The producers at 20/20 called me to say that the segment we did on James Van Praagh, in which we exposed all of his tricks and techniques, will be airing again this evening. This includes us actually catching Van Praagh cheating red handed, asking one of the subjects during a break, when he thought the cameras were off, who she had come to talk to. Then, an hour later, Van Praagh turns to this woman and pretends that the spirit has just identified herself correctly. Note also the hilarious (in my mind) exchange between Van Praagh and a man named Peter, in trying to find out who "Charlie" is. The guy didn't have a clue and, finally, a woman behind him identified Charlie as her father's dog. Without missing a beat Van Praagh declares that he can see Charlie and her dad taking walks together in heaven. If it wasn't so tragic it would be comedic. I'm sure they will not be showing the after segment chit chat between Barbara WaWa and Hugh Downs, in which Walters declares that she thinks Van Praagh is for real because when she met him he told her that her father had a glass eye. The host for this segment, Bill Ritter, tells Walters that he managed to find out in a matter of minutes that Walters' father had a glass eye because her father was well-known in the entertainment business and the story about how he lost his eye is apparently easy to research. (Point being that with 20/20's audience in the many millions it would be well his time and effort, knowing he was going to meet Walters, for Van Praagh to do a little homework first.

Friday night I went to Twain Hart, California and walked across 1,076-degree hot coals barefoot to test firewalking guru Tolly Burkan's theory of "mind in matter." (Go to www.firewalking.com to read all about Burkan's theory of firewalking and check out his color photos). That is, in order to not get burned you have to think positive thoughts, meditate, and chant. This was set up for a television program, about which I will have more to say later this summer. It was a fascinating experience in which I discovered the REAL psychology behind firewalking (see final paragraph below).

Before we went up there (located smack in the middle of California--LAX to SFO to Modesto to Sonora to Columbia to Twain Hart, which is squarely in the middle of nowhere) we were told that the pit would be about 70 feet long. This got me a bit worried. The last time I did a firewalk was for the Bill Nye Science Guy show a couple of years ago, and that pit was only about 10-15 feet long, and it was HOT! I didn't get burned nor did I blister, but a couple of my friends did blister. So I counted out 70 feet and, boy, that's a long ways to be tiptoeing on fire!

The correct explanation for firewalking--and I believe this firewalk supported it further--is heat conductivity. It certainly is not mind over matter (as I shall demonstrate below), and it isn't the Leidenfrost effect of evaporating water (think wet finger on a hot iron). Your feet do not burn because coals, even at a thousand degrees, are not that efficient at conducting heat into your feet. The analogy is putting a cake in an oven and baking it at 500 degrees for half an hour. Open the oven and put your hand in and you don't get burned; put your hand on the cake and you don't get burned; touch the metal pan and ay caramba--instant burn. Well, coals are more like cake than metal. There are some provisos here, however.

First of all, some people do get burned, or more like blistered. Actually, lots do. Tolly Burkan didn't. I didn't. But several of the meditating, chanting, positive thinking folks Friday night got little dime-sized blisters on their feet. (One New Agish woman called them "little kisses" and said that if I got any I could get rid of them by placing my hands behind my knees for 20 minutes before going to bed. Upon awakening the next morning, the "little kisses" would be gone. I did not get a chance to test this theory.) If the heat conductivity theory is correct, reasoned Burkan, then why do some get burned and others do not?

The reason is twofold: (1) Some people have tougher feet with callasus on them, and others have more tender feet with no calluses. (2) Even with toughened feet, the heels and balls of your feet have much thicker skin than the arch does, due to constant friction in walking. If a hot coal hits you just right on the tender skin of the arch, or on your generally tender feet, you can get a little burn. Knowing this, and getting a little anxious in the preceding weeks, I went barefoot everywhere. I mean I didn't EVER wear shoes. My wife and daughter said I had "yabba dabba doo feet," in reference to the dirty, disgusting, callused feet on Fred Flintstone in the film version a couple of years ago. Sure enough, when I saw Tolly Burkan's feet he also had yabba dabba doo feet. That definitely helps. (Living in Southern California I go barefoot a fair amount anyway, plus I run mountain trails a couple of days a week, so I have a decent layer of leather down there.)

