Let me reconstruct this for you as best as I can:
It is a few minutes past 8 p.m. on a Saturday. It is a lousy night, chilly and wet. It has been raining off and on all day, but now it has stopped.
I am holding hands in a giant circle with 80 other people, all of them strangers. We are standing in a dark, unlighted church parking lot in northwest Evanston, and we are chanting the Zen mantra ”Om” over and over again while we gaze at a large, blazing fire in the center of our circle.
Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhmmmm.
We have helped to build the fire ourselves, each of us placing a single piece of firewood on the pyre, then crumpling up a page from a newspaper and stuffing it in the cracks among the logs.
Then we watched as our leader, a tall, blond, balding fellow named Tolly Burkan, poured kerosene on the pyramid of oak we`d constructed and set it afire with a cigarette lighter.
Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhmmmm.
In an hour and a half or so, as soon as the flames die down and the smoldering heat takes hold, all of us are supposed to remove our shoes and socks and walk barefooted across what will then be a bed of incredibly hot, ruby-red coals.
Ohhhmmmm. Ohhhmmmm. Helllppppp.
I am beginning to have second thoughts.
The knot in my stomach has returned.
I don`t care about the claims that thousands of people have done this and have come away unhurt.
At the very least, I figure I`m in for horrible, third-degree burns of both feet. Maybe even charred stumps. Toe flambeau. Filet of sole. Blackened whitefoot. Months of painful recuperation.
My mind must have snapped. Why else would I consider following some flaky kook across fiery embers that are hot enough to roast marshmallows and melt steel? And what do I know about Tolly Burkan, anyway?
Not much. All I know, in fact, is what I`ve read in Burkan`s own publicity handout, which is not all that reassuring. According to one press release, he`s ”the founder of the firewalking movement.”
Great. That`s just what this country needs–a firewalking movement. I`d feel a lot better if it said he knew something about first aid or skin grafts. You can, by the way, guess where Burkan is from, can`t you?
Right. California.
Open up his head and you`d probably find tofu and bean spouts where his brains should be.
It wasn`t so many years ago, the press release continues, that our guru, suffering from severe depression, tried to do away with himself. Not once but twice. Somehow, I wish he weren`t so frank about his past.
But Burkan`s second unsuccessful suicide attempt, the release says, was a turning point in his ”struggle to become a happy, healthy human being.”
Unable to kill himself, he instead turned to firewalking, which he found to have ”profound implications” in ”enabling people to overcome fears and limiting beliefs in all areas of their lives.”
The mean, skeptical voice inside my head that has been sounding off all night isn`t buying this. Hey, sucker, it`s now saying, can`t you see that what`s going on here is another one of these self-improvement scams? A form of ritual sacrifice for yuppies? Can`t you see that Burkan is just another in a long line of human-potential hucksters cashing in on the enormous gullibility of baby boomers? Werner Erhard and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have nothing on this guy.
At this point, my sweet, trusting voice, silent for most of the evening, speaks up. Don`t listen to Mr. Gloom-and-Doom, it says. The least you can do is to give Mr. Burkan a fair hearing. You may even learn something. He must have something important to say; otherwise why would all these people pay serious money to come here and risk self-immolation?
My sweet, trusting voice has a point. Surely, I can afford to stop prejudging the gentleman and give him a chance to explain what all this is about.
Ohhhmmmm. I feel better already. Ohhhmmmm.
—
My mood had deteriorated only after going outside for the fire-starting ceremony. When the evening had begun, I was trying to feel as positive as I could. Here`s how it was:
It`s almost 7 p.m., and I`ve checked in with Joy Olson and Ed Richards, who have brought Burkan to town and who have invited me.
The four-hour seminar that prepares us for the few seconds of actual firewalking is being held in an auditorium in the Unity Church On The North Shore, 3434 Central St., Evanston.
People are still arriving, and there`s a bustling sense of expectancy in the large room. Despite the terrible weather, the crowd seems to me surprisingly large. Each person has shelled out $125 for the privilege of sitting at the feet of Burkan, then hot-footing it toward whatever inner goal he or she may have set.
Olson tells me that although Burkan introduced firewalking to this country eight years ago, this is the first time it`s been done by anyone in the Chicago area. That is, I suppose, if you don`t count the occasion in 1871 involving Mrs. O`Leary`s cow.
