“Is he a pig? He sure eats like one.” - Gertie, E.T.

By Brian Thompson

I. The Setup

There are a lot of things that bother me about the New Age movement.  For one, I’ve never seen the beauty in dream catchers.  Crystals I get.  They capture the light and project little rainbows, which always warms my heart because I know rainbows are symbols of God’s promise never to drown the human race again.  (Though He hasn’t ruled out death by electricity, poison, or professional wrestling.)  But dream catchers?  It’s not even the cringe-worthy associations with that Tom Jane movie about the poop creatures and the retarded alien kid.  I just don’t cotton to the idea of waking up from a terrible nightmare only to bump my head on some dangly feathers and come face-to-face with what looks very much like a vicious spider’s web.

No thank you, New Agers.  But as much as I hate the way dream catchers look (unless, of course, they’re airbrushed across the black t-shirted breasts of an overweight Harley Davidson enthusiast) I’m even more incensed by what they represent: namely, the wholesale pillaging of other people’s religion by stinky, barefoot Americans who disguise their almost preternatural lack of ambition/personal hygiene skills as a Neo-Pagan embrace of “nature.”

Aside from being nonsensical, such wholesale thievery of foreign cultures is simply racist.  The New Agers are comfortable cherry picking their chakras and their chis only from those religions which they find cute.  That’s called condescension.  At least I respect the Native Americans enough to call their rain dances superstitious nonsense.  I won’t insult them by hopping around a campfire and pretending I’m getting in touch with non-existent Earth spirits.

So what does all this have to do with firewalking?

II. The Findings

Several religions and cultures use firewalking as a ritual symbolizing the mind’s ability to conquer fear.  It’s an initiation for those who can’t be judged worthy to join the adult group before bucking up and taking a leap of faith.  And by “leap,” I also mean “hilarious, high-kneed sprint.”  In Indian culture (the real Indians, not the Cleveland ones), firewalking is also seen as a sign of mystical power.  Mind over matter and all that.  The holy men are supposedly able to keep their tootsies from burning through the force of their faith.  This is, of course, nonsense.

While strolling barefoot across a walkway of blazing hot coals might look really cool and get you laid after a kegger, there’s nothing particularly dangerous about it.  Next time you see a firewalker while paying $40 for a piña colada on your next Hawaiian honeymoon, notice that they never actually walk over open flames.  And if for some reason your firewalker does walk over open flames, notice how he burns alive.  Almost all firewalking is done over red hot embers—usually charcoal or volcanic rocks.  The layer of ash on freshly burned charcoal is a terrible heat conductor.  Same for volcanic rocks.  They both spread heat evenly across their surfaces.  Walking across them, even if they’re red hot, is like touching a pot of boiling water while wearing an oven mitt.  Depending on the thickness of the mitt (mine’s a Richard Nixon puppet, so there’s plenty of heft to it), you can still feel some uncomfortable heat if you hold the pot too long.  Similarly, firewalkers can still be burned if they have oddly thin soles on the bottom of their feet or if they take too long to walk across the coals.  But this rarely happens.  Indian mystics may be too ignorant to realize the gods haven’t cast a level 6 protect spell on their feet, but they aren’t stupid.

But people like Tony Robbins, on the other hand, are stupid.  Or at least they think you might be.  Robbins has ripped firewalking right from the clutches of its original cultures and now sells it to gullible executives willing to spend their profits on self-help retreats.  Like every New Ager, Robbins doesn’t bother with science or reason and instead tells you that your warm but safely unboiled foot skin is a sign of your quasi-spiritual “self-empowerment.”  An even better indicator of your self-empowerment might be a Tony Robbins sized hole in your wallet.

Instead of showing you an interesting cultural curiosity like firewalking and attempting to uncover the truth about it, Robbins would rather hijack an ancient tradition in order to dazzle people into giving him money.  He might as well be manning a booth at a Renaissance Fair selling homemade power crystals or velvet spirit mats.

III. The Conclusion

But for every buck toothed ape-man like Robbins, there are hundreds of less financially successful woo merchants looking to impress you with the powers of their toe calluses.  Don’t be fooled.  The next time a patchouli-smelling multiple divorcee with a penchant for incense and stray cats wants to demonstrate the power of her $200/hour meditation exercises by throwing you in a fire pit, don’t scream and fret and fall worshipful at her feet when you make it out alive.  Instead, ask her if she would mind standing perfectly still in the same fire pit while you and your wallet quietly sneak out the back door.

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About The Amateur Scientist: Brian Thompson is a professor of amateur science at a major imaginary university and a regular blogger at CHUD. He has been able to read and write for over seventeen years.

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