About Firewalking

Fire worship practiced as a rite of purification, healing, initiation and transcendence has been a thread in the cultural tapestry of our planet. Many tribal people had, or have, rituals and ceremonies to honor the sacred aspect of fire, honoring its gifts and acknowledging its power. Fire worship and firewalking has nourished and warmed the human spirit since the dawning of mankind, today firewalking has evolved into a powerful tool for self-realisation and empowerment.

Many of the natural environments of our planet are dependent on the cleansing and purifying aspects of fire; wildfires clear the way for new growth, which many animal and plant species depend upon for survival. Just as the planet requires fire for renewal, so does the human spirit, as we are always intrinsically connected with this earth from which we grew. Our relationship to fire is as old as the human race. Recent evidence suggests that Australopithecus controlled fire nearly a million and half years ago.

The beginnings of firewalking are lost in the annals of history, but we do know that Africa, often considered the birthplace of humankind, has a long history of firewalking and fire dancing. The African-born Hindus walk on fire regularly as part of important religious festivals and !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari desert have firewalked since their tribal beginnings. The !Kung use fire in their powerful healing ceremonies.

In 1977, anthropologist Laurens van der Post published an account of his travels to Africa to study the !Kung and was astonished when witness to their healing fire dances. And, Richard Katz, a Harvard psychologist and anthropologist, reports that the !Kung use the fire to heat up their energy, which they call n/um: Dancers will go in the fire, walk in it, put their heads in it, pick up the coals and rub them over their hands and body… when the n/um (or energy) in the body is boiling and as hot as the fire, they will not be burned. As the n/um intensifies in the healers they experience an enhanced consciousness called !kia , during which they heal all those at the dance.

In Bali, the mystical South Sea island, it is not the men who dance on the fire, but young girls. In India, Tibet, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Argentina, to mention a few, people dance and walk, joyously, solemnly, exuberantly, or devotionally across fire. In the Hindu fire ceremony Agni Hotra, fire is used to purify the physical and spiritual atmosphere and in Peru the flame is used to spiritually uplift participants in the fire-ceremony.

The oldest recorded firewalk was over 4000 years ago in India. Two Brahmin priests were competing to see who could walk further, one managed to do so and his feat was written down in the historical records of that time.

In a 17th century letter a Jesuit priest, Father Le Jeune, writes to his superior, telling of a healing firewalk he witnessed among the North American Indians. He reports of a sick woman walking through two or three hundred fires with bare legs and feet, not only without burning, but all the while complaining about the lack of heat she was feeling.

Some 30 years later, Father Marquette reported similar firewalks among the Ottawa Indians and Jonathan Carver writes in his 1802 book Travels in North America that one of the most astounding sights he saw was the parade of warriors who would “walk naked through a fire… with apparent immunity”.

Other North American Indians who were known to have shamanic traditions which included fire handling were the Fox, Menomini, Kere, Blackfeet and particularly the Zuni, who had, and some claim still have, a “great fire fraternity”. The Kahunas, or native priests of the Hawaiian Islands, had powerful practices of lava waking. All around this little globe people rely on their spiritual kinship with this dynamic element to bring them closer to their true nature and, through touching the fire of their spirit, feel renewed and healed.