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(see quote below)(1) |
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Adair 1924 Burton 1944 |
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(see quote below)(2) |
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(see quote below)(3) |
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(Univ. of Hawaii) (see quote below) |
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General
notes: page is the page in the Gaddis book; the date is the approximate
date when the occurence took place; N is the number of successful persons;
n is the number of burned persons; in each case they somehow disobeyed
instructions; Type represents the kind of fire mastery where A - general
mastery; B - enduring a blazing pyre; C - handling hot coals; D - a fire
dance; W - fire-walking; ASC refers to the fact that the candidates were
known to be in a trance or altered state of consciousness, transfer refers
to the fact that the ability to pass through fire was transferred by the
adept to some one else, not adept in the art, such as a bystander, an observer
or the author of the account; I - the length of the firepit in feet; t
- the time the participant was observed in the firepit or the time to transit
it. Cite - the bibliographic source to be found in the bibliography (SPR
Society
for Psychical Research).
Special notes:
1. (Gaddis 1967:118) The Earl of Crawford wrote: "I have frequently seen Home when in a trance go to the fire and take out large red-hot coals and carry them about in his hands. . . . Eight times I have myself held a red-hot coal in my hands without injury. . . ."
2. (Brigham, Long:31f) Dr William T. Brigham of Bishop Museum, Honolulu: "I watched him with my mouth open and he was nearly across,-a distance of 150 It when someone gave me a shove. . . . I do not know what madness seized me but I ran. The heat wag unbelievable. . . . I was never so relieved in my life as I was to find that I was safe, and there was not a blister on my feet."
3. (Journal of Polynesian Soc'y N.Z. March 1899) Col Gudgeon, British resident in Tahiti: "I knew quite well that I was walking on red-hot stones, and could sense the heat, yet I was not burned. I felt something resembling slight electric shocks. . . ."
4. (Thurston, 1952:187ff) Bishop of Mysore, Monsignor Despartes: (a witness): "There must have been 200 people who passed over the embers, and 100 who went right through the middle of the flames" A Caucasian police chief told the bishop: "We felt as though we were in a furnace, but the fire did not burn us."
5. (Kenn, 1949) "Walkers interviewed afterward reported that their minds "were a blank" or that "they were under a spell." Their feet felt "only warm but had a tingling sensation, like the foot going to sleep"
6. It is
notable in this table that it is the hands and feet which seem to have
the immunity, rather than the whole body. This fact raises the issue of
whether the auras which proceed from hands (and putatively the feet, see
section 4,15) have a countervailing influence.