• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Fire Yogi

Loving this discussion of you guys. :D

Throwing another paranormal Yogis claim/trick at you.

youtube.com/watch?v=RgD_4OGdXA8
 
King of the Americas said:
I don't know why you'd invoke Sylvia and what this man is capable of doing...

I'll bet this guy IS saying that he is nothing special but practiced and self-reliant.
Click to expand...

Evidence please? From all readings he is claiming mysticism and not trickery.

If you can find this guy saying he is using trickery to simulate being mystically fire resistant, my apologies, but from everything posted that is not the case.

ETA: And if that is what he is saying, what a lame trick. It is barely performance art then. One can do much cooler things with the right combination of rubbing alcohol and other substances.
 
Last edited:
hey all

now this is hardcore. check the guy with the arm.

youtube.com/watch?v=6FFCmyjhGdM

lxxx
 
sadhatter said:
But not in a mystical way. I doubt this guy is saying " I use tricks and callouses [sic*] in order to do this. "
Click to expand...

And again, based on this video, I don't think even this kind of training (calluses, that is) was necessary. More like the "training" to do a magic trick or illusion.

*It's weird but even though they're cognates, the spelling "callous" is only the adjective or verb. The noun is spelled "callus".
 
King of the Americas said:
That's the one I recalled.

So, I am just guessing that the skeptics will claim that the hospital that did the testing was in on and and sneaking him food and water, right guys?
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. First, the hospital test was a guy lying in bed and allegedly not eating for 15 days. That's not so shocking (even if true). The really extraordinary claim is that he has gone without food or water since his childhood. And that claim is unsubstantiated. Again, using the skeptical approach, we would examine all available evidence (including what we know of human physiology) and provisionally reject this claim.

Second, people other than the hospital [staff] testing him could have helped him sneak food and water. Or he could have managed to sneak food and water by himself.

My guess is that the "controls" of this little demonstration were extremely lax. I'll bet he had free access to water (like the normal sinks in bathrooms and so on) that were beyond the camera surveillance.

Yeah--he claims he magically produces urine even though he doesn't drink water once the original claim that he doesn't produce urine was acknowledged to be false.
 
King of the Americas said:
That's the one I recalled.

So, I am just guessing that the skeptics will claim that the hospital that did the testing was in on and and sneaking him food and water, right guys?
Click to expand...

It was never independently verified:

Jani's handlers did not allow Edamaruku and his associates to be involved in the testing of Jani in 2003. Nor were they allowed to be involved in the recent re-testing. According to Edamaruku:

I asked to be allowed to send an independent team to survey the room where this test is taking place, but I was repeatedly turned down. It is ridiculous to ask people to believe that any man can go 15 days, let alone 70 years, without food or water.

Dr. Shah has been in charge of three similar investigations over the past ten years, and he has never allowed independent verification. In 2000, he was asking for funds to investigate a man he claimed got his energy from the sun, just like plants do. In 2003, he even approached NASA for funds to investigate Mr. Jani, claiming astronauts might benefit from the research. This particular hospital, led by this particular doctor, keeps on making these claims without ever producing evidence or publishing research.
Click to expand...

http://www.skepdic.com/skeptimedia/skeptimedia90.html
 
King of the Americas said:
Still...?
Click to expand...

Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Sorry.

What is the longest anyone has gone w/o food and water, under 'controlled' conditions?
Click to expand...

Appears to be 10-14 days, with a range of 1-3 weeks:

A well-known example of the former is Nancy Cruzan, the subject of the famous 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Cruzan versus Director, Missouri Department of Health. Cruzan was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for many years until she died 12 days after artificial sustenance was discontinued. Since that time, many other incidences of discontinuing sustenance in patients in a PVS have been reported and death typically occurs after 10 to 14 days. (If the individual is dehydrated or over-hydrated, the time may range from approximately one to three weeks.) In situations of voluntary refusal of food and hydration, death typically ensues on a similar time frame, although the early use of ice chips or sips of water to reduce thirst may delay this slightly.
Click to expand...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-long-can-a-person-sur&page=2
 
Emet said:
Not sure what this is supposed to mean. Sorry.



Appears to be 10-14 days, with a range of 1-3 weeks:

...
Click to expand...

I mean is this guy STILL claiming he hasn't eaten, and remains untested?

What condition was the individual in who under controlled conditions lasted 14 days?
 
King of the Americas said:
Still...?

What is the longest anyone has gone w/o food and water, under 'controlled' conditions?
Click to expand...

Why are you lumping food and water together like this?

If a person drinks only water, he can last a month or more. He will cannibalize proteins in his own body to stay alive.

If he has no food OR water, he can only last a few days.
 
King of the Americas said:
How long?
Click to expand...

It varies from person to person, but we lose about 2.5 litres of water a day on average, and 15% dehydration is considered to be fatal.

If I'm doing my math right...a 100kg person would be dead in six days.

Oops, sorry...that's if the person is 100% water!

It's really more like 3 or 4 days.
 
Quote:
What is the longest anyone has gone w/o food and water, under 'controlled' conditions?

Appears to be 10-14 days, with a range of 1-3 weeks:
 
King of the Americas said:
Quote:
What is the longest anyone has gone w/o food and water, under 'controlled' conditions?

Appears to be 10-14 days, with a range of 1-3 weeks:
Click to expand...

Bobby Sands of the Irish Republican Army died after a hunger strike that lasted 66 days. I think he took water, though. I wouldn't believe anyone could last more than two weeks without either food or water.


On the subject of "fire resistance", there seems to be two independent phenomena that are being interchanged. Your body is made up of an awful lot of hydrocarbons and other molecules. Those molecules will undergo certain chemical reactions in the presence of heat. (i.e. they burn) No amount of mind training will prevent those chemical reactions. Enough heat will burn you, yogi or no yogi.

There are also nerves in your body that send signals to your brain that tell you things are getting hot, and you might be in danger. This causes pain, and it also might lead to other physiological reactions, such as increased heart rate or respiration brought on by anxiety or the presence of smoke. Those reactions, and even the perceptions of pain, can to some extent be controlled by training.

So, mind training and placebo effects can change the mind's ability to resist the effects of fire, and control the normally involuntary reactions to feeling the presence of intense heat. However, they can't prevent your skin from burning.

Meanwhile, people don't really understand thermodynamics all that well, and they frequently perceive things to be much more dangerous, or in some cases less dangerous, than they actually are. An object can have a very high temperature, but transfer very little heat, and thus not cause much damage. Stage magicians and yogis take advantage of the audience's perception in order to make it appear that they have special powers that grant them the ability to resist fire, when in reality they just aren't getting all that much heat. The stage magicians understand this phenomenon, and are using it to their advantage, while admitting that it's all fake. Some of the yogis understand this phenomenon, but are being fraudulent anyway. Some of the yogis probably don't understand this phenomenon, and they think that their ability to withstand wet grass on fire but not the touch of red hot metal must be due to the special connection with the energy of the grass's spirit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom