Firewalking: A New, But Dangerous Motivational Technique

Firewalking, or walking on hot coals, is a controversial motivational technique  that has become fashionable in recent years. The objections to this practice cover a wide spectrum. They range from those who consider it a relatively effective method to those who claim it is a complete sham.

It is promoted as a novel technique, but the truth is that the first references about that walk on burning embers  date back more than 4000 years. Such a ritual took place in India and its purpose was religious. It was part of ceremonies of healing, initiation, purification, invocation of good harvest and many more.

It is known that there are ancestral communities that still practice walking on embers, such as the Kahunas, or priests, of various native groups in Hawaii. They are currently walking on burning lava. The natives of the Kalahari, in Africa, perform similar rituals.

The new Firewalking is not. What did happen is that since the 70s this practice re-emerged in the United States and began to become popular. Its main promoter was Tolly Burkan, who said that he read a physics article in Scientific American Magazine and has since started walking on hot coals with no problem. He himself published several books and was involved in an alleged “alien abduction”.

The Basics of Firewalking

The promoters of Firewalking assure that it is a motivational technique that facilitates personal development. In his opinion , it is a very useful tool to increase self-confidence  , face fears and fuel motivation. They start from the idea that if you manage to walk on burning embers, you will feel more capable and it will positively change the image you have of yourself.

They indicate that anyone is afraid to walk on hot coals. However, those who overcome this fear and manage to take the first step will also be able to take the steps that follow. Apparently this will be extrapolated to your everyday life. It is a “radical change” to destroy  negative beliefs and cultivate more positive ones.

Firewalking is a technique promoted and practiced by some coaches. These tend to use metaphors to introduce or enhance positive beliefs about oneself. Walking on the burning embers would be a metaphor for what happens with the rest of the challenges we face.

Walk on hot coals

The promoters of Firewalking point out that experiences, both of success and failure, affect our mental programming, that is, our values ​​and beliefs. From this, each one forms an image of what they are capable of doing. The result would affect self-confidence. They indicate that walking on hot coals at 500 ° C contributes to mental reprogramming. If you overcome the dangerous challenge, your self-image will be modified.

In the Firewalking process, three steps must be completed, which are:

• Identification. It consists of exploring the limiting thoughts and defining what are the goals that each one wishes to achieve, pointing out the mental programming that prevents it.
• Learning. It is aimed at overcoming fears and learning to trust oneself so that it is possible to move forward.
• Change. In this step the desire for change is nurtured, since what it is about is that each person learns to break down those barriers that stand in their way to achieve what they want.

Firewalking is expected to help people cope with difficult situations. What is sought is that with the experience of walking on the embers the idea is internalized that, if you do not move forward, you will burn (if you do not continue walking, the damage is greater). Also that you must step firmly and continue, whatever happens.

Currently Firewalking is used, very especially, by companies that seek to “empower” their workers. Some of those that have resorted to this technique are Microsoft, American Express and Coca-Cola, among others.

What happens when people walk on hot coals?

What is supposed is that someone’s mental strength is so great that they can walk on burning embers and come out to the other side without any harm. That would prove to the participant that they are stronger and more capable than they imagine. However, from a physical point of view there are several nuances that cannot be ignored.

According to Luis Alfonso Gámez, critic of the subject and author of the article “254 euros for learning to walk on hot coals”, the subject is not a feat at all. On the contrary, he affirms that anyone can carry out this activity and that he does not need any preparation  or to pay money to be taught how to do it. He bases his claims on a series of physical facts, which can be summarized like this:

• Walking on charcoal embers is the same as blowing out a candle with your fingers. The flame is even hotter than the embers, since it reaches 800 ° C.
• Coal embers are less dense than the human body and have low heat conductivity
• The process of warming up the foot is very slow and the temperature drops when you get up to walk.
• Firewalking promoters put a thick layer of ash on the ember, which blocks heat transmission.
• Gámez assures that this supposed coaching technique is nothing more than a trick to get money from people. He quotes the skeptic John Nevil Maskelyne, who stated: “Those who have a lot of money and no brain are made for those who have a lot of brain and no money.”

An interesting experiment

Richard Wiseman is an English psychologist who wanted to put this controversial motivational technique to the test. On his BBC program Tomorrow’s world , he ran a simple experiment. He made a carpet of burning embers, but this time he did not use a 4.5 meter length, which is the usual in Firewalking. Instead, he set up an 18-meter track. He invited three well-known promoters of the technique to go through it live on television.

He passed the first one and walked 6 meters, but had to jump off the track because he was burning. Exactly the same thing happened to the second and the third no longer wanted to participate in the experiment. The first two had to be treated because they had second-degree burns on the soles of their feet.

In this way, Wiseman tested what he wanted: “mental strength” ends at 6 meters. That is why the Firewalking gurus use short distances. They have figured out what is just the necessary length before people get burned. There is no positive thought worth after 20 feet of burning embers.

A “trick” that works anyway

Most of us love to dream and we love to believe in the possibility of the extraordinary becoming possible. There are many myths around the “power of the mind”, which although it is enormous, it is not so great as to break the laws of physics. And much less after an instruction that sometimes lasts only 3 hours.

Despite this, there are many people in the world who claim to have obtained unimaginable benefits thanks to Firewalking. They say that his life changed radically. In several companies they claim that their workers improved results after having gone through the burning embers. Of course, there is also more than one that has been scorched from this experience. “I wasn’t ready,” they say.

Finally, one of the great powers of the human mind is precisely to believe, even against all the evidence. If you want to believe and if what you believe helps you to overcome some discomfort, you accept whatever it is. It is the same thing that happens with the placebo effect. At the end of the day, if it helps you get better, who are we to question it?