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Friar Herbert Thurston - The Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism

Dr. B. Glanvill Corney, who was for many years the chief medical officer of the Fiji Group, and has written sundry official reports on the conditions of life in these islands, took a great interest in the form of fire walk (over flag-stones heated red-hot) which formerly prevailed in that part of the world. He writes on the subject as follows:

I have seen the Fijian fire walk done five times and I have examined the feet of several of the performers immediately afterwards, without meeting with any trace of injury, or any trace of a protective application.

On one occasion a boy of fourteen or fifteen years, who was doing it for the first time, was unable to complete the journey round the hot stones in the pit, either from the heat, or from imperfect knowledge or skill in evading the risk. He hopped briskly out of the line of men on to the brim of the pit and I examined his feet then and there.

There was no injury whatever to be seen, though the stones were hot enough to have charred a pocket-handkerchief into a frizzled black ash in a few seconds, and some were still red-hot on their undersides, towards the middle of the pit, I cannot help thinking that some physical phenomenon takes place which has not been understood or explained.