NMR ISSUE 21

Astrological Forecast 21
Concise Lexicon of the Occult
Cricket
Discipline
Editorial 21
Faerie Love
Firewalking and the New Age
Fitting In
Hallows Eve
Lazaris on Lazaris
Letters 21
Magickal Use of the Tarot
Man in a Woman's Religion
Nature's Truth
Pelican
Realigning the Sabbats
The Oldest Magick
Understanding Your Dreams
Wicca Craft Gerina Dunwich

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Firewalking and the New Age

NH4

I remember the first time I became aware of people walking barefoot across hot coals. I was reading a story about Fiji Islanders, who were pictured in a newspaper in an obviously altered state of consciousness. I knew that ordinary Western people—I knew that I—could never do something like that. But I was wrong.

In fact, 25,000 Americans had walked barefoot across hot coals at the time I first read that article. What's more, it turned out that I knew at least half a dozen people who had walked on fire (as aficionados call it) in my area alone. I even knew a man who was giving firewalking seminars and demonstrations. He told me that 4,000 people had walked in our region, that he had 1,000 people on his mailing list, and that it was possible to get still photos or videotape of the event. He added that at his last seminar and demonstration, 18 out of the 21 people in attendance had walked barefoot across a 15-foot bed of burning wood coals, and that none of them had been injured.

Nonetheless, I didn't feel even vaguely motivated to try it myself—until he mentioned that my ex (and current companions) had been among the latest 18 to successfully navigate the coals. I fancied myself a spiritual person, but wouldn't have applied that term to my ex. The unintended assault on my ego was more than I could bear. If my ex could handle firewalking, I had no emotional choice but to follow suit or burn trying.

I became convinced that there was some sort of trick involved. I figured that either a person wasn't on the coals long enough to burn the feet, or wood coals didn't conduct the heat effectively, or simple body chemicals insulated the feet. I mean, a four-hour seminar on Overcoming Fear couldn't possibly teach people to manifest a transcendent consciousness on command. I signed up for a seminar, indicated I wanted photos of the event, paid my money and anxiously awaited the fateful day.

It was not the most inspiring lecture I had ever attended, but it made some critical points. Apparently, all significant injuries in firewalking had occurred when people stopped walking while still on the fire. Whatever causes such paralysis, shock, loss of nerve, confusion about whether to advance or retreat, or whatever, it should be clear that standing still on red-hot coals is not a good idea. If you start to walk," you had better finish. Also, inculcating a certain amount of fear in potential walkers" is apparently a good idea, as adrenaline coursing wildly through the body can serve to insulate the feet against injury.

Watching the fire, or the raking of the coals, can have quite an impact. When I would think, I'm going to walk across that!" I would find myself feeling somewhat shaky. When the time came, I watched four or five people walk across the coals, without apparent injury, thought again that there must be some catch, and got into line to walk." The first step was HOT! On, no, there wasn't any catch! My body finally panicked. The second step was COLD! This was weird. Steps three, four, and five were crunchy, but had no noticeable temperature. When I got off the fire at the other end, and had my feet sprinkled with a garden hose (to remove coals potentially lodged between the toes or whatever), I felt some residual throbbing from the ball of my left foot. It was the only evidence I would have at the end of the evening that the coals that most of us navigated were actually hot. I walked across the coals another four or five times, and got my pictures taken, without so much as feeling warmth from the coals. I even witnessed certain participants picking up coals in their hands and blowing on them before having to drop them.

I was physically elated—it was hard to imagine going home or going to bed for hours after the experience, even though it was close to midnight when the coals were extinguished. Firewalking was empowering. It made me feel stronger, like almost anything might really be possible. When I think back on my cynical feelings about it before I actually walked, I realize the inability of language to really communicate the fullness of an experience to one who has no common frame of reference. I wasn't even among the people most strongly affected by that night's firewalk. One of the walkers became convinced he could get a raise at work; the next day, he did. Another decided she could heal people with her hands, and subsequently demonstrated some capability of doing so. Another became convinced he could walk on water, or even air. The subconscious mind is apparently so afraid of the fire, and so sure that firewalking will result in injury, that when the person successfully firewalks, it deals a major setback to the subconscious mind's negative beliefs about the person's limitations. I had thought that firewalking might give me a rush, but even my elation was one of the least significant of the reactions I witnessed.

I have firewalked many times since then. When I remarried, I even walked hand-in-hand over the coals with my new spouse. (I have wedding pictures from that one.) My first firewalk was a revelation, and I always enjoy it. But I am torn about whether or not it is a Big Deal.

For a while I was tempted to belittle the experience, since Anyone-Could-Do-It. I chuckled when a woman I knew told me about the time she showed her firewalking pictures to a Hindu man running a coffee shop, and the man was so freaked out he brought the rest of his family out of the kitchen to stare at the pictures of the woman with the powers of a fakir. Then there was the common reaction: many people I showed the pictures to assumed that they were the products of artful trick photography. People still generally don't believe that firewalking is possible, or a practice indulged in by the sane or civilized.

Yet I gained something important from the experience. My self-esteem increased dramatically, and I was able to do things that I had previously convinced myself were beyond my abilities. So what did firewalking mean?

The man who gave the seminar I attended told me that he was frequently attacked by people who thought that the power to walk on hot coals was given to men by the devil. The symbolism associated with fire obviously frightens people quite a lot. He had taken to responding with a cute Bible reference. As protestant fundamentalists quote from John 3:16, he had taken to quoting Luke 3:16, which prophesies a baptism by fire and by the Holy Spirit in the indeterminate future.

Is firewalking a form of baptism? I considered that the Bible appears to discuss a number of baptism-like experiences, including the foot-washing ceremony (Jesus washing the feet of his disciples), the pouring of/anointing with oil (Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus at the Last Supper), and the water-walking (Jesus and Peter), as well as the traditional water baptism and the baptism by fire (and the Holy Spirit) referred to above. Did each of these baptisms have a distinct symbolic meaning?

Water baptism seems eminently proper during the Piscean Age, a Water Sign Age (also known as the dispensation of grace to Christians). But with that Age ending (or perhaps already over), what rites become proper? The ceremony of foot-washing seems to relate astrologically to the ending of Pisces. Since Pisces rules the feet, to wash the feet is to symbolically eliminate the excesses and wrongdoings of the Piscean Age. The pouring of oil that is part of the anointing ceremony may be an Aquarian Age ritual, in that the anointing in the Bible was carried out by a woman carrying a pitcher, the traditional symbol of the sign of Aquarius.

The Bible also makes references to walking on the fire, which may be allegorical but which may also hint at an awareness of the literal existence of the practice. When the Bible refers to baptism by fire, could it be referring to firewalking or to a comparable ceremony? And when it refers to baptism by the Holy Spirit, could it be referring to the inner awakening that would make firewalking, water-walking, or perhaps even air-walking (levitation) possible?

Although I am not sure that I know the answers to these questions, I do know that firewalking is a worthwhile and empowering activity. To walk through the fire means, literally and metaphorically, to face up to your worst fears, and implicitly come out a stronger person. It is as easy to firewalk as it is to be baptized—once you've decided that it's the right thing for you to do.