Skeptics - Please explain - Fire Walking

Quantum Quack

Quantum Quack

Life's a tease...
Valued Senior Member
Unfortunatey Sciforums doesn't allow inserting You tube videos directly into posts [or so I believe] so you will have to follow the link to the video.
The video is about the ancient tradition of "Fire Walking" [Wiki: Nestinarstvo] performed "originally*" in the Strandzha Mountains. [Bulgarian/Greek]
The video can be viewed by following this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=comEz_YnXfg&feature=share

Qu:
How is this possible given the severe temperatures involved?

*note: The actual history of "firewalking" may very well originate in other places and times, however the performance is now subject to intense commerialisation and is no longer set in it's traditional locations.
 
Charcoal is a good insulator, so the outside of the coals aren't nearly as hot as the inside. Additionally, the sweat on your feet vaporizes, forming an insulating layers. It's the same phenomenon as this: Leidenfrost effect
 
If you wanted to try the same performance would you given the knowledge of the Leidenfrost effect?
and if you did how would you find the courage to test it?
I wonder;
How did the villagers of those times, with out this knowledge, find the courage?
and why is this human trait so important to the worlds future.?..[they didn't know about the science you talk of]
 
The low end of temperatures for embers would be around 450 degrees F. It's still an impressive feat, and if done wrong can hurt you, but so can passing a hand through a flame that my dad always did to wow the kids. It's all about time of exposure. Thick skin doesn't hurt either.

How it developed? Well, in the thousands of years people have been around, someone noticed that if you don't hold an ember long or keep moving on it, you don't get burned, and since fire has always seemed a magical thing to people, turning this into a ritual could be a useful tool, particularly if you make the raking out of the coals part of the routine, which helps to get the insulating cooler part ready for the walk.

No one in their right mind would walk through the original coals from the fire...their temperature is much higher, plus you could sink into a think layer and actually contact the center parts, which would give a nasty burn.

Doesn't sound as magical if you call it "ember walking" though.
 
So what is the temperature where success is likely?
and what about the ambient temperature and external body temperature etc etc.
I know for example that if I touch molten lead [ which I have done in the past ] I get severely burnt [ even if the touch is extremely quick ]

So I wonder how much having "faith" effects the bodies responses to this sort of thing?
I woud speculate that it has a lot of impact on the result as the faith may create a situation where by the body is more capable of dealing with this act.
"If your faith in the science is strong enough you wont get burnt either, hence the successful commercialisation of this performance."
But with out either "faiths" be it spiritual or scientific, the person will get burnt is the proposition I am considering at present.
 
Mythbusters did this, walk slowly so the coals don't crush and stick and the insulating effect of the coal and ash will protect you, nothing mystical.

They also did dipping your hand in boiling lead
 
Quantum Quack said:
So I wonder how much having "faith" effects the bodies responses to this sort of thing?
I woud speculate that it has a lot of impact on the result as the faith may create a situation where by the body is more capable of dealing with this act.
"If your faith in the science is strong enough you wont get burnt either, hence the successful commercialisation of this performance."
But with out either "faiths" be it spiritual or scientific, the person will get burnt is the proposition I am considering at present.
Click to expand...

Or practice knowing what embers are cool enough to work with. All the faith in the world in science or otherwise won't help you if conditions aren't right. Like I said, this isn't something that was thought up just yesterday...people have been messing with fire for a long time, and it was bound to happen that someone in power (be it a religious figure or whatever) figured out that if they could turn this into a show, it would help them. Miracles sell religion and power...of course you'll believe the guy who walks on fire, right?
 
Quantum Quack said:
If you wanted to try the same performance would you given the knowledge of the Leidenfrost effect?
and if you did how would you find the courage to test it?
I wonder;
How did the villagers of those times, with out this knowledge, find the courage?
and why is this human trait so important to the worlds future.?..[they didn't know about the science you talk of]
Click to expand...

These villagers probably never wore shoes in their life. Their feet would be calloused and thick.
 
Quantum Quack said:
If you wanted to try the same performance would you given the knowledge of the Leidenfrost effect?
and if you did how would you find the courage to test it?
I wonder;
How did the villagers of those times, with out this knowledge, find the courage?
and why is this human trait so important to the worlds future.?..[they didn't know about the science you talk of]
Click to expand...

Funny thing about this is that in this case courage is actually bad. I can't remember where I saw it but some guy was fire walking but he wasn't nervous so he did not sweat on his feet so he was burned slightly lol.
 
What I find even more amazing are those Buddhist monks that can balance on a sharp spear or walk on knives. I have no idea how they do that.
 
Assuming that in ancient times science was non-existant and persons would have had an extraordinary fear of fire, faith in their experiences [ obviously someone must have been successful and passed it on ] lead to the tradition of fire walking with out the scientific knowledge.