Making jokes, of course, is a transparent attempt to control fear. In a few moments, however, my peace-of-mind gets a genuine shot-in-the-arm.
”The best description I`ve heard is it`s like walking on warm popcorn,” says a middle-aged man with a nametag that reads JIM.
Jim, who`s seated on a folding chair behind mine, says he firewalked several months ago in another state. The fact that he is a satisfied, repeat customer is encouraging, as is part of another of Burkan`s press handouts, which I study while waiting for the briefing to begin.
Firewalking, it says, was first noted in the 1st Century A.D. by Pliny the Elder; in more recent times, it`s been primarily a religious practice in India, Greece, Spain, Japan, China, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Thailand, Fiji and Brazil.
A sentence catches my eye. It says that of the tens of thousands who have firewalked, only one has required hospitalization. Although my mean, skeptical voice quickly pipes up: ”Get ready to be No. 2, sucker,” I`m reassured
–until I read farther. ”Two known deaths have occurred due to the activity–one in Tibet and the other in . . . ”
”May I have your attention, please.”
It`s Burkan. The name rhymes with ”her-CAN.” He`s standing on the stage in front of us, a nice-looking fellow, 38 years old, vital, cheerful, seemingly sane. His blue eyes are clear, I`m pleased to see, and he`s wearing a three-piece navy-blue suit, a tab-collar shirt and a dark maroon tie, which seems an oddly formal attire for the quirky, off-the-wall nature of what we`re here for.
One of the first things we`re to do is to stand, introduce ourselves, tell why we`re here and what we want from the experience. ”If you know what you want,” he says, ”you`re like a ship with a rudder. You can reach your destination.”
I try to think of some personal objective I can say I want to accomplish through firewalking–beyond writing a newspaper article, which doesn`t seem cosmic or self-actualizing enough.
”And understand this,” he says. ”It`s all right to decide not to go through with it. Usually about 5 to 10 percent decide not to. Sometimes it takes more courage to say no, and what you learn is just as valuable as going through with it.
”After we walk on the coals, we`ll come back inside and discuss how to integrate the experience into your lives. You`ll notice that there are going to be real changes in your life after firewalking.”
”Yeah,” my mean, skeptical voice says, ”you`ll be walking on crutches.”
It`s the willingness to take a risk, Burkan goes on, that leads to individual change and the stretching of one`s limits. ”The seminar,” he assures us, ”is fun and very practical and very powerful. It`s very easy to walk on fire. I`ll teach you how in about five minutes. The rest of the time is about changing your life.”
Burkan says it`s likely that some of us have been feeling very stressful all day, dreading the worst. It`s not necessary to live one`s life that way, he says, and firewalking will give us a new, liberating outlook. ”You`ll learn it`s all right to have fun in your life,” he says. ”It`s an illusion that you have to be uptight or stressed out about anything.”
My sweet, gentle voice breaks its silence. ”What a nice man. And he makes sense, too. Listen to him, Paul. Change your life! Go with the flow. Have fun!”
—
After a brief songfest, Burkan pumps us up with a technique he calls
”Accelerated Learning.”
”Making money is easy,” he asserts. ”The nature of the universe is abundance. There is no shortage of resources; there is only a shortage of consciousness.”
You can guess what my mean, skeptical voice has to say about this.
Next Burkan deals with the forms that absolve him of any legal liability for what might–ahem–go wrong.
”Over 100,000 Americans have done this,” he says, ”and only 15 have been badly burned. The last injury happened years ago. I made some mistakes in the early days. But I still want you to understand that it`s possible to be injured. The coals will reach a temperature of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, which scientists tell us can melt metal.”
He has my attention.
”Science says with this temperature your feet should be charred immediately to a black carbon residue.”
I feel faint.
”It will be clear to you at the end of the evening whether you should walk or not. About 10 percent get blisters on their feet from walking, but these are people who believe they must suffer in order to feel they`ve accomplished anything.”
After signing the forms, it`s testimonial time. Here`s a sampling:
Young woman: ”I`m on a path of growth, and this will be a continuation of my journey on that path.”
Young man: ”I`ve been doing a lot of work lately on what constitutes reality . . . ”
Young man: ”I get a real thrill out of doing new things–sky-diving, cave-exploring; this is the latest thing for me.”
Young woman: ”I believe you can wipe fear out of your life.”
