind is usually not at all willing to then allow that this happens for the reasons that the firewalkers give: that it is the demonstration of some new evolutionary capacity of humankind, or of mind over matter, or of possession by God, or of connection to the spirit of the fire, or of any other such 'exotic' explanation.
No, indeed not. At this point the skeptical mind says: "Enough is enough. While firewalking may be a fact, there must surely be, must surely be, some perfectly reasonable and totally physical explanation." That is, "Yes it is happening, but it is only something which looks difficult and really isn't, like an optical illusion, and here is an explanation. We've explained it away, and now back to serious matters." Unfortunately, as Dr. Weil puts it, the real appeal of all 'explain-aways' is that they avoid "any reference to the mind or power of consciousness to modify physical reality." (5)
Self-limiting Science
I do not mean to suggest that science is some great and nasty monolith which has unfairly spurned the poor firewalk for these many years. Rather, I am saying that science, in so thoroughly committing itself to the necessity of the posture of skepticism, has by definition greatly limited its field of enquiry and what is permitted to count as 'good science.'
It has developed a knack for quickly explaining away any data which manage to slip through the perimeters of the current scientific paradigms. Harking back to Einstein's comment, "It was as if the earth was pulled out from under one," we can certainly understand the scientist's reluctance to allow human consciousness into the creative machinery of life; it does make for rather messy data!
The Leidenfrost Effect
The reigning 'explain-away' for years has been that firewalking is a demonstration of something called the Leidenfrost effect. The Leidenfrost effect, named after the German scientist who first studied it, is what happens when you sprinkle water onto a very hot skillet, and, instead of immediately evaporating, it retains its shape and bounces around on the skillet for a few moments. This occurs when the heat is at just the right temperature to evaporate the bottom layer of the drop of water.
The water vapor then, in effect, becomes an insulating layer for the rest of the drop, protecting it from the heat. The bottom layer of water will continuously evaporate, while the rest of the drop above continues to feed water into it, until eventually the whole drop disappears. Extrapolating, rather extravagantly I think, from that piece of data, skeptics have reasoned that what happens at a firewalk is that participants get so nervous beforehand that their feet sweat and that, a laá Leidenfrost, they are protected from the heat of the coals by a thin layer of insulating sweat.
Low Conductivity
Lately, a different 'explain-away' has been getting a lot of press. This argument draws a distinction between temperature and heat energy, pointing out that while two objects may be heated to the same temperature, they will contain different amounts of heat energy depending upon their differing masses and that it is heat energy which causes burning not temperature.
As an example, imagine reaching into a hot oven to retrieve a baking pan. Though the air inside the oven and the baking pan are both heated to the same temperature, your hand will not be burned by the air because it is of such little mass that it holds very little heat energy. The pan, however, has a much higher mass, contains much more heat energy, and will burn you if you do not protect your hand. This theory continues by saying that burning embers contain very little mass in relation to the mass of human feet and thus cannot contain enough heat energy to do any damage.
What Burn Specialists Say
A major refutation of these and any other explain-aways that the skeptical mind might come up with, comes from burn specialists. Those who have worked in hospital burn units for any appreciable length of time have invariably treated victims of similar fires, i.e., those who have stepped accidentally on campfires or upon stray barbeque coals, or have come into brief contact with fireplace logs.
Such specialists are generally quite explicit about what ought to happen when a person steps on a fire of the sort that firewalkers use: instantaneous second - and/or third degree burning. This is expert testimony, coming from years of direct experience with different types of fire and its effect upon the human body. As I say, most of the doctors that I have spoken with have been quite clear that something extraordinary is happening at a firewalk.
What Burn Victims Say
I say 'most of the doctors' because I have known of a few burn specialists who have landed in the skeptic's camp, arguing that it is impossible to get badly burned at a firewalk. However, even the most sophisticated of arguments against the possibility of being burned by hot coals tends to break down when you talk to someone who has actually been burned, and has suffered greatly, from such an experience.
I have had six campfire burn victims show up at my firewalks, each having once been very badly burned by a campfire. All of them successfully firewalked, and all were totally certain that the fire which hand burned them earlier in life was much cooler, and their contact with it much shorter in duration. One was so impressed by his experience that he is now leading firewalks himself. Still, this is at best, anecdotal evidence.
People Do Get Burned
The main problem with any explanation of why 'you really can't get burned at a firewalk' is that people do in fact get burned at firewalks! As mentioned in the previous chapter, I have not come across a single reference to firewalking anywhere that did not include some warning about the possibility of being burned. In other parts of the world, there are reports of people who have been crippled or fatally injured while firewalking.
While, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been so seriously burned in the United States, it is not at all uncommon for people to develop blisters as a result of firewalking. I could safely say that all continuing firewalkers eventually get a nasty burn, and that at the end of any given firewalk there are at least a couple of walkers who are feeling pain. These are generally pretty benign affairs: a few sharply stinging spots on the bottoms of the feet, lasting for an hour or two, and then lingering as blisters on the sole of the foot for a few days, or at most a hobbled week or so.
I know of several people who have gone to hospital emergency rooms in great pain after firewalking, including three who were diagnosed by the receiving doctor as having severe second-degree burns, and of one man who spent a month on crutches after one of my firewalks. I have personally had a few rather long, painful nights myself, my foot in a bucket of cold water, when I wished very much that it was impossible to get burned at a firewalk!
Psycho-Emotional States
But people do get burned, all the time. And while burns and blisters are a somewhat unpleasant aspect of firewalking that I often wish would go away, they do at the same time very clearly serve to validate the process. Having watched thousands of people go through the firewalk, and having followed up with many who were burned, and many more who were not, all that I have seen has led me to the very firm conclusion that burns are somehow caused from inside the person, rather than by the fire.
Each time I lead a firewalk I use the same amount of the same kind of wood, and I burn it for the same length of time, raking it into a path of the same dimensions, meticulously preparing it in the same way. And yet, from firewalk to firewalk, from experiment to experiment, sometimes there are burns and sometimes there are not. The fire has burned as a constant, unchanging stimulus. The only changing factor has been the psycho-emotional state of the individual walkers.
Even more compelling is the testimony of experienced walkers, such as myself. To have walked on fire a dozen or more times, to have had the experience on some nights of being able to do just about anything with the fire - dancing, slow dancing, standing still, laughing through it all and feeling no heat whatsoever - and then to stand in front of another fire and hear a voice inside screaming "not tonight" and sure enough, with the first step forward, to experience a burst of heat and a piercing pain; having gone through this more than a few times, and swapped notes with others who have done likewise, I am firmly convinced that the primary cause of burning at a firewalk is the consciousness of the individual walker, in combination with the collective consciousness of the entire group involved.
The Skeptic Within
The testimony of burn specialists, combined with the continuing experience of thousands and thousands of firewalkers, would seem to present a good case for the basic premise of firewalking: that a fire which would ordinarily burn does not, and that human consciousness is a primary causative factor for this phenomenon. Yet, even with such evidence, most skeptics, firmly committed as they are to a posture of doubt, distrust, and disbelief, will continue to generate 'explain-aways.'
I have watched the minds of some people, just minutes after firewalking, start sending up the disclaimers: "That fire didn't seem so hot," "It was only a few steps," "It was only a few seconds," "We walked so fast," "If everyone did it, that must prove that you can't get burned." This no longer surprises me, for it has been my experience that most if not all of us will have to wrestle through such moments of skepticism, such dark nights of the soul, while our minds scramble to invalidate the simple miracle of the firewalk.
