Fire Walkers # 1

By Author: Robert Bruce Baird
Total Articles: 190
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DERVISH: - Whirling and ecstatically altering their conscious and soul full interconnections with all around them. These people of the Middle East are a lot like Native dancers and dream dancers from the whole of the world and deep into the dark recesses of human existence on earth. Needless to say their behavior has little relevance for the western academics of such soul-denying professions as those who do NOT know how to actually cure people or why the soul is important in that process of wholistic balance in human lives-and JOY! The quotation from the book 'Wonder Child' is the kind of thing we should read over and over again until we know why it makes 'common sense' versus the constant bombardment of manipulative messages and fear-mongering to divide the human family.

In our entry on the origins of language (Ogham) we mentioned 'Huna' and Max Freedom Long's work with the chants and mind-altering effects of the Hawaiian language. Here we see him engaged in something the 'real' world we live in, can seldom observe, and most scientists would hesitate to hold forth their 'expertise' and try to explain.
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... br /> Max Freedom Long gives a detailed account of how his mentor, Dr W. T. Brigham of the British Museum, was taken onto fresh boiling lava near a volcano on Kona Island by three Kahuna - local magicians. They instructed him to take his boots off as they would not be covered by the Kahuna protection, {The 'protection' needs more conscious soul to connect with or through the state the Kahuna [perhaps Druids are their teachers according to my Wiccan high priestess] generate with their discipline and understanding.} but he refused. As he watched one of the three walk calmly onto the lava flow, the other two suddenly pushed him and finding himself on the hot lava, he had no choice but to keep on running to the other side. In the course of the 150-foot dash, his boots and socks were burned off. The three Kahunas, still strolling barefoot on the lava, burst into laughter as they pointed out the trail of bits of burning leather.

What does go on in a fire-walk? Dr White expresses the widely held view that the walkers are in an exalted state of mind which suppresses pain. Yet there are fire-walks without trance or ecstasy. Neither is there any evidence to suggest that damaged tissues heal up so rapidly that they are not noticed (a process sometimes observed among Dervish, Hindu, Balinese and other body-piercing devotees) {Including piercing with swords.}. In The Crack in the Cosmic Egg (1973) by J. C. Pearce, the author suggests that the firewalk is a classic illustration of the creation of a new reality (albeit temporary and local) in which fire does not burn {But why did Brigham's boots burn?} in the familiar way. As long as this reality is maintained all is well, but the history of the fire-walk contains many accounts of gruesome fatalities and shocking damage to those whose faith is snapped {Brigham was not a 'faithful'.} so that they were plunged back into the world where fire burns. The magical state of affairs in which flesh, and sometimes other material, is immune to fire is created, it seems, by the person who officiates at fire-walking ceremonies. Leroy's Muslim writhed on the ground in agony as soon as the Maharajah announced the end of the proceedings. It was explained to the bishop that the man had taken the burning upon himself. In 'Women Called Wild', Mrs Rosita Forbes describes a fire-dance ceremony in Surinam, presided over by a virgin priestess, among descendants of African slaves who had intermarried with the local Indians. The priestess was in a trance for the duration of the fire-dance, and if she had emerged from it unexpectedly, the dancers would no longer have been immune from the flames. We have to agree with Dr Comey that psychical and psychological theories alone do not account for what happens {Unless you are more than just a psychic like the Kahuna, Druids and Yamabushi.}, and that some physical phenomenon takes place

{This is the crux of the lack of 'thinking' that goes on in the paradigm which tries to say it is 'open-minded' and able to observe the real world. What is psychic if not physical? Are they saying cellular phones are able to communicate through 'magic'? Just because you can't see 'protection' or conscious attunements that make each part of the body able to absorb the fire's energy and translate it to other specific uses doesn't mean it isn't real.}
which has not been understood or explained.

Pearce's theory of fire-immunity as a product of a state of temporary reality invoked by a magician explains why the fire-walk has so shocked and offended those who depend on using the reality they have grown accustomed to as a bulwark against the apparition which Freud {Whose student Jung, said Freud was unable to contemplate the metaphysical real world due to his fears and insecurities.} called 'the black tide of occult mud'. In recent years, however, fire-walking has been used in the West as a motivational tool in the more extreme types of leadership training as well as in courses for personal growth and development. The successful fire-walker achieves a 'natural high' through the conquest of his or her rational fear, a triumph of 'mind over matter' that sets them apart as a kind of shaman and enables them to believe that they are capable of achieving anything." (11)

The de-materialization entry has some application in another approach to 'possibility-thinking' for what might be going on here. In bi-location a body may de-materialize and send itself through the cosmos to another place like teleportation. Thus appearing to be in two places almost simultaneously. OK! If you have a better explanation for actual occurrences, I'm listening! Let us give you the experience of Joseph Campbell of a trip to Japan, first; and then all of us can 'think' about what is really going on. The key thing in this story that adds to the Brigham or other experiences is the 'healing use' of the energy in the fire.

"On May 21, the Buddhist saint Shinren's birthday, the streets of the neighborhood were hung with colorful streamers and lanterns. Airplanes flew overhead strewing paper lotus petals, and enormous crowds surged everywhere in the streets of Kyoto. Campbell and his companions watched a few minutes of the Noh-play taking place on the Nishi Honganji temple grounds, and then were whisked rather urgently away to the ninth-century Fu-do Myo-o-in temple. As they arrived, so did an important-looking Shinto priest in full regalia, and then a small group of Buddhist monks. 'One cannot tell where the Buddhism ends and the Shinto begins,' wrote Campbell.

They were early and were given seats in the front row facing the altar. But the ceremony due shortly to unfold would be conducted by neither traditional Buddhist nor Shinto priests, but officiants more akin to shamans: the Yamabushi, the independent mountain-dwelling ascetics of Japan.

'There was a large, square, roped-off area before us, with a big, square pyre in the middle, covered with evergreen boughs. Beyond that was an altar, the length of one side of the area, set with offerings: cakes, oranges, etc., all neatly stacked. At each comer of the area was a large wooden tub of water with a long-handled scoop--to be used on the fire. And in the comer at our right was a large bell-gong set on a table. At about 4:30 p.m. the Yamabushi arrived - in their fantastic costumes. They had been on a procession through certain parts of the town. (Biblio and notes bring us important historical insight: 'This curious order of monk-magicians,' Campbell wrote in his journal, 'is said to have appeared in the 8th century, as a protest against the governmental control of the Buddhist religion comparable in a way, I should say, to the hermit movement in Christendom after the moment of Constantine. Refusing the usual ordinations by the government, they retired to the mountains and lived as holy hermits, and like the friars of later Europe, were responsible for spreading the religion among the common people. Buddhism in Japan before their time had been largely an aristocratic affair. Moreover, they were strongly influenced by the 7th century Tantric lore and principles.')


About the Author
Author of Diverse Druids
Columnist for The ES Press Magazine
Guest 'expert' at World-Mysteries.com