Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Nathan Faygenholtz, 9, hops across hot coals at Laurel Mill Lodge. He's been firewalking since he was 5.

Life Coals

For most firewalkers, the experience signifies a dramatic new direction

By Leigh Ann Maze

I'll admit, I was skeptical. As I drove the twisting mountain roads above Los Gatos looking for the Laurel Mill Lodge, I kept imagining the hissing sound a hamburger makes when placed on a grill. The smell of burning flesh. The sight of barbecued feet. I had dutifully packed a bag with sensible firewalking necessities: a bottle of drinking water, a flashlight, a warm sweater and a towel as the firewalking instructor had suggested. But, honestly, I had no intention of taking off my shoes.

Two firewalking instructors from the Santa Cruz area had rented out the Laurel Mill Lodge to host their firewalking workshop. The Laurel Mill Lodge is tucked away in the mountains just past the summit off Highway 17. Although it has a rich local history, it was run-down and hidden in a jungle of scotchbroom, blackberry vines and poison oak until the new owners took over eight years ago. The renovated lodge now rents out its facilities for family reunions, church picnics, writers' retreats, weddings, company parties and any other events community members want to hold, such as this evening's firewalk.

I joined a circle of 50 people sitting cross-legged in the low-ceilinged, wood-paneled room, warmed by excitement and a fire in the hearth. "I acknowledge that ... people have in fact been injured by participation in firewalking, that there is inherent risk in firewalking and that there is a possibility I myself may receive injuries requiring medical attention," the waiver read. I signed, and tied my shoelaces in double-knots.

As everyone shared their reasons for being there, it became apparent that most had more on their agenda than a simple jaunt over the coals. They were seeking big changes in their lives. To overcome drug and food addictions, a mother's suicide, a lover's illness. Others were on a more spiritual quest. "I am here to rekindle my relationship to spirit," said one woman. "To cleanse myself. For personal growth. To let go of the old and embrace the new."

One man said his wife suggested that he write his problems on a piece of paper and throw them into the fire for his New Year's resolution. "I thought, why not throw myself into the fire?" he said, laughing.

A few had refreshingly simple reasons. "I'm here to firewalk," said a teenage boy with bleached-blond hair. Another woman put it a bit more eloquently, "I'm here to do the fire dance." One honest woman admitted she wasn't sure what her reason was for being there.

The reasons, either serious or trite, were acknowledged around the circle with broad smiles, nods and deep breathing. "It's not about walking on fire," the instructor, Arthur Faygenholtz, reassured them. "It's about what goes on between your ears, and between your mind and your heart. It's about getting in touch with the great inner strength within all of us, so that whatever you're doing in your life, you have more of what it takes to get the job done."

"We are here as servants to help you all realize your highest dreams," added co-instructor Robbie Underhill. "And I want you to know, we deliver." From the inventory of personal pains and spiritual quests that had just been offered up around the room, they had a tall order to fill. It was like a New Age Christmas and Faygenholtz and Underhill were Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.


Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Instructor Arthur Faygenholtz rakes the hot coals in preparation for the firewalk.




Firewalking was uprooted from the religious traditions of ancient cultures and transplanted in America in the 1970s via the New Age movement. Tolly Burkan, founder of the Firewalking Institute of Research and Education (FIRE) in Northern California, is considered the father of modern firewalking.

In the 1970s Burkan was a clown whose fizzled act and the tragic comedy of life had left him depressed and suicidal. After rethinking his outlook on life, and with some guidance from a Buddhist friend, in 1978 Burkan became the first to teach firewalking seminars as a way to overcome fear and to achieve personal and spiritual success. Today more than 1,200 instructors trained in Burkan's methods have taught firewalking seminars to more than a million people on six continents. Faygenholtz, a chiropractor in Santa Cruz, is in his tenth year as a firewalking instructor and took his week-long instructor's course from Burkan's ex-wife.

