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Tumo / Chi

Ramboelmo

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Ramboelmo
Joined
Feb 20, 2006
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60
Hey guys,

Well my friend and I were discussing his belief in a chi type energy and we started to talk about the monks that heat up blankets or areas between people using chi. I have done some internet searching only to find sites that are about people "disproving" skeptics. There is so much to go through that I was wondering if anyone had found out how these feats could be physical possibilities. I came up with some explanations like the blankets could be soaked in alcohol or some other substance that evaporates quickly. Any explainations, links, videos, etc would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Havent come across that particular one before, but for an interesting and informative read there is a book by Leung Ting (before he became a kung fu generalissimo) called Secrets of the Vagabonds, where he does a great job of describing the common "chi" demonstrations, and exposing the tricks behind how they are actually done. Once you get the mindset, it is quite obvious.

Kind of like (well, exactly like) watching a magician and working out how they do it. Ah, its up his sleeve. Ah, there are twins. Oh, the other guy's a plant etc.

Your particular example may even be covered in that book, havent read it for a while..
 
I don't know about any particular examples you are thinking of, but I do know it's possible to control, to some degree, heat flow in the body, through practice.
 
The demonstration by those monks is pretty impressive, but I have only heard of them and seen them on tv. No hard-earned information. However, I do know a couple of things about standing/sitting/lying down and not moving for a while in very cold weather from my army days.

1. Sitting outside in the winter wrapped in a cold wet blanket until it dries and not getting hypothermia is impressive.

2. Wind chill/solar heating. If I was to try a stunt like that I would find a spot in the sun and choose a sunny day with no wind. If you find some pictures/videos of these monks, I'll bet they have made similar choices. If the nights are cold, the days can be quite mild, even if there is still plenty of snow around.

3. Acclimatization. You can get used to it. If you live inside in temperature-controlled environments most of the time, you will be miserable in a very hot or cold situation, even in appropriate clothing. It would be more impressive if a bank manager could do it than a monk who lives and works in that climate wearing modest monk-like clothes. (I assume this is done right outside the monastery.)

4. Genetics. Call me a racist if you will, but inuits can take a lot more cold than arabs. Darwin never sleeps. A few (hundred) generations in the mountains should help a lot. The monks that are not suited to this genetically, don't get on tv.

5. Technique. This is where the mind-over-matter part comes in. They probably have all kinds of 'woo' explanations about how they do this, but there are real things you can do. A simple thing everybody can learn is to relax their muscles to avoid shivering and let the blood circulate more freely to their extremities. Breathing/focusing exercises can easily change your heart rate. Maybe they do something slightly more advanced along those lines.

6. Faking it. Men have incredible powers when it comes to hiding physical pain. Especially around people they want to impress by taking pain and not showing it. Like beautiful female National Geographic correspondents, perhaps? ;)

7. Cheating. Are there herbs you can take to supress the symptoms of hypotermia or increase metabolism to create more body heat? If so, that would come in handy, and buddhist monks living in cold conditions would know about them. Besides, if it's on tv, it's all in the editing.

Ririon
 
I'd rather see these people who believe in these superpowers prove their claims than to futily try to disprove them. You can't disprove their claims without their cooperation, in otherwords, until these monks show up for testing, it's best to just treat their claims as tall tales.
 
I could’ve sworn I saw a show where it was told how these monks were encouraged by the Dalai Lama to cooperate with scientists and ended up with the indignity of rectal thermometers during meditation. It looks like I may not have been dreaming.

ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Benson brought back now famous film of the Tum-mo monks drying their ice-cold sheets. For them it's of course an essential religious ritual, designed to create a fire which burns away all traces of improper thinking. For Benson it was simply astonishing, and in fact he found with his tests that monks could, at will, raise the temperature of their extremities -- fingers and toes -- by as much as 15 degrees. At the same time they don't increase their heart rates, he found. So somehow they must be deliberately opening up their blood vessels, increasing the flow. I'm no Tibetan monk, but after my relaxation session the idea of warming yourself up didn't sound out of the question to me.
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Scientific American Frontiers
Show #1310, "Worried Sick"

Presumably there are scientific reports out there somewhere.
 
Presumably. However, like psychic "science" they seem to be scant and rare and hard to find. I wonder if these monks would qualify for Randi's challenge.
 
A fine list of points. Just one quibble:

Ririon said:
4. Genetics. Call me a racist if you will, but inuits can take a lot more cold than arabs. Darwin never sleeps. A few (hundred) generations in the mountains should help a lot. The monks that are not suited to this genetically, don't get on tv.
Click to expand...

Are these monks not celibate? And if so, wouldn't the genes that lend hardiness be selected against by finding themselves in bodies more likely to become celibate?
 
I would be curious to find out a few things about them.

1. What fabric are they dressed in, if any? I haven't seen a demonstration, just one photo of a monk getting "tested" with all sorts of monitors and such on his body. The articles only mentioned "thinly clad" Many fabrics are remarkedly water resistant, yet lightweight.

2. What fabric are the wet sheets made of? Many new fabrics, and even good old wool are very good at wicking moisture away from the body to the outside of the garment.

Steam rising off the sheets is not in of itself an indicator of any great temperature. I've seen steam rise off my own wet clothes outside on a cool day.

Several years ago I had a hyperthyroid condition called Graves Disease. One of the symptoms was always feeling hot. During those several months, I rarely wore a coat outside, even on the coldest days, and inside would quickly need to strip down to just shorts and a tee, even if the house was 60 degrees F or cooler.

Could it be possible that these monks are artificially inducing a similar state, with herbs, foods or drugs?

Meg
 
Jon. said:
A fine list of points. Just one quibble:



Are these monks not celibate? And if so, wouldn't the genes that lend hardiness be selected against by finding themselves in bodies more likely to become celibate?
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Well yes, but: A buddhist monk is not necessarily celibate for the rest of his life. And more importantly: This kind of thing will work fine on the surrounding population. Even IDiots will admit that, since this would definitely be "microevolution". :)
 
Ririon said:
Well yes, but: A buddhist monk is not necessarily celibate for the rest of his life.
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Ah. I didn't realize this.

ETA: Are the children of ex-monks more likely to become monks?

Ririon said:
And more importantly: This kind of thing will work fine on the surrounding population. Even IDiots will admit that, since this would definitely be "microevolution". :)
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Well, I would agree that the surrounding population is adapted to living in cold/high altitude conditions. However, unless they can all do the same thing these monks purport to be able to do, it doesn't go very far in explaining the monks.
 
Every film I've seen of the demonstration the monks are always inside on their benches, do they perform this ritual outside as well?
 
Jon. said:
Ah. I didn't realize this.

ETA: Are the children of ex-monks more likely to become monks?
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They will probably grow up with deeply religious fathers, so... I guess so. My source for this is my own memory, but according to that, in some buddhist countries it is not uncommon for boys/young men in rural areas to spend a few months/years as monks.

Well, I would agree that the surrounding population is adapted to living in cold/high altitude conditions. However, unless they can all do the same thing these monks purport to be able to do, it doesn't go very far in explaining the monks.
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It's not the main explanation, but it goes a little way, doesn't it? Maybe they can all do it with a little instruction? At least I would bet on them making it rather than someone native to the Amazon rainforest. :)
 
CaptainManacles said:
I don't know about any particular examples you are thinking of, but I do know it's possible to control, to some degree, heat flow in the body, through practice.
Click to expand...


if this an authentic knowledge. I would like to chat with you.
 
I highly doubt that humans can simply control heat flow. Perhaps blood flow, which will affect the thermodynamics, but not heat flow itself.
 
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