Young woman: ”For some reason, I like to scare myself.”
Young woman: ”I`ve been teaching and believing in the supernatural. This is a giant step . . . ”
Young man: ”I`m here to merge with fire and the elements.”
Young woman: ”I don`t want to criticize, condemn and complain anymore.” Young man: ”I`m here to have a good time. I don`t like any limits.”
—
”I changed from being a person who wanted to kill himself into a person who is happy with life,” Burkan says. ”To achieve this, I tapped one source of personal power that`s greater than any other.”
I wait for the answer.
”And that`s love . . . ”
Ah, the ol` standby, love.
By this time, we have returned from starting the fire and are again inside the auditorium. Burkan goes over a few scientific theories about why people don`t get sent to intensive-care wards when they walk on hot coals. One guess is that a coating of perspiration protects the skin. I immediately whisper to my feet: ”Sweat, damn you, sweat.”
Burkan says all these theories are basically hogwash because they miss the main point, which is that our minds can interact with our bodies to produce results that seem to defy logic. It`s the we-
don`t-know-our-own-strength-until-we`re-tested concept.
Our minds have been told that walking on coals will burn our feet, Burkan says, and even though this isn`t necessarily so, the mind has bought it and thus tries to protect us by making us fearful, by telling us that terrible things will happen if you play barefooted in fire.
This happens in all areas of our life, he says. We avoid certain things because all our lives we`ve been told we`re sure to fail; we`ve absorbed the message that some things are just too difficult for us, that we`re somehow inadequate.
These inhibiting beliefs keep us ”stuck” in unhappy situations; they make us timid, afraid to enjoy life or to assert ourselves–by asking the boss for a raise or quitting the job we don`t like or trying something we`ve always wanted to do.
The fact is, Burkan says, we won`t be burned when we walk on hot coals, and nothing terrible will happen if we do all the other things we refuse to do because our mind tells us not to.
—
”Take off your shoes and socks and roll up your pants legs,” Burkan says.
Each of us has a 3-by-5 card on which we`ve written: Pay Attention, Expect the Best and Go for It. Sometimes it`s helpful, Burkan says, to visualize that we`re walking across hot sand at the seashore or crossing a hot asphalt road in August.
”The only thing that will stop you is the fear of the first step,” he says. ”Stepping through that membrane of fear can change your life.”
He cautions us not to run; this drives the feet down into the coals. We`re to walk briskly, as though we`re late for an appointment.
We again go outside to the darkened parking lot, again form a large circle and hold hands. We begin singing a refrain Burkan teaches us. The song is wonderfully distracting. The knot in my stomach is gone, and I feel strangely calm.
Burkan takes a rake and begins spreading the burning coals into a rectangular walkway that`s three to four feet wide and 12 to 15 feet long. Burkan moves the larger, flaming chunks of wood to each side.
There`s a hissing sound when Burkan lays the rake on a patch of wet pavement. Next he tamps down the coals with the back side of a shovel.
And then we begin. Burkan is first, and he covers the distance in four long strides. In two minutes, I`m there. There`s only a vague sensation of heat as I take five steps on what feels like fine gravel. In less than five minutes, all are across who are going across.
Back inside, seven people say their inner voices told them not to walk. An equal number say they`ve got blisters on their feet. Everyone else is fine. Indeed, there`s a boisterous spirit of elation and exhilaration. I feel pretty terrific, myself. There`s no getting around it, I tell myself. I`m one courageous guy. Me and Indiana Jones. Me and James Bond. We smile at danger.
There`s no way of knowing how many people will be truly changed, how many actually will overcome fears and self-imposed limits. The answer probably is that if you want to believe, you believe.
Firewalking may be like passing your hand through a candle flame; it happens too quickly for you to be hurt. We can be sure that there`s at least one significant change–in Burkan`s bank account. The evening`s gross is about $10,000.
Ed Richards announces that there will be another firewalk on Dec. 13 at the same place and that those interested can call him at 639-9300.
Burkan tells us to tape the 3-by-5 cards to our bathroom mirrors and leave them there for four weeks because it often takes that long to understand what the experience has meant to us.
But I`m still not certain whether I`ve changed or, if I have, how much.
There have been some symptoms. The Monday after firewalking, I walked into the office determined to ask my boss for a raise.
But then I changed my mind. Frankly, I`d rather walk over hot coals.
