Does walking on fire or broken glass qualify?

Houdini wrote extensively about "fire eaters" and other performers who demonstrated amazing resistance to heat.

They seemed to eat hot coals, pour molten metal on to their tongues and hold it there until it solidified, and do a variety of other very neat stunts.

It's a matter of conditioning the body to get used to heat, using chemical treatments on the body parts handling the hot objects, and (most of all) using props that look hotter than they are.

I haven't seen someone put out a cigarette on themselves, but it's a petty stunt compared to real fire-resistance performances. If people can do much better with trickery, there's no good reason to believe the small stuff is supernatural.
 
bratok said:
Hi,
Any idea if walking on burning coles, smashed glass, sharp nails, holding hands in fire, etc :j2: ... ( without any consequences, of course ) does qualify?


Thanx

If someone has special powers that enable them to walk on hot coals, why wouldn't that same power enable them to sit on hot coals?
 
bratok said:
Hmm... I remamber very well that after he called out an organ and started spinning the metal rod, I felt that feeling in the organ he called out and then he would say about this organ.

Thanx

Am I the only one who's never felt anything in any of his organs other than my lungs and stomach? I'm not even sure I feel it in my bladder when I need to tinkle, the sensation comes from farther down the urethra.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:


Am I the only one who's never felt anything in any of his organs other than my lungs and stomach? I'm not even sure I feel it in my bladder when I need to tinkle, the sensation comes from farther down the urethra.

:roll:

It mostly comes with age.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:


Am I the only one who's never felt anything in any of his organs other than my lungs and stomach? I'm not even sure I feel it in my bladder when I need to tinkle, the sensation comes from farther down the urethra.

For your sake US, I hope you never get a kidney stone. You'd feel that. Lots.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:
Am I the only one who's never felt anything in any of his organs other than my lungs and stomach? I'm not even sure I feel it in my bladder when I need to tinkle, the sensation comes from farther down the urethra.

Well, I feel pain in my brain when I read some of the posts in this forum (not yours!!).
 
asthmatic camel said:


For your sake US, I hope you never get a kidney stone. You'd feel that. Lots.

I second that. I just had my first one a few months ago.


:confused: :eek: :o :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
I don't know if this is relavent, but I used to jog 3 miles a day barefooted. The callouses built up so hard on the souls of my feet that I literaly could walk on glass without feeling anyting or suffering any seriouse cuts. Just as long as the glass wasn't too thick or the pieces too long.

And yep, they used to call me Fred Flintstone.
 
I saw the topic of walking on glass addressed previously - I believe it was on an episode of Penn and Teller's ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, and excellent show which I highly recommend and addresses many other questions you may not have known you had.

My memory fails me (all too often) but I do recall quite vivdly that they illustrated it was a trick anyone could do, much like walking on fire.

-Chris
 
BS

bratok said:
Oh, I see. But, for example, putting out a burning cigarette against ones hand, without useing any isolators, of course. Or walking on sharp, broken glass :confused: ?

I.e. doing something without getting hurt, that, someone else doing, would get hurt.

Well, just saw a Yog doing this things and he said that he's telling his subcounciouse, and makeing it believe, like "I am fire, so I cannot get hurt by fire" or "I am water, so I cannot get hurt by sharp objects" and also doing some exercises to make more seem like the substance he wants to be. Moveing in the same rythim with a flickering flame, for example...


Thanx
It total BS. Don't be dense. As for the glass walking thing - wow, I saw them doing that on that US TV program Fear Factor. Funny how all those contestants suddenly developed supernatural ability. I say, hey, if you can walk on SHARP, BROKEN glass - in other words, if you can will your skin not to be cut by sharp objects, why do something really spectacular and let spectators go at you with machetes. or why not stick you head into a meat grinder and see what happens.
 
Kids, don't try any of the stunts described in this thread...when they are performed, they are performed by skilled professionals. The unskilled who tried them ain't around to play yogi any more.

Some of these tricks are described in Jearl Walker's The Flying Circus of Physics

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/047102984X/102-6527516-2663310?v=glance

Walker used to do firewalking himself to demonstrate physics, until the one time he screwed up and severely burned his feet. Up to that point he'd done it successfully many times, no magical powers required. It is not a stunt to take lightly.

Ah. Oh yes. I never explain anecdotes.
 
uruk said:
I don't know if this is relavent, but I used to jog 3 miles a day barefooted. The callouses built up so hard on the souls of my feet that I literaly could walk on glass without feeling anyting or suffering any seriouse cuts. Just as long as the glass wasn't too thick or the pieces too long.

And yep, they used to call me Fred Flintstone.

When I was a kid I never wore shoes unless I absolutely had to. I could walk around on the snow for 20 minutes or so in the winter, and cross hot tar in the summer. Not for too long though! I wonder what a person's skin would look like if they never wore shoes and what kind of environment they could handle without shoes.
 
UnrepentantSinner said:


Am I the only one who's never felt anything in any of his organs other than my lungs and stomach? I'm not even sure I feel it in my bladder when I need to tinkle, the sensation comes from farther down the urethra.

Slighly off topic but: Nope I was the same until a few years ago until I had kidney stones. The stones were zapped by a spot of lithotripsy and they are gone now. But since then, I know exactly where my kidneys are, and what I would have used to interpret as a random feeling in my side I can now pin-point as being a feeling my kidneys. So that's at least 1 more organ I can differenciate. I agree with your comment though. :)

Neil

[Edit]

Oops, looks like I wasn't the first to mention the old kidney stones. Looks like we have more than just a skeptic life in common guys.
 
Denise said:


When I was a kid I never wore shoes unless I absolutely had to. I could walk around on the snow for 20 minutes or so in the winter, and cross hot tar in the summer. Not for too long though! I wonder what a person's skin would look like if they never wore shoes and what kind of environment they could handle without shoes.

Agreed, when I was younger I did a month of barefoot work on a gravel ridden farm in France. By the end of that month my feet had grown leather soles for themselves. :)

It doesn't take long to build up hard feet, but it looks like with all the facts about heat capacity etc, they aren't even needed to do these tricks.

Neil
 

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