The ancient custom of firewalking has been practiced for thousands of years as a religious ceremony by people in India, Greece, Africa and Fiji. "People today are accessing an old ritual because of its potency. They are bringing in society's more current social and emotional issues," Faygenholtz said. Indeed, people around the world still firewalk, although more often as a workshop or tourist attraction than a religious ceremony.

In preparation for the ancient Fijian religious ceremony of walking on heated stones, the men would abstain from sex and eating coconut for several weeks prior. Just before the ceremony they would often pierce their cheeks and other body parts.

The Laurel Mill Lodge group also had some preparation to do before baring their soles to the coals. Although it was a little less rigorous, it did include steely lengths of rebar and wood-shafted arrows.

First, everyone got to know one another by placing their hands on each person's heart and having a good, long look into their eyes. Afterwards, the group called upon the ancestors of the seven points of power. For relaxation, the group lay on the floor with their eyes closed while a veteran firewalker sounded a gong. At first it was a barely audible vibration which grew into a roar like a runaway semi screaming down the highway and decreased to a murmur.

Faygenholtz spoke during these exercises, stringing together words like sacred, universe, heart, blessing, energy, lord, spirit, tribe, into run-on sentences. I was not sure what common culture we were drawing from, but the group ate up Faygenholtz's words.

We moved outside to a small clearing by a rushing creek where tiki-torches encircled a neatly stacked, aromatic pile of cedar and Douglas fir logs. Each person crumpled their fear into a shred of newspaper and added it as kindling. Faygenholtz doused the pile with lighter fluid and in minutes a bonfire roared.

By the light of the fire, Faygenholtz led the group in a rebar bending exercise. Two people faced each other and put the ends of the rebar in the hollow V on their throats. When ready, they strained toward each other until the steel bar bent into a horseshoe shape and the two participants fell into each other's arms. The exercise was, according to Faygenholtz, helping them transform their fear into power. "It was a second complete trust," said Ieva Krisjansong, a young Campbell woman holding the rebar she had just bent.

Inside the lodge, the group participated in a similar exercise using arrows, with the pointed end in the V of their throat and the butt of the arrow against a wall. They proclaimed what they were overcoming and pushed against the arrow until it splintered in half. The woman, who during introductions did not know why she had come, declared with joyful tears in her eyes that she was moving, "out of self-hatred and into self-love," before snapping the arrow. After these exercises, the group had a frank discussion about fear, what it was and when they felt it. "We're not saying don't have fear; we're saying embrace your fear," Faygenholtz said, pretending to put his arm around a friend's shoulder.


Photograph by Dai Sugano

Prior to the firewalk, one of the participants breaks an arrow with the tip positioned in the soft spot at the bottom of his neck, with the opposite end pressed against a beam.




The confessions and emotions proved that for these people, who paid $50 each to participate, firewalking is far from a cheap-thrill. I began to understand that this ancient tradition was being used as an extreme form of self-help and empowerment. In the space between where a person is in life and where he or she wants to go, there are sometimes frightening and difficult steps that need to be taken. The rebar, arrows and, eventually, the firewalking were the physical manifestation of these fearful steps.

"People remember that they did something they always thought was impossible and it opens their minds to new possibilities," said Burkan. "Once you've done something like firewalking, you remember it every time you come to a challenging situation."

Faygenholtz's 9 year-old son, Nathan, came in and whispered in his father's ear that the coals were almost ready. With so much talk about fear, and so much real fear being felt around the room, Faygenholtz lightened things up by leading the group in a 10-minute session of hysterical laughter, followed by a gyrating, hair flinging, drumming, dance party.

As the culmination of the evening drew near, Faygenholtz gave the room full of first-timers some helpful tips. "Walk with a purpose and have a plan," he said, demonstrating on a rug. "Know where you are going and how you are going to get there." The group filed out into the clearing and gathered around the neatly raked bed of glowing, red coals. Everyone had their shoes off and their pants rolled up to their knees. Except for me.