The fear of fire [ getting burned ] is one of our greatest fears I would hazzard to suggest and to alk on fire with out the scientific support would require an enormous amount of faith in their experiences and in those who passed those experiences on. In the case of the thread starter , the villagers apparently utilise their faith in a given "Saint" to grant them the physical preparedness to do the fire walk.
I wonder what such string Faith and it's accompanying beliefs does to the human body to allows such things. Because I can bet with out much doubt, that if I tried those things with out the faith/ belief etc I would get badly burnt.

Would you stick your finger into molten lead with out huge faith in the scientific knowledge? I wouldn't think so.

So accidently getting burned would be easily achieved with out any emotional preparation etc etc. [sweat and emotion are linked I believe]

The contention I am working on is that "faith" as distinct from belief, regardless of what system you belief in changes the way the body reacts to circumstances in some cases quite dramatically.

any ways ...
 
Quantum Quack said:
Assuming that in ancient times science was non-existant and persons would have had an extraordinary fear of fire, faith in their experiences [ obviously someone must have been successful and passed it on ] lead to the tradition of fire walking with out the scientific knowledge.

The fear of fire [ getting burned ] is one of our greatest fears I would hazzard to suggest and to alk on fire with out the scientific support would require an enormous amount of faith in their experiences and in those who passed those experiences on. In the case of the thread starter , the villagers apparently utilise their faith in a given "Saint" to grant them the physical preparedness to do the fire walk.
I wonder what such string Faith and it's accompanying beliefs does to the human body to allows such things. Because I can bet with out much doubt, that if I tried those things with out the faith/ belief etc I would get badly burnt.

Would you stick your finger into molten lead with out huge faith in the scientific knowledge? I wouldn't think so.



So accidently getting burned would be easily achieved with out any emotional preparation etc etc. [sweat and emotion are linked I believe]

The contention I am working on is that "faith" as distinct from belief, regardless of what system you belief in changes the way the body reacts to circumstances in some cases quite dramatically.

any ways ...
Click to expand...

Actually its more likely that it started out as a rite of passage and someone hit on the trick
 
spidergoat said:
These villagers probably never wore shoes in their life. Their feet would be calloused and thick.
Click to expand...

OK, I probably shouldn't confess this, but, well, who cares?

For a period of about seven years I did not wear shoes. I carried about a pair of crude sandals (foot shaped cut-out from a tire with a rope running through it) for the rare occasions for which I was obliged to not be "shoeless"; but I was living outside for much of this time, so these occasions were rare.

And I traveled extensively--going from the deserts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico to the exceedingly wet Pacific Northwest to Toronto, CA, (in the winter) to various countries of South Asia.

My callouses were so freakin' thick that I couldn't feel much of a damn thing, be it sharp protruding objects or extremes of cold and hot. In short, hot coals were nothing--I could leap off a wall onto a mound of broken glass bottles.

Feet are pretty damn adaptable.

(Incidentally, though I've never gotten solid confirmation for this, a number of people are convinced that I was partly the inspiration for a minor character in a mid-90's television series which was filmed near to where I was living/roaming about at the time.)
 
parmalee said:
OK, I probably shouldn't confess this, but, well, who cares?

For a period of about seven years I did not wear shoes. I carried about a pair of crude sandals (foot shaped cut-out from a tire with a rope running through it) for the rare occasions for which I was obliged to not be "shoeless"; but I was living outside for much of this time, so these occasions were rare.

And I traveled extensively--going from the deserts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico to the exceedingly wet Pacific Northwest to Toronto, CA, (in the winter) to various countries of South Asia.

My callouses were so freakin' thick that I couldn't feel much of a damn thing, be it sharp protruding objects or extremes of cold and hot. In short, hot coals were nothing--I could leap off a wall onto a mound of broken glass bottles.

Feet are pretty damn adaptable.

(Incidentally, though I've never gotten solid confirmation for this, a number of people are convinced that I was partly the inspiration for a minor character in a mid-90's television series which was filmed near to where I was living/roaming about at the time.)
Click to expand...

I'm a footwear engineer. I bet your feet got wider?
 
spidergoat said:
I'm a footwear engineer. I bet your feet got wider?
Click to expand...

And you are absolutely correct.

While living in Toronto, I picked up some sort of... something, presumably from the "salts" they spread about on the streets to reduce icing, that was changing the color of my feet to a curious mix of purple and green--it was easily remedied with a round of antibiotics. The podiatrists were all rather fascinated by my feet, and my strange endeavor, and noted particularly some strange structural developments. I can't recall the specifics, but I think they said something to the effect that my metatarsals had "splayed" and that I had significantly increased blood flow to the feet.
 
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