The other variable that I think helps is Burkan had a thick mat of wet straw before and after the fire pit (which, by the way, was no more than about 15 feet long, much to my relief when I saw it). I don't think there is an evaporation effect here, but having your feet cooler for the first couple of steps, then sloshed in cold water immediately after (a woman with a hose was constantly wetting the straw mats), definitely reduces the heat conductivity from the coals to the skin by making your skin a little cooler to start, and then cooled down at the end.

As Tolly and his friends (there were about 30 people all told from around the area) were meditating and chanting and preparing their minds, I was some distance away sitting in a rent car reading a book and listening to classical music, trying not to think about this seemingly idiotic thing I was about to do. Ironically, I had some free time earlier in the day in the little town, where I found a used bookstore, and there I found a copy of a book I've been trying to find for years: Eric Hoffer's TRUE BELIEVERS, which I thought was most appropriate reading before a mass firewalk!

At the last moment the producers brought me out and as soon as Tolly traipsed across, I took off my shoes and walked through the coals. It was AMAZINGLY easy to do. It just did not feel that hot. Earlier in the week, for example, I walked across this long black asphalt parking lot in my bare feet, and it was REALLY hot. Honestly, these thousand-degree coals felt considerably cooler than that asphalt did. I delivered my lines to the camera, but wasn't happy with them, so I went and did it again. No problemo, although one particularly hot and pointed coal nailed me in the arch and I felt that one, but it never did blister.

(One little sidebar I found amusing--I had to do some "wraps" for the show--deliver a couple of lines to the camera explaining why I was there. None of these people had any idea who I was so they assumed I was some actor on the show. So after the firewalk I had this little crowd of people around me asking whether I do sit coms or dramas or whatever, assuming that I was some famous Hollywood TV actor! I had to laugh about that one. The production crew gave me a hard time the rest of the trip--"Hey, aren't you that famous Hollywood actor?!")

Here's the real deal about firewalking: When they build that big bonfire of wood it is blazing hot. The radiant heat is stifling. If you get anywhere near it you're sweating big time. I mean it is HOT. When they rake those coals out, especially at night (which is when we did it), they are glowing a bright orange color. They look really, really hot. There is no way that ANYONE can be around that and not think that this is the most idiotic, stupid, assinine thing anyone could possibly do. Then Burkan ups the aney. He puts a pyrometer in and gets that 4-digit reading, which is really freaky. The topper is he then lines the pit in logs, pours lighter fluid on the logs, then lights them up so that the pit of coals, from any direction except straight on, appears to be completely engulfed in fire with flames six inches to a foot high. It is really anxiety producing. All of our experiences with such heat tell us one thing--whatever you do don't TOUCH those flames or coals. What could be more death-defying than actually walking on them barefoot?!

But when you actually step on the coals and walk across, it just isn't that bad. You make it to the other side and WOW, it feels GREAT! Everyone was so happy not to have gotten fried, including me! The psychology of firewalking is not some woo woo New Age mind over matter nonsense; it is in having made it across because the scientific explanation is so contrary to what we expect to happen. Then success gives you this wonderful feeling of accomplishment.

Now, Burkan's explanation for why I didn't get burned is that I was so "confident" in my scientific explanation, that my mind prevented my feet from burning. Baloney. I wasn't confident at all. Every fiber in my body told me I was going to get fried and I was definitely not looking forward to it. So, of course, like everyone else there I was elated to have made it. So it really is heat conductivity and nothing more; the psychology is in the expectation of doom followed by the elation of success.

This will appear as part of a one-hour show in the Fall. I'll alert this list when it is due to air.