Bodies that spontaneously spark, bleed, catch fire, and more… History is filled with stories of incredible bodies—and some of them are still alive today.

In fact, the practice of fire walking stretches back into antiquity, and it continues into the 21^st century. Villagers in Langadas, Greece, still dance on glowing coals to celebrate the feast days of St. Constantine and his mother, Helen. Hindus and Navajo people also incorporate fire walking into their rituals. Corporate America has even flirted with it as a way to build confidence or teamwork. But don’t try this at home, boys and girls, without the help of an experienced fire master!

Devotees as well as scientists who have studied the phenomenon say that the two crucial ingredients are the use of an experienced fire walk master – a sort-of magician whose presence seems to enable even newbies to fire walk successfully, and enough faith to enter a kind of “alternate reality.”

Fire Starters
Even harder to accept than the reports of fire walking are the stories of people who are reported to be completely immune to fire. There are also those places and people who seem to spontaneously attract fire – called fire starters or fire geniuses. Magazine and newspaper archives are filled with such strange stories, like that of the Walkers, whose basement caught fire on a Sunday in 1947. Time magazine (7 April 1947) reported, “In Woodstock, Vermont a fire broke out in the basement of the Walker home on Sunday; the staircase caught fire on Monday; an upstairs partition blazed on Tuesday; the jittery Walkers moved out on Wednesday; the house burned down on Thursday.”

Incorruptibles
Some dead people don’t decay as quickly as most. In Catholic traditions, this has often been taken as a sign of the person’s saintliness. A case in point is Bernadette Soubirous, who died in 1879. Bernadette’s exhumed body graces the cover of a book titled The Incorruptibles. While she does look pretty good for more than 200 years old, skeptics claim that her hands are pure wax and her face has been sealed in wax.

A 1952 article in Time magazine reported on the death of Hindi guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, who was also reported to be incorruptible. A notarized statement signed by the Director of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park testified: "No physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death....This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one....Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of immutability."  

Of course, not every culture equates a failure to decompose with saintliness. There are rational reasons to be explored as well. There are even those who would say that a body that fails to decompose is a vampire.

Spontaneous Wounds
Speaking of death and saintliness, bleeding hands and feet have long suggested to faithful Catholics the presence of stigmata. In case you’ve somehow missed the books and movies dealing with this subject, stigmata refers to miraculous imitations of Christ’s wounds during crucifixion. 

So, what’s going on here? In his book, Stigmata, Ted Harrison suggests that these cases have psychological roots. He points to the case of an unidentified man brought to a London hospital in the 1950s: while reliving an earlier, traumatic episode in which he was tied up with ropes, doctors observed the “unmistakable marks of tightly bound ropes on his arms.”

Electric People
There are people who have been reported to have an electrical charge in their bodies so strong that they can light up certain kinds of light bulbs simply by holding them in their hands. In February 1976, 12-year-old Vyvvan Jones became electric after breaking an arm. It’s reported that “for two days his hair was permanently on end and he shocked people with powerful discharges whenever touched: TV and lights flickered in his presence and watches stopped.“

Many of the most common stories are related to electrical charges – some of which describe not only shocks and glows but also sparks and a burning smell. And it’s still going on today. Science Hobbyist contains dozens of stories contributed by people reporting strange experiences with electricity in and around their bodies. Most of these people can point to the day and time when the phenomena began – including Matthew Scott: “It all started when I was 5 and stuck a screwdriver into an outlet…. Ever since then I have been getting this warm vibe off of electric items…. One time it blew up the TV.”

Other electrical people tell stories about street lamps turning off when they walk by, electrical items failing when they are angry, watches stopping, radios changing stations, computers crashing, light bulbs shattering, automatic doors jamming, and more.   

Then again, some electric people, like Denny Ungs, have all the luck: “Ever since I've been old enough to remember, I've had a talent with machinery, computers, or damn near anything with electrical or moving parts….I'm now a Network Administrator & Computer Repairmen, and I've never found an easier job. Whenever somebody's got a problem with their computer or the network, me telling them over the phone usually doesn't work, but if I come within about 20 feet of the thing or touch it, they can't ever get it to fail again. Things like this have happened to me my entire life.” Weird – but good!