Sound and music have been used for millennia to create change. But it is not all "in our minds", sound and music also affect our bodies. Snake charmers and fire walkers can attest to how sound and music can alter consciousness and make the body impervious to damage.

i was always under the impression snake charmers were tapping their feet to 'hypnotize' the snake, besides... snakes have no ears.

and fire walkers typically rely on meditation to overcome the psychological expectation of the burn on their feet. it's a simple issue of thermodynamics and has nothing to do with music. to walk from burning hot sand onto coals isn't exactly a large leap in temperature, especially if the coals have started cooling down and are covered in ash.

to me fire walking seems to be a parlour trick on the same level as i pull off when i grab a smoldering piece of wood from out of a fire with my left hand. the callouses on my fingertips from playing guitar numb the nerves to the point where i won't notice the burn until a few seconds later if at all. by heating my hand up near the fire first it makes for less of a temperature difference when i grab onto the wood and less chance of actually burning myself (i also don't grab it by the part that's still on fire or glowing red hot)

Snakes can't hear. They're reacting to the movement of the instrument and the vibration from the charmers feet.

You will also notice that when they do the snake kiss bit with the Cobra it's always from above. They can't attack upward.


Fire-Walking is basic thermodynamics. When you have two different objects of different tempearture interacting the hotter one will cool down and the cooler will heat up. When you take into account that a human body is mostly water (and water has a higher heat capacity point than coal) and that your blood will carry the heat away from your feet....as long as you keep moving you won't burn your feet. As long as you keep moving, you really won't even feel an uncomfortable increase in temperature to your feet.

as soon as you stand still it starts to suck though. so no standing and waving to the camera mid-fire walk