THE FIREWALKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 264, 7 November 1935, Page 6

THE FIREWALKER.

MI phenomena of matter which apparently cannot be explained by the light of our common reason have a perennial fascination, an uneasy fascination sometimes where they concern our own physical frames. The full account of the recent firewalking demonstration in Surrey substantiates an extraordinary riddle but does nothing to explain it (ears- the "Manchester Guardian"). In an English garden a young Kashmiri Indian walked several times along a trench of hot embers at a temperature of several hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The surface,heat at the time was such that a piece of cotton cloth was burnt through within two and a half seconds. His feet were washed before the'trial and it was certain that no protective substance had been used. Yet when doctors examined him immediately afterwards no trace of burning or even scorching could be detected. Equally extraordinary, the temperature of his feet afterwards was the same as when he started. A European' who tried to emulate him had to jump out of the trench after a couple of paces with his feet badly burnt.

So much is attested by witnesses. As for the explanation, there are a number of theories, but no one of them seems adequate. One common view is that the native peoples who have practised firewalking since early times •in India, Polynesia, Japan and elsewhere are accustomed to going barefoot and have thus developed layers of skin on the sole of the feet which can stand intense heat. On the other hand, the doctor's who examined this young Indian reported that there was no unusual thickening of the sole; in any case, this theory does not account for the total absence of burning. The demonstrator himself offers no explanation other than the "faith" that is in him. Psychologists might use other terms; they might point out that local insusceptibility to pain is frequently found in certain nervous states. But one does not explain a thing by giving it a name. If this firewalking is to be classed with other strange interactions between mind and body, its exact causation is beyond the elucidation of present science.