History
The history imperviousness of the human body to the fire refers to thousands of years ago. One of them which is described in a letter of unquestioned authenticity written by members of the church Smyrna (today known as Izmir, in Turkey), is about the death of Saint Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna who was condemned to die at the stack because he would not recognize the divinity of the Roman power. In A.D. 155. It was written by the eye witness that when the fireman lit the fire ‘and a mighty flame flashing forth, the fire made a wall round about the body of Martyr and he was there in the midst.
So at lengths the law-less men, seeing that his body could not be comsumed by the fire, ordered the executioner to go up to him and stab him with a dagger. (Herbert Thurston, The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism, pp.171,222-223)
The Lankadas Fire Dance
Around the year 1250, the church of St. Constantine in the Thracian village of Kosti caught fire. It was said that some of the villagers heard the icons groaning, dashed into the blazing church to rescue them, and, miraculously, emerged unharmed. Since then the icons of St. Constantine and St. Helen have been passed from one generation to the next, and every year on the feast day of the Saint (May 21) The descendants of the early parishioners have honored them with their fire dance.
In the early 1900’s some of the firewalkers moved to the Lankadas, Greece, taking the icons with them. There they continued their ritual celebration.
The fire, which covers an area some twelve feet squared, is lit early in the morning, while those who are to dance prepare themselves. For several hours they contemplate the icons in rapt concentration, and as they meditate, the ancient music of drum and lyre is played. At length, when the fire is glowing cherry-red, a dancer rises to his feet, enters the flames, and begins to dance. Another follows him, and then another, each carrying reproductions of sacred pictures. For half an hour they dance, treading on the logs and embers until the flames are finally extinguished.
The temperature of the coals, recently measured by Dr. Christo Xenakis of Athens general hospital, ranged from 500 degrees to 850 degrees Fahrenheit. “I would have expected third-degree burns in all cases,” Dr. Xenakis said. But he found that only a few of the fire dancers were harmed, suffering blistered feet.
“It is almost exclusively a question of fate,” said the villagers chief firewalker, 50-year-old Constantine Kitsinos, adding that one must first “overcome the feeling that it is impossible.”
Once guided by fate and concentration, the actual dancing on the burning coals, is painless. You feel something but it is no more than like walking in a prickly field. Despite the heat , the strange thing is that feet sometimes even feel cool.
(Vincent H. Gadddis, Mysterious Fires and Lights, pp.126-127;National Enquirer, July 14, 1981)
Colonel Gudgeon in Rarotonga
“I knew quite well that I was walking on red-hot stones and could sense the heat,” wrote Colonel Gudgeon,
Yet it was not burned. I felt something resembling slight electric shocks, both at the time and afterward. I did not walk quickly across the oven, but with deliberation, because I feared to tread on a sharp stone as my feet very tender. My impression, as I crossed the hot stones, was the skin would all peel off my feet, yet all I felt afterward was a tingling sensation for some seven hours. I do not know that I would recommend to anyone to try it. A man must have mana to do it.
Colonel Gudgeons mana-magical power-came to him, in a sense, at third hand. In 1899 he and three other English men had been watching a firewalk on the tiny island of Rarotonga, where he had the status of British residenceof the natives had completed the walk, their leader turned to one of the English men, a man named Goodwin, and handed him his wand of it leaves, saying, “I hand my mana to you; lead your friends through the oven.”
To a man, the Englishmen removed their shoes and socks and set out after Goodwin across the stones. Goodwin, Gudgeon, and a Dr. George Craig were unharmed by the walk, but Craig’s brother William disobeyed the clear instructions he had been given and looked back before he had completed the traverse. His feet were severely burned, and he was unable to walk for several weeks.
Thirty minutes after the walk, Colonel Gudgeon and his friends, perhaps scarcely believing what they had accomplished, began to speculate as to what the temperature of the stones might actually be. In response, the native leader tossed his wand of green ti leaves on to the stones, and the English men had the satisfaction of seeing it flame almost at once.
(Vincent H. Gaddis, Mysterious Fires and Lights, pp.144.145)