A drum beating in the background kept time with the pounding hearts and pumping adrenaline. The experienced firewalkers went first, walking confidently across without hesitation while the first-timers cheered them on. Nathan, who has been firewalking since the tender age of 5, proclaimed he was walking, "for all the future firewalkers," and nimbly danced across the coals several times. Soon, everyone took a turn standing at the edge of the glowing bed and declared what, why or for whom they were walking before marching across.

I wondered what the ancient Fijians would think to see Americans prancing across the coals for career enhancement and world peace. The trickle of hesitant firewalkers turned into a flood of people crying out with joy and going across two and three times. Surprisingly, nobody seemed to be giving a second thought to the state of their feet. "It's hard to describe," said Candice Pannetier from St. Helena. "It was powerful."

To my own surprise I found myself slipping off my shoes and socks, rolling up my jeans and elbowing my way through the jubilant crowd to the edge of the coal bed. Before I allowed myself too much time to think about what I was doing, I crossed in three quick strides.

The bed of ashes and coals was soft and warm on the vulnerable underbelly of my feet, like sand at the beach on an August afternoon. Warm enough that you notice the heat and walk with staccato steps towards the ocean's salvation, but bearable enough to kick off your flip-flops and make a run for it. Aside from a few ashy smudges, my feet were unscathed.

When the coals had been stomped out, and finally doused with water, the group headed up the hill, amazed at what they had just seen and done. "And everyone will have an explanation as to how you did it," said Underhill.

According to Burkan, firewalking is possible through a combination of physical and psychological means. "When people walk on coals measured in excess of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit without harm, they are able to do so because the body is capable of cooling and protecting itself to a certain degree," said Burkan, citing confidence, a relaxed body, and plenty of blood-flow to the feet as main factors. People do occasionally get burned at firewalking events, whether it's because their intentions were not pure or they just walked too slowly, it happens.

"In my interpretation firewalking is done with awareness, reverence, an open mind and an open heart," Faygenholtz said. "You have to trust in a higher intelligence than your belief system, which tells you fire and skin are not compatible."


Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Reporter Leigh Ann Maze throws caution to the wind and traipses across the hot coals.




Richard Zare, a professor in the natural sciences department at Stanford University, outlined some of the proposed physical explanations that make firewalking possible in a talk he gave at Stanford on Feb. 3. "I think several effects are operating at once, but which one dominates seems to be a matter of dispute," Zare said. The Leidenfrost Effect states that a firewalker's feet are protected by a film of moisture. Similar to the effect of licking your finger and then touching an iron, the moisture protects the skin from burning.

Zare also mentioned that although coals are hot, around 600 degrees Celsius, they are poor conductors of heat. "This effect explains why a metal pole on a winter's day seems colder to the touch than a tree at the same temperature," said Zare.

I'm not convinced that my state of mind prevented my feet from being seriously burned, nor do I understand enough about thermodynamics to stand on the physics side of the argument. I'm also not sure how the incendiary evening's events will help me land a job at National Geographic. I do know, however, that asking "how?" is barking up the wrong tree. The real question to ask is, "why?"

The reason these people found their way to the rustic Laurel Mill Lodge in the mountains above Los Gatos on Jan. 29 was not to scientifically or psychologically test why people can walk on hot coals. The group, which included a cab driver, students, sales people and computer consultants, were all seeking personal improvement of one form or another, whether it is as simple as opening their minds to new experiences or making dramatic changes in their lives. For some, self-help and improvement come from books, therapy or classes. Perhaps for others, one night of firewalking is enough to spark the change they seek.

In the calm afterglow of the firewalk, people took turns dancing with a stick burning at both ends while Tracy Chapman sang quietly in the background, "Can we become what we aspire to be?"

Walking on fire is really no big deal. No worse than asking your boss for a raise or going on a blind date. It seems terrifying at first, but once you do it, you realize it's nothing. It's the curve balls and challenges that life throws our way that can really burn us. And when they do, everyone finds their own personal way to rise up from the ashes.

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The Laurel Mill Lodge will host a firewalk March 18 and a women's firewalk May 13.

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