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Friar Herbert Thurston - The Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism

Perhaps the most famous of all D. D. Home's fire experiments was the occasion when, in the presence of several witnesses, he drew out of a blazing fire with his hands "a huge lump of live burning coal " so large that he had to hold it in both hands, and then deliberately placed it on the head of his friend, the aged Samuel Carter Hall, F.S.A., for many years editor of The Art Journal.

Someone said, "Is it not hot?" and Mr. Hall answered, "Warm, but not hot." Whereupon Home proceeded "to draw up Mr. Hall's white hair over the red coal, the coal, still red, showing beneath the hair."

Mrs. Hall, his wife, afterwards had the coal (which some of those present attempted to touch, but then shrank back after burning their fingers) placed in her own hand. She also found it warm but not unbearable.